December 2013

  This is the best gift that could ever be under the Christmas tree...

 What a cutie...

 The first snow of the season...

 We had a fun visit from our Louisiana cousins...

Sarah participated in a poetry reading at school...

 We had the fun opportunity to join my parents and all our family on a Carribean cruise to help celebrate my parent's 50th wedding anniversary.  Unfortunately Emmett was too young to go, so we left him with a  good friend of ours (thanks Bethany and family!)  We had planned to have family photos taken on the cruise so we created a life-sized photo cutout of Emmett to take with us.  This is a photo of Tim holding the cutout of Emmett...

 Before the cruise we spent a few days in Orlando at Disney World with my parents and some of our cousins...

On the ferry headed to Magic Kingdom

Taking the train to find the princesses...

…and find them we did.

Ready to ride the Teacups.

We also loved the carousel.

 More princesses...

The best part was just being with family.

This is the people mover… a very slow ride that became a favorite of all of these kids.

Claudia had a blast driving the race cars around the track.

 We also found a few fairies...

 Here is my mom and Nicole on Jasmine's Magic Carpet ride...

 We had a wonderful time at Disney World, and then headed straight for the ship.  We spent our first cruising day at sea, so many took advantage of the 'Flow Rider' a water jet that you could surf or boogie board on.  Grandpa rode it...

 Sarah rode it...

 Tim and Tom both rode it as well…  There were others from our group that tested out their skills, but I don't have photos of them.

Our first port was in Labadee, Haiti - a private resort owned by the Cruise Line...

Claudia had fun playing in the sand with cousin Jack.

Sarah had fun in the water with many of her cousins.

We found a nice shady spot to help avoid sunburns on our very first day.

Baby Myrna had everyone wrapped around her little finger.

'Emmett' even joined us on the beach that day - he's a little overdressed :).

If you look closely you can see Emmett's face poking out of my beach bag.

On Christmas Eve my mom arranged for us to have a private room where we could spend the evening together remembering and celebrating Jesus' birth.  We reenacted the nativity scene (using only scarves for costuming) reading the account from the scriptures and singing hymns in between.  It was such a nice way to spend the evening and the view couldn't be beat (we were on deck 13 and surrounded by windows).  Some of the best memories on this trip were the times when we all got to be together.  Unfortunately we were missing two of our party because at the last minute our little nephew William ended up at the hospital with a burst appendix.  He couldn't travel and so his mom stayed home with him.  We were so sad that they had to miss it.

Here is our whole group - 30 people in all. 

Here is the complete Nativity with the Holy Family, Angels,  Shepherds, Wisemen, and Grandpa the Narrator.

Sarah brought some of her Christmas music to play for us all.

On Christmas Day our port of call was Jamaica.  We all booked an excursion together to a small waterfall park.  We ended up being the only ones there except for one other family of three (pretty amazing when you consider that there were five different cruise ships docked that day).  We all had a wonderful time playing in the falls.

Claudia was NOT happy!

Tim, Grandpa, Tom and Evan

Sisters

The kids got to feed the fish in the Koi Pond

 The park also had an aviary where we all got to feed the birds...

I love this picture of the bird that is just over Sarah's right shoulder.

Claudia was NOT happy!

We stopped for some Jerk Chicken and Curry Goat on the way back to the ship.  YUM!

 Oh yeah, and Santa paid us a visit in our cabin on Christmas Eve and left some stockings...

We all enjoyed a little hot tub/ pool time that night when we got back to the ship...

Our next port of call was Grand Cayman.  Tim booked a scuba dive with the boys...

And the girls and I went on a Stingray City adventure with Kristin and her girls.  Kelli and Evan also came along with baby Myrna…

 Unfortunately the water was really rough that day, so it was a real challenge to snorkel as well as to see the rays.  Claudia ended up spending most of the trip on the boat, but she had baby Myrna there to keep her company, so I think it was alright in the end.

Sarah snorkeling.

Our last port was Cozumel, Mexico.  We grabbed a taxi and asked them to take us to a nice but not too crowded beach...

And in between all these ports we did a little ice skating…

Saw some musicals...

Sang in a talent show...

Met 'Gloria' from 'Madagascar'…

Claudia talked about meeting 'Gloria' the entire cruise, and when the time finally came (the very last day) she didn't want anything to do with it.  

Celebrated a Golden Anniversary...

Stayed up late visiting and eating milk and cookies...

Carried around a fake baby...

and took family photos...

 Thanks mom and dad for being married for 50 years so we could take this fun trip!

We saw Snow White in the airport on the way home...

 … and found that Santa had left a few gifts under the Christmas tree while we were away...

Emmett survived our absence just fine… just look at those eyes!