Date with Lainie

Rules of the date: Lainie decides all activites. First item of business: shopping. She wanted new shoes.
Here she is documenting the trip.

And then she found a pair of flipflops she liked.

Next up: a slushy and put-put golf.


It was great spending a little QT with my Lainie Grace. Love you lady.

Painting

Perhaps I should be grateful that my stock pile includes at least 30 tubes of toothpaste, or that I haven't paid a single penny for any of them. Or maybe I should be excited that Owen likes the be creative with all forms of "paint." I'm not. I'm tired of cleaning up after his creativeness and I'm sure Lily is tired of being the canvas.

Pioneer Park

Last night we went to the park to enjoy some time together with family before my nephew heads to Miami, Florida for 2 years. We'll miss you Brendon.

Grad Party

Last day of preschool was a graduation party at the teacher's house.

Preschool Graduation

Miss smarty pants graduated from preschool. She is so excited to start kindergarten next year even if it means she has to get some shots.

2 yr. old conversations

I've decided I've got to start writing these down. The babes are so funny together and carry on such long conversations that sometimes I just can't figure out. Today, however, it was easy.

Lily: "Onin"-trying to get brother's attention
Owen: "O-WEN"-correcting her
Lily: "O-nin"-trying to get it right.
Owen: "No. O-WEN"-still correcting her.
Lily: "OOOO-NIN"-trying to please brother.
Owen: "OOOO-WEN"-still correcting Lily.

This went on about 5 more times until Owen gave up and finally said, "what?"



Hiding from me, in daddy's closet.

Back on the boat

Friday and Saturday were both at sea days spent lounging by the pool and eating way too much. We did more karaoke, dancing and hot tubbing. And more comedy and vegas style shows. We played cards and read books and took naps. We stayed up way past our bedtime. I think I may have eaten over 20 soft serve cones in a week. It was great! Friday night was our second formal night. We had come to know and love our waiter Ariel. He was from the Philipeans and had worked for the cruiseline for 9 years. I wanted to take him home with me. He was very kind and sweet and we enjoyed his company.

Sunday morning we checked out and headed home. Great to see all my babes on Mother's day. I feel revived and refreshed to be a better mother to them. Not to mention I feel like a honeymooner again. It was time with Paul I really needed. Love you babe. And thanks Mom, for being such a great mother to me and taking care of my offspring for an entire week. You're amazing. Happy Mother's Day.

Puerto Vallarta

We gave the Kirbs a break from us today and had a day to ourselves. Did our early morning workout and breakfast, then off the boat to explore the city. We took a taxi over to the downtown area to do some shopping for a couple of hours and found this cool sand sculpture.

Then back to the boat to change and get some lunch before our excursion. We did the extreme canopy excursion. It was so much fun. It was one of my most favorite things we did on our cruise. It started off with a 20ish minute boatride on an apex speed boat. Super fast, thought I'd fall off if I didn't have my human seatbelt. Thanks babe. Then onto a 20ish minute ride in a vehicle that looked like this...I felt like I was at Disneyland on the Indiana Jones ride the entire time.

Then we hit basecamp where we checked in all our belongings and got geared up. We then headed over to some benches where we were assigned mules to take us up the mountain. The guides seemed to pick us at random. I fully expected us to be picked in an orderly fashion and then follow a guide up the mountain together. Not in Mexico. Paul was the second one to be picked and he got up on the mule and they smacked it's booty and it started up the hill. They said, "don't worry, the mule knows where he's going." I was the 3rd to the last to be picked. I got on my mule and he was outta there. There were about 6 of us who ended up with the good mules. They were so fun to ride. They only way I can think to describe it was a donkey derby. It was a race to get to the top and it was all the mules, the riders didn't have anything to do with it. My mule would find a 3 inch gap between other mules and think he had the right of way. Paul put a lady into the side of the mountain, we laughed the entire ride up the mountain and I ended up at the top first. Later on I asked the guides how they picked out the riders for the mules and they said that the people who looked more nervous got the slower mules. Then we flew through the trees, rapelled down waterfalls, crossed narrow bridges, ziplined into pools of water and hiked through rivers. It was so fun and we enjoyed every minute of it. Fully worth the money to go. We got back to the ship right in time for dinner and some hot tubbing. And PS. it was Cinco De Mayo today and guess what, Mexicans in Mexico don't celebrate it. I expected a huge party the whole day, but nope, no party until we got back on the ship.

Deep Sea Fishing

We were originally supposed to spend the next day in Mazatlan, but instead had 2 days in Cabo. Marla and I headed over to lovers beach again, while the boys decided they wanted to go deep sea fishing.
Here is my man working hard at reeling in a hammerhead shark. No luck though...the line snapped a little while later.


A little scenery...

Friendly bird, I had never seen a pelican in real life before this trip.

When they boys were heading back in, a sea lion jumped right up onto the boat to eat the last of the bait.

We met up with each other back on the boat around 4. Then it was naps, dinner, and shows. The boys were tired, so they turned in early (by early I mean around midnight) while Marla and I hit up the dance club again.

Day 3-Cabo

Our first stop on our trip was Cabo. We took a water taxi over to Lovers Beach for the first few hours. I was a little taken back by how you actually got onto the shore. There are no docks on lovers beach, the boat guy would just ride the wake onto the shore and you had to jump out. I fell, of course, quite funny. After a few hours when the water taxi came back to get us, a guy was on the shore and we pointed out our boat. When it got close he just swooped me up and threw me on the boat. Again, I was surprised, but I guess thats how they work it down there in Mexico.
On the water taxi.

Lovers Beach




That's our boat in the background. And no Paul isn't posing Marla, that is how his arm lays next to his body. Honest.

Lunch @ The Office. Delicious food, huge portions.

After a bit of shopping we headed back to the boat for dinner. Anyone that's been on a cruise knows that each night they have several cheesy backdrops where they pose you and take your picture. There are no limits to how many pictures you can take, and they post them in an area of the boat for you (and everyone else) to see and possibly purchase. We LOVED these. Marla and I posed for several of them and would take at least 3 shots at each one and of course they are all super cheesy poses. In the picture area we would spread out our pics so that everyone could see them. We're retarded, the things we do to amuse ourselves. Paul happened to be right behind one the photographers when he grabbed this beauty. I wish he had followed us around to all of them.

Day 2

We woke up early each morning and headed to the gym. After breakfast we'd get our suits on and head to the "adult only" pool section. (With our children at home, we weren't really interested in hearing any other one's children either.) It was sooooo nice to do absolutely nothing-just lounge in the sun with a good book, maybe doze off for a minute or two. So nice. Late afternoon, we'd head back to our cabin for a nap and then meet up with the kirbs for dinner. Day 2 was our first of 2 formal nights. We managed to grab a few pics with the cell phone.



After dinner we went to the comedy club and dancing.

Mexican Riviera Cruise

Wahoo vacation time! My mom so graciously spent the week at my house with my kids so that Paul and I could get away by ourselves for the first time in several years. We drove to Corona to meet up with our cruisin buddy's the Kirbys and then we were on our way to the Longbeach Pier to get on the boat. Hooray! This was the first cruise for both of us and I must say I LOVED it. It was the easiest vacation I've ever taken. 1st day we explored the boat, did our evacuation drill, ate, did karaoke, and hit up the dance club.

Picture taken during evacuation drill.

Women's Conference

I was able to go to women's conference @ BYU this year with my mom, sister, and friend Barbara. So fun hanging out and listening to great speakers.

Roastin Mallows