May

That's a wrap on 7th and 3rd grade! Both boys got all A's and Rory won the citizenship award for his class. We went to the ceremony because we were told he was getting an award. Last year he got the PE award so we were wondering which related art he would get this year. When they were all given out and he wasn't announced we were pretty sure the invitation was a mistake and we would need to leave with our tail between our legs, until apparently there was one final award at the end we didn't remember. Whew. Now every time he is doing something shady we like to remind him what a good citizen he is. He loves it. (Silas's teachers send no pictures.)

 

We had a summer kick-off party because I need something to ward off the end of school blues, which make no sense but hits me every year. It worked pretty nicely. We also had our small group over for Memorial Day.

 

Also pictured: rodeo, fair, and Derby with the Williamsons. I picked the winner last minute after my initial pick scratched. 

 

My first week of summer was almost entirely consumed by finding Waldo.

April

We had an early Easter basket hunt and went to the Good Friday service at church in place of Sunday, since we were boarding our ship on Easter. Pastor Malcolm didn't pull any punches and Rory was asking some good questions on the way home. 

See the cruise post for all of that fun. 

When we got home from Florida, we celebrated Lilly turning 10, spent an evening with Nox in the ER because he ate a butt ton of oatmeal raisin cookies, and Rory had field day at school. Then Silas had his spring orchestra concert and Gigi and Shelly came to watch! They drove the whole way smelling fumes from my newly stained planter boxes Dad made for me. (They are lovely. I named one Cynthia and one Jolice.) We planted those, shopped, and went to a Fireflies game on Friday. Saturday was a murder mystery dinner that turned out to be a bit amateur, intimate, and awkward. Poor Jane got pulled up for the show. We did have 2 of the murder victims at our table and we won the prize for figuring it out! Sunday we saw Mary and relaxed before they made the trip back home. Now the house feels empty and we are all depressed.

      

  

Carnival Miracle

We went on a family cruise for spring break. It was great fun to be all together with no screens for a week eating all the soft serve we could stomach and playing lots of Flip 7 and SkipBo. I think we all rated the experience pretty high minus a few excursions, a very cold pool, and minimal onboard entertainment.

Tampa- Traffic to and from was awful, but we made it and saw the Bucs stadium. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant that we cannot recommend. We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express where the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night, reportedly because of a drunken, naked man running around on the 4th floor. Excitement! The next morning, we almost missed our shuttle to the boat because they kept calling for "Weber" and it took us much too long to realize that was us as booked by our travel agent.

The boat was fun to explore and though cozy, we really liked our room. There was a Blue Iguana Cantina which is half the reason I wanted to go. We played putt-putt and ping-pong when we could find the table unoccupied. We won Bingo in Camp Ocean, went to a towel folding class where Rory's elephant turned out a bit blobby- much to his disappointment, learned to pronounce the word entrée, and hid and found many rubber ducks. There was a Deal or No Deal show, a bit of trivia, shuffleboard, and some very mixed water sliding experiences. One slide you had to manually push yourself down while everyone watched, where the other had the floor dropping out from under you with possible decapitation. There was a lot of down time and we played cards and went on a daily walk to the candy shop for our 25 cent jaw breakers. The boys' number one request was to watch Oceans 8 on the tv in our cabin. Daron and I snuck out one night to go to a Marriage Show that was actually pretty disgusting. (I sound like a real snob about this trip, or at least as snobby as one choosing Carnival can be. It will get worse.)

Cozumel- We had a snorkel/beach excursion on our first stop. The water was clear and beautiful and the catamaran was nice. They had all you could drink soda and music. There wasn't a huge variety of fish and I got in trouble for putting on sunscreen (It was reef safe!) but I think it was everyone's favorite part. Rory's snorkel was too big so a large part of our 45 minutes was figuring that out, but even so, a very fun experience. Unfortunately, all of my pictures are of fish rears and stray fins. After snorkeling we had a private beach stop with turquoise water and inflatable slides. This set our expectations which turned out to be much too high for the rest of our outings.

Belize- I booked us a trip to see Mayan ruins in Belize which I thought would be cool because it included a boat ride through the jungle and a rainforest hike. Those were pretty good and we did see crocodiles, but the bus ride to get there was looong. It didn't help that we also had a long wait to get on the ferry to shore and another 30 minutes aboard to dock. I am glad that my kids got to see some of the ways other people live. We are very much spoiled by our comfortable, oblivious lives. The ruins were very cool, but our tour guide was not enthusiastic or informative. I can imagine shuffling tourists through all day would get old. Lunch was about 300 calories of a scant chicken thigh, rice and beans with coleslaw, and hot grape juice. Then we did the whole journey in reverse- jungle boat to bus, bus to ferry, ferry to ship. We really liked getting back on that ship.

Idol hunting in the jungle.

 

 

 

Costa Maya- Coming off our hot, long jungle day, we decided we could use another beach with pristine waters and private beach chairs. There is a little cruise hub/make-shift market at the port of Costa Maya and we decided to brave beyond it to get to one. We didn't have an excursion, so we got a taxi and were dropped off at a very brown and almost intercoastal looking area where each stretch of the beach was privatized by mostly dilapidated cabanas you had to buy drinks at to use and whose owners were very enthusiastic that you do so. We were a bit out of our element and it wasn't exactly relaxing conditions, so we hopped right back in a taxi and spent most of the day on the ship. Turns out, we are more of the private island type than the authentic cultural experience type. Lame, I know.

Some upside down pole fliers.

By the time we disembarked, we were happy to do so and home seemed about like the best place on Earth. (It is.) That being said, I think we would do it again, eventually. I've blown our travel budget for like 3 years, so by that time we will be eager for a new adventure.