Disney Cruise Part 2

Dinner at Animator's Palate.

Us getting off the boat at Disney's private island Castaway Cay.

We left Scotty behind probably right after this picture was taken. We walked around a corner probably 100 feet to hop on the little tram to the beach and I did a headcount and realized I was down one. I went running back around the corner and two ladies must have guessed what was up and said the little blonde boy was already with the cast members. He wasn't traumatized at all and once again I was so grateful we were at a Disney location.

The sand and water on the island were perfect.

 The kids had the best day just playing in the sand.

 I've never seen water this clear in my life. Pretty magical with no waves.

 Pirate night.

 Lucy and Mallie were very into it. Hannah opted for the princess route.

 On the deck eating our money's worth of ice cream and more.

Our last night for dinner was at Tianna's place. It was our favorite restaurant because it had the live band and the limbo going all night.

David and I walked off the boat exhausted but it was the best family vacation!!

We actually did it!! DC Part 1

A Disney cruise has been on my dream list of "someday" for as long as I can remember. David and I were giddy with anticipation. I was so excited that I kept feeling like something for sure was going to prevent us from actually getting on that ship. So when we finally boarded I thought it was the best day of my life.

Right before this picture was taken Ashton's flip flop broke. In an effort to pack light I only packed one pair of flip flops per kid. The result was Ashton walking around in a pair of David's flip flops for 2 days because they didn't sell any his size on the ship. It was pretty comical but a reminder straight off with a vacation with 6 kids means you're still a parent of 6 kids.

 Here we are touring the kids areas and getting all of the kids wristbands.

The kids area was so cool. Everything we had imagined and more.

 About 3 hours in after a mandatory drill we were waiting in the lobby for our rooms to open up we turned around and found Scotty like this. He was already toasted. Check out Ashton's flip flops in the background too. He handled it like a champ and didn't complain but he was thrilled when David and I bought him a new pair at the port in the Bahamas.

Oh these girls thought they were pretty awesome lounging on the deck. And they were pretty amazing!!

This was dinner on the first night. The kids had mickey ice cream bars for dessert every night and thought they were in Heaven.

We had an assigned time to go meet the princesses so there was no line. While other little girls were running up, hugging and going crazy over the princesses our girls walked up took the mandatory picture and walked away without a word. I'm glad we found out that our kids aren't into meeting characters before we go somewhere like Disneyland and wait an hour in the line. In fact, on our assigned time to meet all the Frozen characters our girls said "naw, that's alright." 

To Florida and Back

The driving from to and from Florida almost merits it's own blog post. With 17 hours each way in less than 12 days we felt like we had done some serious time in the car.We planned our Disney Cruise with time to visit Jeffrey and Debbie in their new Florida house that we haven't seen yet. These kids love their Jacobson cousins they played so well together for the four days we saw them.

 Jeffrey had prepped us and said that Florida is "always 80 degrees and sunny" so we could definitely fit in a beach day. Turns out the weekend we were there it was 69 windy and rainy almost every day. We still tried to fit in a beach day....

 Most of us were weak and huddled in their beach tent while the brave ones played in the sand and a few of them actually got in the water.

 This was us on the morning of our cruise driving to the port.

 The last morning we had to be packed up, out of our rooms and in the dining room for breakfast at 7:15. After all the late night shows getting the kids up at 6:45 was not fun.  This was at 9am after debarking and heading home. The two girls crashed within 30 minutes of driving home.

We had originally planned on splitting the drive up into two days for the way home but when I figured out we would be in Houston by 11pm I asked David to let me just shot gun it all the way home. So we did, and it wasn't as painful as I thought!

Disney Cruise Part #2

I don't want to idealize the cruise so much that I neglect to write that the kids favorite part of the cruise was watching the old school mickey cartoons that were playing 24/7 in the room. (Insert eye roll here.) These kids could have stayed in the little windowless cabin all day doing this. Luckily we managed to drag them out for the real fun!

Towel animals everyday were a big hit!

This was the animator's palate and the frames on the wall would fill up with sketches. Super cool!

The kids ate chicken strips/hamburgers and fries basically at every dinner. Oh well. We didn't care because it was vacation.

These little mickey ice creams came for dessert every night too. Totally awesome.

And oh the soft ice cream on the deck. Be still my heart. I'm sure we all ate at least 10 cones a day.

Including Rachel!

Castaway Cay day!! We didn't let the kids get off with us in the Bahamas. We put them in the kids clubs and David and I strolled around Nassau by ourselves so when we get off the ship for this day the kids were pumped!

And as we were walking to the trolley minutes after I took this picture we lost Scotty. From this point you walk down about 100 feet to get on a little trolley to the beach. As the kids were standing around waiting I counted to only 5 kids. I hurried and ran back the direction we came and he was standing with a Disney employee crying. We were away from him for less than 5 minutes but it was still sad. I was glad we were with Disney and right away he was with a worker and safe.

He recovered quickly and we headed to the clearest beach I have ever seen.

It was pretty cool in the morning so the kids played mostly in the sand.

Oh that water... I still dream about it.

Overall what we've learned from Disney Cruising with 6 kids is that it's still a lot of work. The kids absolutely loved the kids clubs but they didn't want to stay in there for more than a couple of hours at a time. Scotty was still going through some major separation anxiety and didn't want to stay in at all. The food was awesome as were the pools and slides. Sleeping wasn't that awful in two tiny cabins but over all we've decided when we do it again we'd like to wait til our youngest is 3 or 4! I had been dreaming of this cruise for so long that I'm so glad we did it and I hope we do again some day!

Scotty Turns 3

Scotty turned 3 way back at the beginning of February. We always joke that his first solid food was Costco pizza and he still loves it more than anything else. For his birthday week I let him get a churro too. He was thrilled.

We had birthday cake and opened presents and then headed to Chuck E Cheese with the fam which just happens to be across from Costco so every time we head that general direction he always asks for Chuck E Cheese. Finally we obliged.

 He got a paw patrol dream lite which he thinks is the best thing ever.

Scotty LOVES his blue plasma car and rides it everywhere. He is super fast on it and has ruined all his shoes from dragging them along the side walk to push his car faster. He is also stubborn and likes what he likes and ignores everything else. He grunts or yells at any stranger who smiles or talks to him. It's mortifying taking him most places in public and he reminds us a lot of Hannah at this age so we have high hopes that he'll grow out of it and become a friendly kid eventually. Consequently, he is a pill at church and refuses to go to nursery. We're working on it. His strengths are that he LOVES playing with his siblings. He's awesome at throwing and catching balls and plays pretty well independently with trains and cars. He is pretty polite with Mom and Dad and says please and thank you and is usually concerned when he gets in trouble and says, "You Mad at me Mom?" he's in tune with his own feelings and everyone else's. We love this kid that sleeps and eats a TON and is growing taller every day!! 

Christmas On the River Walk

One of my San Antonio bucket list items was to go see the lights on the River Walk in December. We got down there just as the sun was setting. And the guy who offered to take this picture on my phone told me accepted tips. He was not kidding. Classic.

 We got tons of stares but manged to keep all the kids out of the river. I couldn't figure out where the best place to see all the lights were so I tried to convince David that we should take the kids on a boat ride. He wasn't thrilled about the idea as the boat rides are 40 minutes and we know from experience that the last 15 minutes really drag...

 But the kids begged and while he took Scotty to the bathroom I did the unwifely thing and bought us all tickets so he didn't have a choice when he came out. The kids were thrilled.

 We were on it at the perfect time before it was too crowded and the lights were amazing.

 The kids loved it until the last 15 minutes like David knew was going to happen when they were all too hungry or tired to care about the lights anymore.

We were all so glad we went and the top 3 will all at least remember this!

 Who knows where we will be next December - so I am glad we got to experience this while we could!

Ashton turns 9

Ashton's 9th birthday was quite eventful. It was the day before Thanksgiving and we were up in Dallas with David's family to celebrate. He has been asking for a bb gun for awhile and was thrilled to finally get one. No I didn't read the label on the box about protective eye wear... hence the story you know is coming...

 I took him outside to watch him shoot and then set a water bottle up on the railing for him. He has used a bb gun a lot and I thought would be totally fine so I went back inside. 4 minutes later he came inside screaming holding his eye.

I didn't think there was any way that the bb had actually ricocheted so perfectly off the water bottle that it actually hit him in the eye ball. Well, David said, "Sam, quick come look at this!" and we got this picture and kind of freaked out a little bit. We quickly sent this picture to our doctor friends whom we use and abuse. Both of them said he needed to get into an ophthalmologist ASAP. 

 He spent about 3 hours of his birthday like this at the doctor's office getting checked, dilated and rechecked. 

Finally we got home and got to do his birthday cake.  The doctor's orders were for him not to do anything physical for the next 3 days. She ordered him to watch movies or play video games so he had zero risk of injuring it again. That was the only upside for Ashton.

We had 3 different drops going at different intervals throughout the day and it was a pain. David's dad made us an excel sheet so we could keep it all straight.

He walked around with his right eye dilated for two weeks after the injury because he was doing steroid drops to speed up the healing process. After the first week he acclimated to the lights and stopped complaining about the sun. Poor kid, it was quite the whirlwind but he handled it well.