Luke is 18 months!

All about Luke:

-He still runs roughshod over his siblings. They are very anxious to stop his cries, no matter what the personal consequence.

-He talks constantly and gets frustrated when we don't understand what he is telling us.

-His favorite toys are his shape sorter and his blocks, he can stack 9 blocks!

-He has truly perfected the somersault.  It is amazing to see (at least to us).

-His favorite thing to say is "stop it" (staaa iiiiit). He shouts this at anyone who does anything he doesn't like.

-For words, he can say all of his family member's names.  He also says: hi, bye, water, tower, night-night, no, yes, all done, thank you, ball, book, you're welcome, and others I'm sure.  He likes to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, which according to him goes "baaa baaa little star".

-Luke only thinks he likes books.  He will bring you one, position himself comfortably in your lap, allow you to read a page or two and then flip to the end and pronounce "all done."  He has been doing this for months and we keep waiting for the day when we get through an entire story (we came close on Brown Bear once).

-He has a bizarre fear of bugs.  I say bizarre, because how many 18-months old are scared of a caterpillar?  He will let out a little scared cry whenever a bug comes near him.

-He will drop whatever he is doing to answer the door or the phone.  

-The highlight of his day is still greeting people when they get home.

-When he brings you his shoes, it means he wants to go outside. NOW! Ignore this "request" at your own peril.

-When angry, Luke hits or throws himself on the floor in protest. Or both.

This particular fit was after I incomprehensibly refused to let him play with the toilet brush.

-He loves to feed himself and has gotten pretty good with a fork and spoon. However, he prefers to eat 20+ snacks throughout the day rather than whatever I have prepared for a meal.  He will often refuse to eat much at meal time, only to go the cabinet and grab whatever is in his reach. He still doesn't understand that the box of Bisquick does not contain pancakes and gets angry (see above) when we won't allow him the contents of the box.

-He loves to accessorize.  Sunglasses, hats, headbands and bike helmets are among his favorites.

Cruise Part 2

On Day 3, we found ourselves in Nassau.  We had signed up for another beach day, mainly out of fear that Coco Cay would be cancelled due to weather.  I had read that Coco Cay only happens about 50% of the time during late summer due to weather concerns, the perils of a tender port.  Somehow, we found ourselves with a 7:45 muster time. We, and about a dozen other people, mustered on the pier bright and early. The boat to The Blue Lagoon arrived promptly at 8 and we were off! It was a 30ish minute boat ride. The Blue Lagoon also offered a sea lion encounter and dolphin swim. After reading about animals in captivity, I am unwilling to participate in those type of excursions (no judgment on others), so ours was just a plain beach day. 

Our day was supposed to include a floating mat and/or tube. However, there were exactly 5 tubes available and 1 mat. For everyone. That was pretty frustrating. We did get 1 tube, which I put to great use. The water was amazingly clear, although I would have called it the “Aqua Lagoon.”  Regardless, the color and clarity were stunning! At one point, Thomas was out swimming when I heard a loud yelp. I turned and saw him swimming quickly toward shore. It turns out that he was viciously attacked by a crab! Apparently, he put his foot in the wrong place. The crab put a nice little puncture in his big toe, but Thomas is tough and we were able to continue the excursion. There were some awesome hammocks and it was a cute little island, but since we had spent the previous day at the beach, we were ready to try something else after a couple of hours. We caught the next boat leaving, which was actually perfect timing because that boat must have released 500 people to the island. Thomas joked that it was a prank and people must be getting off and circling somewhere to get back on, because the line was never-ending. I hope they weren’t too disappointed when they learned that all the mats and tubes had been claimed.

Beautiful aqua water

A view of the beach, great with a couple dozen people, maybe not so much with hundreds

On the ride back from the beach, the tour guide pointed out some celebrity homes, this one is Oprah's.  Michael Jordan's was the most impressive, but I didn't get a picture. We also saw Jay-Z and Beyonce, Barry Bonds and Tyler Perry's homes and Eddie Murphy's island.

After a quick souvenir hunt, we were back on the ship by 1. We planned to change, have lunch, see a movie and go back into Nassau. However, during the movie (Avengers: Age of Ultron, which they showed inside this time so the screen was visible) I fell asleep. Thomas gently woke me when I began to snore and we decided a nap was in order. We slept until dinner and had another average meal in the main dining room. I ordered a seafood “mashup,” which turned out to be a fried platter that looked like something from Long John Silver’s, with 2 fish planks, 2 shrimp and a hushpuppy. It wasn’t bad, just not what I was expected. After dinner, we called the kids and then went to the evening show. 

The evening entertainer was Sideshow Bert.  He put on a fun variety show that we enjoyed. He juggled, threw cards, told jokes, etc. It was good. Even though it was just yesterday, I can’t recall exactly what we did after the show. Probably went up to the Windjammer for a late-night snack. At 8:45, we played a majority rules trivia contest. We did not win, but we had fun. Finally, at 10, we went to the Love and Marriage game show, which is run like the Newlywed Game. I found it really funny. They chose 4 couples, one married less than 6 years, two between 7-24, and one with 25+ years. The first couple were newlyweds (there were 24 honeymooning couples on the ship!). For the middle category, the audience was equally divided between two couples (anyone interested in being chosen had to “audition” by saying a silly phrase and the winners were chosen by audience applause), so both got to play. I think one was married for 13 and the other 16 years. The final couple had been married for 49 ¾ years. It was funny and cute. However, I am pretty sure the longest married couple were ringers. I would be willing to bet that they had seen the show before and knew what would be asked. Also, there was no love lost between one couple. The host asked the husband to name one thing about his wife he would make bigger and one thing he’d make smaller.  For bigger, he said her heart and for smaller her said her mouth, and that wasn’t even his meanest comment! Ouch! But, it was still a really funny show and thankfully, the other 3 couples were very much in love.

After that, we called it a night!

Our final day was a sea day.  We woke shortly after 7 and were excited to start the day. We did some more trivia and came in 3^rd place in a Name that 80s/90s T.V Theme Song (out of over 50 groups!).  Thomas did the rock climbing wall and played in a Texas Hold ‘Em tournament. We watched a cake decorating contest and played “Name that Tune.” One of my favorite parts of the day was the Belly Flop Contest. They had 7 guys, who were weighed in and arranged from smallest to biggest. They had them dance before the flop and the flops were replayed on the large screen in slow-motion. The audience got to rate them on a 1-5 scale. It was just really fun to be poolside on a cruise ship in the middle of the Atlantic watching people bellyflop in slomotion.

He rang the bell!

Dinner was the best food we had on the ship (chicken marsala for Thomas and steak for me). We saw the evening production, which was an old-school Broadway Revue. They did songs from Westside Story, Chicago, Hairspray, Little Shop of Horrors and a couple we didn’t know. It was a very relaxing, entertaining day. Oh, we also booked another cruise for 2017. This one is for the whole family. We aren’t sure we will keep it, but figured we could lock in the price and decide later.

It was a wonderful, calming, much-needed vacation. As much as we love being with our kids, not having to tend to anyone but ourselves for 5 days was pure bliss. We kept in constant contact with Summer, who sent us lots of texts and pictures, so we knew the kids were in good hands. And, although I am ready to go home, I am also ready to plan another adult-only vacation (unfortunately, I am guessing it won’t happen again for a few years). 

For me, the highlights were probably the snorkeling in Coco Cay, the belly flop contest, and the times we just sat and listened to the band.

Customary shot with the ocean view

No cruise blog would be complete without a picture of a towel animal!

No Kids Allowed: Cruise Vacation, days 1-3.

Thomas turned 40 this year?!?!?! As is our tradition, I had to do something big.  And, by tradition, I mean we did big celebrations for each other’s 30^th.  But, a tradition has to start somewhere right?  And, it’s not our fault that we didn’t meet until after we had already turned 20.  For his 30^th, I planned a trip to Detroit to see the Baseball All Star Game, and associated festivities.  I knew there was no way I could top his favorite team hosting an all-star game in his favorite sport. But, I was determined to try; I decided a vacation with just the two of us was the way to go. The planning began in earnest in the Spring. On our Disney cruise, Thomas said his ideal vacation would be a cruise with just the two of us.  Of course, he has no recollection of saying that.  But, my mind is like a sieve, err steel trap, so I booked a cruise.  A cruise for two, but not until well-after his birthday.

Thomas turned 40 in July and we left for our vacation on August 30^th.  Why the delay you might ask?  Well, we could have gone in the summer, but that’s when lots of kids cruise.  And, who wants to cruise with other people’s kids when your own are at home?  Perhaps more importantly, we figured it would be easier for someone to watch our kids if  ¾ of them were in school.  We had our trusty sitter, Summer lined up for the job.  To keep Luke fully acquainted with Summer, we did date nights twice a month until the month before the cruise, when we bumped it up to once a week.

Finally, after months of anticipation, Sunday was the day.  Our cruise left from Port Canaveral and we decided to fly down the day before to avoid any major travel issues.  The week before we left, a tropical storm (Erika) threatened to thwart our plans, leading me to watch hours upon hours of the Weather Channel.  But, the storm dissipated, the clouds parted, and we left as scheduled.

It was hard to leave the kids.  I expected it to be hard to be leave Luke.  After all, he’s the only one who couldn’t understand what was going on, but it was also really hard to leave the older three.  On Saturday, Jack said, “If I had just one wish, I would wish you weren’t going on the cruise.”  Kara voiced concerns about our ship sinking and on Saturday night said, rather pitifully I might add, “at least we have tomorrow morning.”  Anna tried to convince us that parents aren’t meant to vacation without their children.  But, we left as planned.

Our flight to Orlando was relatively uneventful.  The remnants of Erika lead to a longer than anticipated flight path, causing us to arrive about 20 minutes late.  We grabbed our bags, jumped on our shuttle to Port Canaveral and were off!  About 15 minutes later, Thomas’ phone rang.  It was the airport.  One of the bags we had grabbed?  Not ours.  Back to the airport we went.  Our shuttle, which fortunately, only contained us, had to be somewhere else, so he let us out and we had to wait for the next shuttle.  The bags were completely identical—same unusual color, same cheap brand.  What are the odds?  Well, pretty good apparently,

It was an embarrassing mistake, but could have been so much worse!  Our next shuttle had 4 other people, I don’t imagine they would have been very happy if we had created the delay for them. The mistake cost us about an hour and we arrived at our hotel at 730pm.  We had a quick dinner and called it a night.

Our hotel was on the beach, so the next morning, we decided to watch the sunrise.  We did a 3 mile walk along the beach, had our free breakfast and left for the ship.

We had fun watching these little birds race the surf

A butterfly shell in the sunrise

We walked onboard Enchantment of the Seas (Royal Caribbean) around 12.  We had lunch and enjoyed walking around the ship.  Our immediate impression was that it did not appear as clean, well-kept, or friendly as the Disney Magic.  Although, in fairness, the Disney Magic had undergone a complete renovation the month before we sailed.  We really enjoyed sitting on the deck and watching the Ocean in front of us. We talked to the kids.  Dinner was next, the service was good and the dining room was nice, but the food was just okay.  The welcome aboard show was also just okay.  Overall, it was a good day and a nice start to our vacation.

Saying goodbye to Port Canaveral

Day 2 of the cruise (3 of our vacation) was a stop at Coco Cay, Royal Caribbean’s private island.  We had an early kayak excursion so we had to be on the first tender off the ship. We were both up by 7, dressed and ready to go. Breakfast was buffet style and we both enjoyed it.  They told us to muster at 8 for the excursion.  But, we didn’t get off the ship and onto the tender until almost 9, which was a bit frustrating (it got crowded and we were in a small, windowless space).

But, all of that was forgotten when we stepped onto the beach.  The kayaking was really fun.  We had a guided tour and learned a little about the Berry Islands.  We saw lots of fish and many huge stingrays.  One of the people in our group fell out of her kayak.  The guide spent tons of time helping her, so we got to have an extra-long trip.  After that, we got some snorkel equipment and saw even more fish.  The water was clear and it was really enjoyable. We had lunch on the beach, did some more snorkeling and got back on the ship around 2.  

We thought this would be a fun picture for the kids

It seemed like a good time to visit the casino.  I immediately lost $40 (I’m not going back!) and Thomas immediately won $15.  We thought a lot about Thomas’ grandmother and her love of casinos and the penny slots (which aren’t really 1 penny). We called the kids and were happy to hear their voices.  Summer has kept us up to date with lots of pictures and I swear Luke has grown.  As much fun as we are having, it will be nice to get home to the rest of our family.

We grabbed a quick dinner because we wanted to see an early pool side movie: Avengers, Age of Ultron.  Unfortunately, the glare on the screen was too bright, so we had to skip it.  We spent some time listening to an amazing band and some more time sitting on deck.  Finally, it was time to see the evening show.  During our muster drill on the first day, our muster captain was really enthusiastic and happy.  Thomas and I joked that he was in the wrong position.  We felt he should be on a Disney ship, cheerfully greeting the children with his overly peppy attitude. Lo and behold, he was one of the ships dancers!  It all made so much more sense. I felt like I was watching an old friend on stage. The show wasn’t great, but it did have some really good moments.  There was a female singer who sang some Whitney Houston songs and was absolutely amazing.  The theme was a walk through movie history, but most of the movies referenced were very old (Love Story, The Graduate, Body Guard, To Sir With Love, Beach Blanket Bingo, some Jazz movie, etc.), so it got a bit tiresome for us.  But, it was still a wonderful day!

That essentially summarizes the start of our vacation.