Cruisin' April 2011!

For Christmas 2010 on my mom's side, we all got tickets to go on a cruise! It was for April over their spring break and it went to Catalina and Ensenada. We were all so excited! Us kids have never been on a cruise before. The day finally came and we were able to go! The Hicks family drove down and stayed with us for a night. That's always fun and interesting...

 

The trip started off by pinning Brooklyn to the kitchen floor and waxing her eyebrows

VERY entertaining for all! Except Brooklyn...sorry babes! 

 

The view of the ship as we were walking across the bridge to get on

 

SOOOO excited!! Dad carrying all of the bags of course :)

 

Smiles all around 

 

The ship was WAY bigger than I thought it was going to be! This is about the point when I started freaking out...

 

Walking down the long hallway to our rooms 

  

This is the room where Dylan, Kari, and I stayed

 

Looking at the view before we left the dock

Really bad picture, but this was the tug boat that pulled us out of port

Brooklyn and Parker had to get up and dance at dinner. It was very entertaining :)

After dinner, we came back to our room to find it nice and clean and the much talked about folded towels :) One day on the ship, they had classes on how to fold towels. We went and learned how to fold an elephant and a puppy dog. It was fun!

The first night, we got an elephant 

Ready for bed!

Dylan's cot up above. We woke up in the middle of the night to Dylan standing on top of our bed because he had slept walk off the edge of his bed. The bottom end of our bed was directly underneath the bottom end of his, so of course that's just where he landed. He proceeded to tell us something about hubcaps, and then lifted up the end of the mattress looking for something that Parker had that he wanted. Sooo funny! We finally just told him to go back to bed, and he obeyed like a good little boy :)

 Trying to get a snapshot in the mirror before we headed off to Catalina Island!

 

Kari on the ferry ride over to the Island

 

MASSIVE SHIP!!!

 

The view our of our window in the morning was absolutely beautiful. This is kind of what it looked like. Dylan's head and all ;) 

 

 

Dad gazing at the ship

 

That is where we walked down onto the little ferries. So cool!

 

 

The cool submarine!

Just chillin :)

 

Brooklyn, Parker, and Dylan all getting ready to go para-sailing!! I was soooo jealous!

 

Kari look sessy in Brooke's sunglasses

 

 

All suited up and ready to fly!

 

The chute 

 

Strapping on...

 

Get ready....

 

Get set...

 

And FLY!!!!

 

 

Chilling in the boat. For real. That wind was COLD!

 

We rode the boat around the ship.  It was so cool to see all the different angles of that huge thing!

 

Coming back in

 

They're a little bit stoked about what they just did. Can ya tell?! Haha

 

Thumbs up

 

A seal...or sea lion..whatever! It was still cool to see it just sunbathing on one of those things!

 

Eating at the Lobster Trap, recommended to us by the para-sailing dude. It was pretty good! But we had to sit in the sun because we were so cold!

 

Brooklyn still excited about her cool experience she just had :)

 

Kari was scared of the skull hanging behind him ;)

 

Lovers Cove :) Great snorkeling spot

 

Cool boats going by

 

Parker in the shortie ready to head out!

 

Brooklyn's all suited up, too!

 

So ready :)

 

Dylan toughed out the cold water

 

Then Kari decided to go help the little man

  

It was little cold for him ;) haha but he still went out there! What a stud

  

They finally learned how to breathe and Parker just kicked and swam around looking at the fish!

 

Mom and I decided sunbathing was our thing :)

 

Toes :)

 

Dad threw out frozen veggies and the fish would just jump up and eat them! So cool to watch! Thanks random lady for giving us your unwanted food!

 

 

Parker having a grand old time

 

Grrrr...

 

Family photo. Dad spaced out up top. Mom in the middle of a sentence. Typical. (Dylan's taking the picture. Don't worry. We didn't lose him)

 

Welcome to Avalon sign. Have to get a pic

 

Back on ship, the second night we got a puppy dog! This is one of the ones we learned how to fold ourselves. So fun

 

 

For some reason we got a kick out of this sign.

The next day, we headed out to Ensenada. It was cold and windy, but we had fun!

 

On the bus ride

 

Waiting to go on our tour

 

The blowhole

 

It was so pretty!

 

 

The boys got soaked!!! Haha!

 

Kari's 'look at me, I'm hot' face?

 

After the blowhole, we went shopping for 2 hours up this strip. It had soooo many stores! It was actually a little bit scary! Everyone was yelling at us! We lost each other a few times, so we would have to turn around and get yelled at by the same people again. It was quite an experience :) We all learned how to barter, walk away, and get the price we wanted, though :) So fun

 

Third night, we got a cute frog!

 

The next day was a sea day. It was really cold and windy, so the boat was rocking a lot. I got a little sick that day, but it was ok. It was nice to relax and have a fun time with the family. We went to a comedy show and a singing dancing show. We hung out on the cold deck. Kari ate ice cream like 6 times a day. The boys played shuffle board and monopoly while us girls shopped and relaxed. Brooklyn met some boys early on and so she spent a lot of time with them ;) Haha oh to be a teenager again. It was such a great trip and we will never forget the memories made. It is two days later and I still have sea legs. That is kind of annoying...but we are so grateful that we were able to go on this vacation! Thanks mom and dad! :)