Thursday, December 29, 2011

Cora's Very First Dance Concert

Everyone knows how excited I was to have Cora start dance.  I just love that sort of thing.  Cora has been loving her dance class.  She is always so excited to go and runs right in.  The dance rehearsal was the night before the concert.  Cora got up there and was so excited.  So......I thought we would have no issues the night of the performance.  I was wrong.  Cora started acting clingy right before it was to start.  I ended up having to go back stage with her because she would not go back by herself.  I was not sure if she was even going to do it when the time came.  Luckily she did go, a little reluctant, but still.  I was so happy.  I see a long future of dance haha!!




Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Disney Cruise 2011....Day 7

So our last day on the boat was a Sea Day.  It is kind of sad because you know that you are getting off the boat early the next morning.  There were a lot of fun things going on on the boat.  My main thing I wanted to do that day was take Cora to see the princesses.






Cora loved seeing all of the princesses and getting them to sign her book.

The boys also got to spend some more time at the Oceaneer Club and Oceaneer Lab which they begged to do the entire trip.  I did not take any pictures of this but here is a couple from the website.



We also did some of the adult activities during the day.....

After a kind of low key day we had dinner.  At dinner they did a show on different nationalities.  That was fun to see. Then we headed to the farwell show....After the show ended it was back to the rooms to pack up.....So Sad.

We loved our Vacation!!!!

Disney Cruise 2011....Day 6

Cabo San Lucas
     So today was our 2nd day at Cabo.  Our plan was to go over to Lover's Beach....which is right by Lands End.  We spent the day swimming, snorkeling (didn't get any pictures....Thad took pictures of all of us and then when we got back to land he realized the camera was off while taking the pictures...Hello???), and playing in the sand.










Because we were at Lover's Beach we thought it was a must to walk over and check out Divorce Beach.  I don't know why it is called Divorce Beach it should be called Widows Beach....Because if you swim there you die.  They have tons and tons of signs saying not to swim at this beach (because of a bad undercurrent)....





Ciara and I kept daring each other to go further down into the water to take a picture....In where we knew we weren't suppose to haha.  So we were posing for the pictures then got nervous and ran...Thad was taking the picture and thought it was hilarious.  Here is the picture along with all the signs warning against getting in the water.


It was a great day of fun in the sun.....Now for Pirate Night.





 Our littlest pirate (Cora) slept through most of dinner and the pirate celebrations in the dining room.  Later that night they had a pirate show up on the top deck and then launched fireworks. 


Probably my favorite day......Magical!!

Disney Cruise 2011...Day 5

Cabo San Lucas
We spent two days in Cabo and I absolutely loved both of them.  On this first day we got off and headed to the really nice beach resorts.  We had the plan of hanging out on the beach and jet skiing.  We rented three wave runners that could fit three people on each.  They were huge.  It was surprising how much Cora loved the wave runners she thought they were great.  Casen also loved them, especially when he was driving.  Jace didn't really care for the wave runners.  He just wanted to be at the beach and swimming.  Jace was crazy when it came to swimming in the ocean.  He would swim clear out to the way deep water.  We all had to keep up with Jace haha.  All three kids had life jackets on.  I was not about to have one of my kids drowned in Mexico.
Here are some pictures from Day 1 In Cabo:








After we played at the beach for a while my Mom, Ciara, Casen, and I decided we wanted to ride on the banana.  It was way way fun.  The banana was a double so you could sit on either side or in the middle.  The guy driving the boat was pretty crazy so about 5 minutes into the ride.....all four of us were in the middle.  I can not believe we do not have any pictures of this.  Sad.  This is something we will definitely do again.

Disney Cruise 2011....Day 4

Puerto Vallarta
So Puerto Vallarta was our first port day.  The guys had decided they were going to go fishing.  We decided we would get off and take the kids shopping for souvenirs.



 Shopping was fun.  Each of the kids wanted something specific.  As you can see in the picture above Cora got a cute pink and silver purse and Jace got a red guitar.  They were super easy.  Casen on the other hand not so much.  He wanted a scorpion neckless.  I guess his friend has one so he thought it was a must.  First of all it was hard to find.  Then we found a couple of stores that had it.  It is so funny how they all try to say they are these precious medals and have this high price tag.  Of course I knew they were not real and eventually got it down to a decent price.  The kids all were very happy with their shopping experience.

The guys were not very good at taking pictures of their fishing trip.  I don't think they had very much luck fishing.  They only caught one fish all day.  Then they didn't even get a picture of it.  Can you believe that?  They said they saw a lot while they were out fishing.  They saw a lot of tuna jumping.  The fish were probably just taunting them haha.  At least the guys had fun.



After we were done shopping I hit the spa for a sea weed wrap.  My mom had won this at the spa raffle and did not want to do it so she sent me.  Gotta say it was a little weird haha.  I had mushed sea weed spread all over me and then I was wrapped in foil.  While I was soaking up the sea weed I had a scalp message.  This was not at all as I had pictured it.  It was more like a head squeeze, ear and hair pulling experience.  This spa experience definitely gave me a laugh when I got back with everyone.  I would not choose the sea weed wrap/ scalp message on my next cruise.

The boys returned home from fishing and then it was on to dinner and the show for the night.  Tonight it was Toy Story: The Musical

Monday, December 5, 2011

Disney Cruise 2011.....Day 2 & 3

On our way down to Mexico we had two Sea Days on the boat.  These were a lot of fun, although I did not take that many pictures of the things we did.  The kids spent time at their clubs.  The boys absolutely loved their clubs and seriously wanted to be there at all times.  The clubs are open from about 9am to Midnight.  I truly could have left the boys in their that whole time and they would have been in heaven.  I did not do that, however, I had them with us during meals and family activities and then they did a lot of the club stuff when their was down time (cora's nap time mostly, and in between activities).  I am glad the boys had a fun place to go.  Cora was also able to go to the clubs with the boys.  However, she was not really into it.  So maybe went a total of 3-4 hours over the seven days.  I think a lot of the problem was that their was so much going on in the clubs that the boys would not give her the time of day.  Sad.  So we had our little Cora with us most of the time.
     The activities we did during these sea days included....cooking class (Mom and I, Watching Sports (Thad and Skip), games, taking the kids to the pool/ Splash pad, Daytime shows, Spa tour/ Spa Treatment, etc. etc.
 I think Disney is great with all of their entertainment.

Character Breakfast
The character breakfast was a blast.  All the characters come around to the tables for pictures, autographs, and to see everyone.  We got all three of the kids an autograph book.  They loved getting all of the characters to sign their books.  During breakfast the wait staff makes crazy hats for everyone.  You can see  a few of them in the pictures below.  I love the one with Ciara and Cora with their bows.  Ciara is loving hers while on the other hand Cora is hating it.  To funny.










Dinner
     So we had nice sit down dinners every night on the boat.  These dinners greatly contributed to my weight gain.  They were way yummy.  I always have a thing with the appetizers and have to order a few of them, then you add the main course and dessert and wow that is a ton of food.
     The kids had a definite favorite for dessert (okay Grandpa even loved these).  They were chocolate covered mickeys on a stick.  To make them even better they put sprinkles and multi colored marshmallows on top.  Here are a few pictures of Cora and Jace enjoying their Mickeys on a stick.



Shows
      The night time shows were my absolute favorite thing on the Disney ship.  They do such a good job with their Broadway shows.  On our two sea days we watched the shows Disney Dreams and The Golden Mickeys.