Ashley's Pilgrim Feast

On the same day as Alyssa's Etiquette Luncheon, Ashley's class had a pilgrim feast. I signed up to help with this one as well, although there was so much help there, that I didn't end up having to do much. I did bring 32 servings of mashed potatoes, which they ate almost all of them. Here is Ashley with her best friend from her class.

The whole class sitting at their table. They were allowed to dress up as either a Pilgrim or an Indian for the day(or they could wear their normal uniform).

At the end, Tyler came up to the table with Ashley and she shared some of her food with him. Camden stayed in my arms the whole time as he was 2 hours overdue for his nap and very cranky.

It made for a very busy day, helping with the two feasts, but I was glad that I was able to make it work so I could be there for both.

Alyssa's Etiquette Lunch

On Friday, Alyssa had an Etiquette Lunch at school to celebrate finishing the book "Little Women." I was able to arrange babysitting for the boys and go in to help serve the food. The numbers in her class worked out just right to allow for 1 table of girls and 2 tables of boys. The girls were still escorted in by a boy, but then after seating the girls, the boys went to their own tables. The food was served in 3 different courses with musical numbers performed by the students in between each course. The first course was a salad and a roll.

I was especially happy to be there because Alyssa was one of the students that got to perform a musical number. She learned part of "Fur Elise" to play for her class.

She did a really good job on her piece and she even ate and liked all of the food.

The second course was chicken, rice, and green beans.

The final course was apple slump and ice cream. One of the moms even let the kids cut her hair at the end like Jo from the book. I had to duck out a little early to go and get the boys, but I was glad that I was able to be there for most of it.

Preschool Field Trip to the Dentist

Last week, Tyler's preschool went on a field trip to the dentist.

We all gathered into this tiny room and the dental hygienist talked about our teeth and how to take good care of them. They had this stuffed monkey with ridiculously huge teeth to use as a visual aid. Then she taught them how to brush our teeth using the monkey as an example.

Tyler got to sit up in the chair with his friend, Tanner, to show what would happen when they visit the dentist. Then the dentist came in and showed them how he comes in to check teeth and he counted their teeth for them. At the end, they each got to choose a prize and take home a little bag of goodies(toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, and some coupons).

He had a lot of fun and has been really excited about brushing his teeth ever since he went.

Mexican Riviera Cruise with the Miners - Days 1 & 2 - On the Ship

A couple of weeks ago, we got to go on a Mexican Riviera Cruise with my parents, all of my siblings, and our spouses (Jeff and Kim also brought Hazel since she is still nursing and too young to leave behind). We had a really fun week and created some wonderful memories. Dinner was always fun and gave us a chance to visit. The waiter probably hated us because we were sitting in different seats every night switching it up between our two tables. One night I ordered crawfish, the first time I had ever had it, and it was delicious. I wasn't sure how I felt about this guy sitting on my plate, though.

We weren't as excited about the 2 formal nights because it meant packing clothing that we would only wear for a couple of hours of the cruise, but it made for great pictures.

My parents, the reason we all went on the cruise. It has been a dream of my Mom's to take a cruise with all of her kids for a long time. It was fun to finally make it a reality.

Pictures up on deck. Our interior room was on the same level as the pools and the buffet, so we spent a lot of time out here.

 

We also went to the evening shows, watched movies both in the theater and out under the stars, participated in the cruise director staffs' trivia games and game shows, and we played a lot of cards. Oh and we ate, ate, and ate some more. Danny and I also enjoyed going in the hot tub a few times. He also played basketball with my brothers while I either went to the fitness center, or did Zumba with my sisters. It was a really relaxing and fun week.

Day 3 - Puerto Vallarta

We had decided on our Puerto Vallarta shore excursion months before our cruise. A friend of Danny's had highly recommended it to him and after researching a bit, we were sold. It was a jungle ziplining and rappelling outdoor adventure. We managed to talk half of the Miner group into doing it with us and ended up booking it through the ship and then requesting a price match in order to save us a bit of money. It was seriously the coolest thing we have ever done and we are so glad we did it. I couldn't stop thinking about it for days. Even now, looking at these pictures brings back such fond memories of the experience.
The adventure started with a catamaran ride from the port to an exclusive beach deep in the jungle. We were on the boat for about 30 minutes and even spotted a couple of whales on the way. From the beach, we walked through this little village and then boarded what they called an unimog. After a pretty rough ride up the mountain, we arrived at the base camp where we put on our gear and received safety instructions.

Us with our guides in the unimog

Putting on the gear

 The Miners in front of the unimog

After we had received our gear and safety instructions, they put us each on a mule for a 20 minute ride up the mountain. This was one of Danny's favorite parts.

My ride up the mountain wasn't so amazing because my mule was super slow. I was the second one on and the last one to get to the top. I watched mule after mule speed past us.

We got off our mules and then lined up for our first zipline. It was long and right over the jungle.

We rode a few more ziplines, including one that went down at a 45 degree angle. Then we got to our first rappel. This was the first of many times landing in water.

 Here is a video of a rappel that we did off the edge of a platform suspended by cords.

 We also got to go down a couple of waterslides. As you can tell from our faces, we had fun.

They had us hang upside down and backwards on this zipline. I didn't love the position because it cut off circulation to one of my feet and sent all the blood rushing to my head. But it was fun to go at the same time as Danny

 We got to cross a few rope bridges, as well.

 This was probably our favorite zipline. We are standing on a surfboard.

After the final waterslide (the video above where I'm wearing the facemask), we got to snack on fruit, chips and salsa, and juice. They let us change into dry clothes and then look at all of our pictures. We talked my siblings into buying the picture package to make it cheaper for all of us. We then got back on the unimog and rode down the mountain to the beach. Then we got back on the catamaran for the 30 minute ride back to the port. On the way back, the tour guide stopped at these rock formations that they called Los Arcos. He said that this area is where the San Adreas Fault starts and that the water is saltier here because of the fault line.

On the ride back to the port, we got a good viewing of the tale of a whale, which was fun.

It was an amazing day and something we would recommend to anyone that visits Puerto Vallarta (as long as they are in the physical condition necessary to do it). We will remember this experience for the rest of our lives.

Days 4 & 5 - Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas

In Mazatlan, we couldn't decide ahead of time on an excursion that we wanted to do. We ended up meeting the majority of our group just off the ship and then traveling into town with them. We bartered for a cheap taxi van and had it take us to a beach resort. We got there early enough to score a palapa and spent the day relaxing at the beach.  We didn't get a lot of pictures this day, but we were mostly sitting around talking so there weren't a lot of picture opportunities. The only annoying thing about the beach was being confronted by vendors every 2 minutes. We must have said "no thank you" at least 100 times during the 3 hours we were there.

After the beach, we went in search of some good fish tacos. Because of time and not wanting to wander too far away from our ride pick up point, we ended up at this place. After getting us all comfortable, the guy that haggled us inside informed us that they were out of fish, so most of the group ended up getting marlin tacos (which they said were not very good). Danny and I got shrimp tacos and they were pretty good. Here is our group waiting for food.

The one good thing about the taco shop is they had free wifi, so I was able to get onto my email for the first time since Saturday. Alyssa had emailed me every day, so there were about 5 emails to respond to for her alone. The rest of it, I decided, could wait until we were back in LA.
Day 5 was spent in Cabo San Lucas. We had grand ideas of getting off the boat and either renting wave runners or kayaks to go explore out near the famous rock formation, El Arco. But we got off the boat at 7:30am, and it wasn't exactly warm. 

We had the whole Miner clan with us, minus 3, when we got off and none of them were very excited about joining us in the water. So we opted to stay with the group and managed to find ourselves a glass bottom boat tour for $25 per couple. It ended up being a lot cheaper than our wave runners would have been, but probably not as thrilling of an experience as we would have had. However, we had fun being with the group and we were able to stay warm and dry as well. Here are some of the pictures we captured on our boat tour. First stop was the snorkeling area.

Me in front of the ship

 El Arco is right in between our heads.

The group on our boat. Our tour guide spoke very little English, but he was able to tell us about the points of interest including Lovers Beach, Divorce Beach, El Arco, and the Pacific Window. He also had a good sea lion bark.

At the end of the boat tour, the guy dropped us off at the famous beaches in Cabo. He told us it was a short walk to town(it was NOT). We all walked into town to do a little shopping.

Mom, Dad, Marjorie, and Dave continued on foot back to the ship tender. The others went on search for good fish tacos again. Danny and I followed for a bit and then decided to head back to the beach, where our boat was supposed to come back and pick us up. We enjoyed sitting and relaxing on the beach for a little bit. At times, we faked sleeping in order to avoid the beach vendors.

Our Cabo day was much shorter, so it didn't allow for very much time on land. We were back on the ship by 12:30 and the ship left around 2. We were still happy to get off the boat, especially since the last day at sea turned out to be very rocky(8 ft swells instead of the 1 ft swells we had for the rest of the cruise). The last day at sea was also much cooler than the rest. We didn't spend very much time up on deck that day.
We were packed and in our disembark location well before our scheduled time on Saturday morning. We were anxious to get off the boat early because we had a 9:45am flight to catch. We hopped in the front of the line of group #1 and we were one of the first people off the boat that morning. Brian arrived to pick us up about 5 minutes after we got to the curb and we made our flight with plenty of time to spare. It gave us a chance to talk to the kids before getting on our plane.
The kids were all excited to see us when we got home and we were equally excited to see them. We jumped right back into being responsible parents again and our only reminder of the wonderful week was that we still felt the boat rocking and we had some fun pictures to look at. We were so glad that we were able to go and so grateful that Gawbie and Grandpa so willingly stayed with our kids while we were gone.

Family Fun

I took the kids to the dinosaur museum a few weeks ago and they wanted to take a picture on this little dino.

Shannon invited us to join them at this mini indoor amusement park that same week. The kids had a blast. There were only about 6 rides and they were more geared for the boys than the girls, but Ashley had a little girl crush on one of the workers there(not that she would ever admit to it) and claimed that he made it so much more fun for her.

I think Shannon and Adam were especially glad to have the girls there to help take Kennedi on some of the rides.

We borrowed a GoPro from one of Danny's co-workers so that we could get some fun videos on our cruise. We played around with it a little bit before we left. This was the best family picture that we got.

I also got a new haircut and color in preparation for our trip. I finally did it after thinking about it for months because I got tired of my kids pulling out my white hairs and telling me that my hair is brown instead of blonde.