Calling All Chocoholics!

I took my older kiddos to their Half Pint's Class at Whole Foods last week for the chocoholics class! They always look so adorable in their aprons and their little chef's hats!

Who can resist a face like this?!

Helping to pour, scoop and stir is always such fun!

They made chocolate covered cherries, raspberry white hot chocolate and chocolate milkshakes!

Yes, they were bouncing off the walls when we got home, but it was totally worth it!

I'm leaving on a Jet plane.....

Packing your stuff up to go home after vacation stinks. You are tired, burnt and feeling like you ate waaay too much. Your clothes smell like the hot tub, you've got random oddly shaped souvenirs to sneak in and nothing ever seems to fit back into the suit case for the trip home....ugh...I hate it.

After saying good bye to Dani and Ron (who had a wussy 4 hr. straight flight into New York), we sat and waited for our section to be called so that we could disembark.

This was the sea of suitcases we had to look through to find Steve and Kathy's luggage that for some reason didn't make it into the designated area.....after we found it, it was onto the bus and heading to the San Juan International Airport.

Now, you have to remember that we were used to eating pretty much every twenty minutes....so we had to stock up a bit at the convenience stores to tide us over :)

Thank goodness for battery operated devices! :)

Lunch in Miami~we had a conglomeration of pizzas, salads, and Panda Express.....don't you just love airport food? yuck.

Dinner in Texas! A delightful mix of wings, bread sticks, pizza, strawberry smoothies, McDonalds and cereal! What a step down, cuisine wise from our week on the Adventure of the Seas...

I found this super awesome place called, "Cereality"~it was a cereal bar! You got to pick out your favorite cereal, toppings (all sorts of fruit spreads, yogurts and sugary junk) and your milk! How fun! I had low fat granola, banana and plain milk....it was amazing.

Now what would a lay over be, without huge cups of Starbucks goodness?

After almost twelve hours of travel, we made it back to blustery Omaha. Good to be home but stinky to be off of vacation.

Steve and Kathy~THANK YOU SO MUCH for such a memorable trip! You were so generous and gracious. We all had such an amazing time, one that we will always remember. What great memories the eight of us now share! I have always thought that I had the best In-Laws ever and now I KNOW I do! :) We know how much Grandpa Derald and Grandma Pat would have loved the thought of us being together and enjoying the Caribbean, so thanks to them too!

Thank you for a wonderful trip~We love you guys!*

(Cruise Day #7) Take One Down, Pass it Around....

We are in the Virgin Islands!

This is our last port and last real day of vacation....sad sad. I can't think of a better way to spend it, then us all together visiting some gorgeous beaches and swimming with sea turtles!

We had the royal treatment at breakfast....just look at our waiter!

Let's fuel up for a day of fun!

We met down on the quayside to climb aboard a pirate looking ship called 'Bones'. We had the pleasure of spending the day with the three crew members (whose names I can't remember of course!) that had more energy than a classroom of second graders hyped up on Mountain Dew!

They set the mood with fun beachy tunes, fun historical run down and assurance that we were going to have the time of our lives!

One of the things that we were all looking forward to was the chance to swim with sea turtles right near a ship wreck. The water was crystal clear! We got our snorkel stuff on and dove in to try and catch a glimpse of these beautiful creatures. It was such a surreal experience to be just swimming along, and there would emerge this huge turtle going along on it's merry way! They were amazing! We took pictures with our underwater camera that hasn't gotten developed quite yet, but I'll throw those pics up when we get them back. Sawyer was a little hesitant about getting his face wet, but faced his fears and jumped in....enjoyed it for a bit but then was ready to get back on the boat.

After sea turtling, they broke out the Rum Punch.....now we had some version of Rum Punch while we were in Dominica......but nothing in comparison to Rum Punch in St. Thomas! It was this perfect blend of orange juice, coconut water and rum.......oh my goodness......D-Lish! They made sure that you never had an empty cup-EVER!

So after we had about seven pitchers of Rum Punch, we anchored at Honeymoon beach and bailed off the side of the boat into the water and bobbled over to the shore like beached whales..... It was so picturesque! Just off of a calendar beautiful! White sand, palm trees, aqua water, beautiful sunshine........mmmmm.........we had a wonderful BBQ lunch waiting for us when we arrived with ribs, chicken, salads and of course-more Rum Punch!

I can't tell you just how pleasant it was to sit on this picture perfect beach with family, eat great food, use Ron's shirt as a communal napkin and just enjoy the moment!

Sawyer spend the afternoon perfecting a drip castle and working on his tan! :)

After an intense game of beach volleyball, we hung out in the water-that of course was the perfect temperature! If you are wondering what they are doing, we all got 'bones' tattoos from the crew on our boat and they are proudly displaying them!

After 18 pitchers (literally!) of Rum punch, this was the mood :) It was wonderful*

Ahh Paradise!

(Side Note: After we had gotten off our little boat and were heading back to the cruise ship, I noticed that my memory card wasn't in my camera! I had been taking pictures ALL day, so I knew that I had had it earlier in the day. It wasn't like it would have just fallen out of the camera either....and I was SO SO SO bummed! We had ALL of our cruise pictures on that card! So after I spent our last evening, including dinner at Portofinos in a crabby mood.....I went down to the Guest Services desk to see if by chance it was there......(drum roll please) and it WAS!!! One of the couples that was on the boat with us had found it on the pier, popped it into their lap top, realized it was ours and put it in an envelope labeled, "Sawyer' Parent's"! Can you believe it! I cried at guest services.)

(Cruise Day #6 and 1/2) Eat, Drink & Be Merry!

When deciding on a meal plan for all of us at the beginning stages of cruise planning, Kathy and Steve chose 'My Time Dinning". This seemed like the best option because you could eat in the main dinning room at any time and supposedly didn't have to wait. Well......it didn't always end up that way.....we kept getting pushed back till about 8:30 p.m. Which was getting pretty late for a four year old to eat. (Lost of times we went to the buffet and let him have a pre-dinner to hold him over!)

So, during those times of waiting, we headed down to one of the many little lounges for some drinks!

I look pretty excited in this picture, but actually the blue drink tasted absolutely terrible! The bar tender was really sweet and she made me another one :)

All of the staff and crew on the ship were SO attentive and really tried to anticipate your every need! These were our favorite servers in the dinning room-the one on the left was called Shabang and his brother was ummm....now I can't remember.....anyways they were THE COOLEST!!!! They always brought Sawyer tons of ice cream and cookies, made him hats out of cloth napkins and always smiling ear to ear!

Lobster Night. The guys had been looking forward to lobster night all week long. And let me tell ya', Royal Caribbean did not dissapoint! And of course the boys couldn't just eat one main course! Who has heard of that?!? So they each ordered lobster and then something else kind of light-like beef tenderloin or pork chops....good grief! When all of our food would arrive and we were having to move center pieces just to fit it all on the table, it wasn't just fat-America anymore, it was fat-Caribbean! And to top it all off, our server brought a plate full of additional lobster to share because apparently twenty four plates of food wasn't quite cutting it!

All the little piggies, belly up at the feeding trough.

Don't ask me why were were all trying to make mad faces....well, it was nearing the end of the cruise and we must have been running out of things to talk about.

Looking over the railing into the dark world underneath. There is nothing like fresh sea breeze, fully tummys, and good company!

(Cruise Day #6) Zip Lining Through Dominica

When we had tried to sit down and plan out our excursions for the days that we were in port, my main request was to do some sort of zip line tour. Steve found this outing that was called, 'High Hopes! High Ropes!' We weren't quite sure what all to expect but were excited none the less! Nana Kathy figured this wasn't going to be at all an enjoyable experience for her, so she and Sawyer hung out together for the day! Thanks Kathy!

We piled into yet another white van with a jolly guy named David. He was energetic and entertaining, giving us a complete rendition of Dominica's history as we wound our way through the narrow streets of the city. Did you know there are six women to every man in Dominica? Yeah....I know what some of you men are thinking! "When's the next flight to Dominica?"

David got us through the city, along the gorgeous coast line and into the jungle, right up to the 'Rocky Rollers' place. We signed our lives away, got suited up and were ready to go!

I love zip lining!

In between zip lines, there were also tons of different tight ropes, hanging logs and other rather difficult obstacles that we needed to cross. It was sooo fun!

And as Steve pointed out afterwards, we went up in a really random order: Dani, Me, Steve, Alex, Bill and Ron brought up the rear. So no pictures of Bill and I up there together :(

Toward the end of the course (that ended up taking about two hours) there was 'The Tarzan Swing'. You stood on a platform, harnessed to a long rope, jumped off, drop swung fifty feet and tried to grab a hold of this net and pull your self up.

Dani went no problem, I, on the other hand, got up there and had a little mini freak out :) The guy ended up pretty much just tossing me off! I grabbed the net though! Gold star for Carrie*

We all survived!

After we had zipped the last zip line across the river and into the bamboo brush, we were treated to drinks (rum punch!), fresh coconut, sugar cane shoots and orange wedges!

All the staff at 'Rocky Rollers' was SO nice and just made the entire experience so enjoyable!

After downing our Rum Punch, we headed back into town, hoping to be able to see a little bit of the town before boarding.

We ended up finding this really cute sidewalk cafe that looked like we'd be able to eat there and not pick up salmonella (unlike some of the other places we passed!). We ate really good jerk chicken dishes and beef stew~D-lish!!!!!

Yup. We fell for it. The little tents selling a bunch of random, over priced junk with Dominica branded across the top, and had to haggle for it too! But hey, it wouldn't be a tropical vacation if you didn't come back with coconut jewelry and Dominican hot sauce!