Cruising - Day at Sea

Our second day we were at sea all day.  This is a picture of the kids as they were waking up that morning.  This gives you an idea of what our room was like.  Let's just say it was tight with four of us sharing.  Noah got to share a room with Grandma and Grandpa.  We loved waking up to a view of the ocean though!

Everyone spent the day just hanging out.  We laid around at the pool, swimming and reading.  We played games, and of course ate.  Everyone just kind of relaxed and enjoyed not having anywhere that we had to be.  It was so nice not to have phones or the internet!

That evening was our formal night at dinner.  Everyone looked so nice, that of course we had to take lots of pictures.

Crazy kids!

Mike's looking a little too relaxed here

Grandma and Grandpa Mitchell

Noah thought this model of our ship was really cool

After dinner we decided to go outside and take some pictures of everyone all dressed up

This picture cracks me up. We didn't plan this pose. 

Ivan was our room attendant.  He was from Peru.  Each night we would come back to our rooms, and he  had left us a different towel animal.  He even added Mike's sunglasses as an accessory to the bunny.

Day 2 was awesome!

Cruising - Setting Sail

The next morning we caught a shuttle, and headed out to Port Everglades to board the ship.  Everyone was pretty excited. 

Our ship!

They took this picture of us in front of a backdrop of the ship right before we actually boarded the ship

We were on the ship by 12:00, but didn't set sail until 5:00.  That gave us plenty of time to check things out and explore.

We can't get away from this stuff!

The view from our stateroom

Looking down to the bottom of the atrium from the top

Swimming pool

There were lots of cool boats and things going on in the Port area

When it was time to set sail, they had a party in the pool area.  It was fun to go to the top and watch as we headed out.

We even had some well-wishers seeing us off

There were lots of huge homes to look at in the inlet

Fort Lauderdale is really beautiful

The ocean awaits!

The beaches of Fort Lauderdale

Getting farther...

and farther away!

As soon as we were sailing, it was time to get ready to go to the dining room for dinner.  My handsome boys, ready to eat!

You can't take these kids anywhere!

After dinner the kids went to the Kid's Club for the evening. The adults wandered the ship, listened to music, and danced.  It was a fun first day!

Cruising - Fort Lauderdale

A couple of years ago our family made a decision regarding our summer vacations.  Since we lived away from all of our family, all of our vacations were spent going back to visit family. We wanted to have some other experiences so we decided that we would go to California the first summer, Utah the second, and somewhere different the third.  This year was the third year, so we initially thought we would head to Disney World.  In the end we decided to try something we had never done, but that I have always wanted to do. We decided to go on a cruise!  It didn't take very much convincing to get not just one set of grandparents to join us, but both decided to come.  

With Grammy and Grampy Hooper in tow, we started out early in the morning to head to Tulsa and catch our flight to Fort Lauderdale. After a long airplane ride, we arrived!

Waiting for the shuttle to take us to our hotel.  This picture was taken with my phone - not the best!

We got to the hotel and met up with Grandma and Grandpa Mitchell, who had arrived earlier in the day. The kids love their Grandpa, he is the best playmate.  We went to dinner at the kid's all time favorite restaurant - Sweet Tomatoes.

Mike after a long day of traveling

We then headed back to the hotel to play games and to get ready for our exciting adventure the next day.

Baseball

Noah decided to give baseball another try during the spring.  He was hoping to be on the Angels, but instead was on the Oakland A's.  

The coaches were great about rotating the boys so that they could try all of the field positions.  Noah said he liked playing pitcher the best.  No matter what position he played, he was always in the "ready position".

He loved being up to bat

It always made him happy when his sisters came to cheer him on

He had awesome coaches this year that worked really hard with the boys, and really encouraged them.  Noah learned so much this season, and made a lot of improvement.  His coaches said that he was the best listener on the team, and always worked on what they told him to.  We can't wait for next season!