Rough and Tumble Nephews

It will come as no shock to everyone that having four boys in one family makes for a lot of energy and rough housing. Well believe it or not, Titus was just sitting in his chair and fell out then landed funny when he busted open his eye and needed to get stitches. My sister called me the other day as I was leaving work to tell me and stop by because she wanted me to see Titus' eye and stitches. The poor guy, but he just kept smiling at me the whole time I talked to him about it. He didn't seem one bit upset by it. I think he thinks it makes him look pretty cool. I also had to snap a photo of the newest member baby James to put on. There you go Kari! I don't have enough pictures of him yet. This past weekend we celebrated Asher's 5th birthday. It's hard to believe 5 years have come and gone with him already. I do have pictures from the party, but need to upload them yet.

Bahama Mama pics

Heres the pictures that didn't show up from the Bahama Mama blog entry!

Bahama Mama

After a fun filled day at see we anchored at our last port of call, Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas. This happens to be the only stop Andy and I had not previously been, so we were excited by that, but also not expecting much because it is just a small private island owned by the Norwegian Cruiseline. Well we were pleansantly surprised. It was so gorgeous! The weather was perfect, the sand so clean and soft on your feet and the views were breathtaking. Andy and I are already planning on building our dream house and moving there. We started out the day burying daddy in the sand. Olivia joined him for about one minute under the sand, but that was long enough for a two year old. Later, Andy enjoyed some snorkeling time out by the volcanic rock while Olivia did some activities organized by the Kids Crew staff from the cruise ship. We started out with feeding lots of colorful fish. The staff have learned how to lure the fish in with hotdogs and buns. Then they give pieces to all the kids in the water and the fish swim up all around you and the kids get to feed them. Olivia started out a little leery with so many fish right next to her, but quickly warmed up to them and had a ball. Next they had a scavenger hunt for the families, which proved to be quite the workout. Olivia didn't quite like the feeling of the sand on her feet required me to carry her the entire time. We had to comb the island for a staff member from Jamaica, a diver who lived on the island, and someone playing in the sand for signatures. Also required were photos of us doing weird things and just checking off that we'd found various items on the island. It was fun and a good time filler. My calf muscles were so sore the next day, but after eating all I had on the cruise it was a needed workout. Andy appeared back just in time for the family water balloon games. They had a variety of fun water activities planned that Olivia as well as mommy and daddy enjoyed partaking in.

This is the only family photo we managed to get on our camera during the cruise. I realized that day that we hadn't had anyone take our photo so I asked a nice couple who were more than willing to oblige. There were so many friendly people aboard and it truly is such a small world. We met people from Battle Creek, and woman who used to live in Kalamazoo, and even a lady from Coldwater who is a niece of one of my coworkers. It was a wonderful trip that we will not forget. Cruising with a two year old was a completely different experience than past cruises, but remarkable and memorable all the same.

This is just a photo we snapped looking down at the water from up on the rocks. I thought it was neat.

Just Cruisin'

Andy and Olivia in Roatan on the swinging bridge!

Olivia lounging out after shopping in Cozumel!

Olivia and mommy holding a starfish at Banister Beach in beautiful Belize!

Olivia dressed up in her Cinderella princess dress ready to go to the prince and princess ball at the Kid's corner. She was so excited for this night, but once we entered the room she clung to me and didn't want to stay. So she missed the ball, but she was our little princess for the night anyway.

Splashin' in the pool

The third port of call was the beautiful Cozumel. This is an island I stayed a week at with my Uncle Duane 5 years ago and every cruise we have been on has come here. Our original itinerary did not include Cozumel for this reason, but do to hurricane destruction last fall at another port they switched us to Cozumel. We do like Cozumel, but were hoping for something new. As luck would have it we found out my Uncle Dave and Aunt Marvis had booked a timeshare in Cozumel for 2 weeks while we were there. My cousin Susie and her husband Todd were going to be there as well. We got off the boat that morning at took a taxi over to their hotel eager to see them and hang out for the day. Of course they weren't in their rooms or in any of the open areas at the hotel. We decided they must be enjoying everything the beautiful island has to offer. I wrote them a note and we headed back into town, did a bit of shopping and went back aboard. I didn't find out until after our cruise that my poor relatives got up at 8 am that morning took a taxi to the pier and waited there until noon for us before giving up and heading back. I have no idea how we missed each other, but we did. Back on board the ship we spent the day splashing in the kids' pool. This was a daily outing, but Olivia loved it. She sit on top of this red ball where water squirted out and tell us she was peeing. She made us do it with her as well. It was such a nice pool. Not too big, fresh water, only 1 foot deep, a little slide and a hot tub set at 98.6 degrees for the kids. Best yet, parents were welcome.

You have to see it to BELIZE it!

2nd port of call was Belize City, Belize. Another wonderful place we have been before, but our previous excursion of cave tubing would not work with Olivia, so we decided to take a boat to a private beach, called Banister Island. It was beautiful and they had a giant water trampoline to play on, which we all enjoyed a few times. The best part was they had kayaks to use for free. We set out on the kayak when we first got there leaving the camera ashore because we didn't want to risk it falling in the ocean. Just as we were headed out toward the mangroves someone pointed out a dolphin. This dolphin just kept swimming right around us. It was awesome to see one swimming in its natural environment. At this point I was regretting not having the camera with me. Olivia was very excited as well. We did a bit of swimming and walking, and a lot of lazing around. Olivia enjoyed dancing and shaking her booty in our face as she's doing in the photo. I took numerous ones of her doing this and it's quite cute to look at them all because it's like a flip book and you can see her moving her hips and laughing. Olivia also enjoyed playing in the sand for a bit which daddy helped with for awhile. Shortly before we left we saw some tiny squid and starfish in the ocean. Olivia is convinced it was Squidward and Patrick from Spongebob. Another picture which I just now realized I somehow deleted from this entry and will put on later is Olivia and I with the starfish. It was a beautiful beach, but also hot and once you were there, you were stuck there until it was time for the boat to take you back. We ended up being there a bit longer than we would have chosen, but it was a nice day and great experience. We were ready to head back to the cruise ship for some good food and a nap when the tender boat came for us. It was unBELIZEable! Some corny lines the men running the tenders told us to use.

Monkeying around in Roatan Bay, Honduras

Let me first start off by telling you about the Friday we headed for the airport. I got out of work and quickly came home to get ready to head out. As always, I was stressed with trying to have everything around for our vacation, worried about our flight being delayed or cancelled (and with good reason lately), and of course worried about paying taxes. We still didn't know an official amount we owed the government. At our appointment we were told a ballpark figure of $5300! When we're used to getting thousands back each year, that is quite a bit of money for us to pay in. My number one stressor in life has always been money and I wanted to know what we owed before going on vacation or I never would be able to relax and enjoy my self. I got a call at work that day telling me our taxes were ready. So we stopped by on our way to Detroit. I asked what we owed and they lady said, "Do you mean what you owe the accounting office?" I said, "No, what do we owe in taxes?" Well let me tell you all the Lord is good! She then told us we were getting some money back from both stated and federal. Not much, but when you think you owe over five grand it was like winning the lottery. Of course we thought there was a mistake at first and she had to get one of the tax preparers to come out and explain. The amount we were originally told we owed was just based on what Andy's business would owe. He forgot to take into consideration at the time everything I paid in all year, and what Andy had paid in for his other jobs. I offered to kiss the ladies there. They told us we were the happiest people they had ever seen there. So off we headed for our vacation pleased as could be! Thankfully our luck didn't change. We made it to the airport on time, our flight was on time and Olivia traveled well. We arrived at the cruise ship about 5 minutes before they allowed anyone to start boarding. We boarded the Norwegian Sun, on April 5th, which happens to be the same boat and date that Andy proposed to me on 5 years ago! Awe, isn't that romantic. Not with a 2 year old in tote. Now onto the fun pictures. Our first port of call was Roatan. Andy and I had been here 5 years ago and it was beautiful, but very hot and depressing to see how poor of a country it was. It has developed so much in 5 years. It definitely is still poor, but tourism is bringing in so many new building and jobs into the area. It was much cleaner going through town and the shops. We did an excursion to a place called Gumbalimba Park Botanical Gardens and Monkey Refuge. It was another hot day, but gorgeous. Beautiful birds all around swooping down by you and some would perch on your shoulder. There were little lizards running around and a few monkeys. Olivia was so excited to see the monkeys, but when ever she'd get real close she got scared. They put a monkey on her head and she just stood there frozen and screamed with tears rolling down her face. We had the zoom lens on the camera and Andy coulndn't back up enough to get a picture of it before they took the monkey off her head. You can see in the photos how she's keeping and eye on the monkey when Andy is holding her. She proceded to tell everyone on the ship she saw that she saw monkeys, but she cried. You could choose to walk across this long swaying bridge of a shorter wooden one, but we were up for the challenge. I had a picture of Andy and Olivia on it, but somehow deleted it and don't know how to get it back into this blog. I'll add it to a later blog entry. They also had a beautiful beach and pool to enjoy after walking around to see all the park had to offer. We enjoyed a swim in the warm pool to cool off before heading back to the ship.

The first of many pictures from our cruise!

Olivia and I on our way to the Norwegian Sun from the airport. Olivia traveled so well for us, thankfully.











Olivia's favorite past time was jumping out of our port hole window. She tried to make Andy and I jump with her all the time too. We humored her once or twice, but when we stopped she said, "Ah, come on guys!" It was so cute.

















Posing swimsuit diva!














Olivia and daddy on deck our first morning on the ship. I have many cute photos of the two together although Olivia was joined to me at the hip. She definitely was a mommy's girl on the cruise. I couldn't even go to the bathroom without her.