Cruisin to Mexico

Last week we went on a four night cruise down to Ensenada, Mexico. Danny and I had done the same cruise 10 years ago, but it was the first time that our kids got to go on a cruise. We ended up getting a room with a balcony and we were so glad to have it. The only scary part was the thought of Tyler going overboard. We held him with a death grip any time we were out there. Here we are in the port at Long Beach, waiting for the boat to leave.

The room was pretty nice inside too. So much bigger than our inner cabin from our previous cruise.

Here is a picture of Ashley up on the top deck while we were still in the port at Long Beach.

 One morning after breakfast, Tyler and I wandered out by the pool to find it had been invaded by these towel animals. So cute. I like the one in the background climbing up the chair.

Our dinner waiter liked to fold napkin animals for Tyler, as well. Unfortunately, they did not entertain him for very long. Dinner time was probably the hardest time on the cruise with kids.

Ashley loved going down the slides in the mini water park on board. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't warm enough to really enjoy it, but that didn't stop her from trying. Alyssa liked the hot tub a lot better than the slides or the pool, just because it was so much warmer.

We were at sea the day of Ashley's birthday. We were up early enough that day to catch the sunrise.

 At the same time of the sunrise, we could also see this rainbow in the other direction. It was a great way to start a special day.

 After watching the sunrise, we went into our room and let Ashley open her presents. It was hard coming up with gifts that were small enough to pack in our bags, but we managed.

 That morning, we went to a towel animal folding class. Ashley folded this little dog.

 The highlight of the cruise was probably when this girl got up on the stage during one of their shows. It was a Hasbro Game Show featuring Yahtzee bowling and Operation Skee ball,  We had watched previews for this before going on the cruise and Alyssa had said she really wanted to be part of it. So as the time for the show arrived, we made sure to get there really early to get good seats. They pulled 4 random people out of the audience who were able to answer the "Guesstures" clue correctly. She was the forth one to do it.

Here is the video of  her playing Yahtzee bowling.

Her team ended up winning and therefore got to pick a monopoly card to have a shot at winning the big prize-A bunch of Hasbro games.  She didn't win, but loves her monopoly key chain that she won as a prize.

They did the game show again on Ashley's Birthday. Imagine our surprise when she made it up on stage, too! She got to play Connect Four Basketball. She ended up scoring the winning shot for her team, so they also won. However, her hamburger Monopoly card didn't win the big prize, either. She was just as happy with the Monopoly key chain.

This is a video of her first shot. I wanted to upload the winning shot, but the video must be too large to upload. In the other one, you can hear the whole theater cheer when she gets four in a row. This video gives you an idea of what she got to do.

The cruise was a lot of fun, but by the end we were ready to go home and get back to normal again.