Special Days – Page 4

Day 4 – Grand Caymans

We were headed to the Cayman Islands and expected to be able to get off the ship sometime mid morning.

Before the trip even started we had signed up for the Port Adventure to the Beach. I figured that as much fun as some of the other adventures might be…..the kids really wanted to just swim, and swim and swim and swim and SWIM. And, taking the different ages of the kids into account and Angelica’s fitness level….the beach just seemed like the best place to be for our family.

The day started out much like the night before had ended off….grey and muggy with some showers off and on.

In order to get off the boat, we needed to board a smaller boat which then taxied us to the docks. The Cayman Islands did not have the capability for the cruise ship to dock. And so around 11am, we lined up at the bottom of the cruise ship to start the “tendering” process. As we pulled away from the cruise ship, it started to POUR. The air was still warm, but it was definitely wet.

It took about 10 minutes for us to get to the dock and as we stepped off the boat, it was still raining. We were a bit early to meet up with our Port Adventure Group and so we walked around the shops on the dock of the Grand Caymans….and while we were popping in and out of the little shops looking at souvenirs the rain stopped.

Finally it was time to head to the beach, and we, along with approx 100 others, got onto the buses and headed out. The bus driver was a fabulous tour guide. He talked non-stop for the 15 minutes it took to drive down to the beach that we were going to. He had a lot of interesting facts and stories about the Cayman Islands and the scenery was incredible.

We finally showed up at the beach and again, it was raining….we all huddled under the beach’s small covered area and listened to the beach host explain a few things and then…….then they released us and we headed out to claim our very own little patch of heaven on the beach.

The weather couldn’t seem to make up it’s mind and it alternated between raining and not raining. In fact, the Cruise people came by to let everyone know that the buses would be available to take us back early if we wanted because of the bad weather.

I’d say that more than half of the people returned to the ship, but seeing as we had come to the beach with the point of getting wet…..we weren’t planning on going ANYWHERE.

The water was warm, and the air was warm, and we had umbrellas to cover our stuff; and so we just swam and played in the sand. It was SO. MUCH. FUN.

The baby fell asleep after about an hour of playing in the water, crawling on the beach and throwing the sand; and so we wrapped him up in a damp towel, put him on a beach chair under an umbrella and he slept for about an hour. On most of our Port days, he had a good hour nap….I think he was just so worn out from the excitement of it all.

It was so much fun to swim in the warm, BLUE ocean water, when all we are used to is a slightly grey/brown freezing cold ocean experience.

Jon rented a jet-ski and took the three older kids out for turns. We also rented some snorkel gear and the kids had a blast just swimming around, trying to find different fish and shells.

Jeremy LOVED snorkeling. He snorkeled for the entire time that we were at the beach (3 hours). He collected some very cool looking little shells. This was pretty much what he looked like for almost all of the time that we were at the beach.

Josiah LOVED the beach and figured out that he could actually swim while we were at this beach. I think that the combination of the waves lifting him helped and for whatever reason he was very confident and was SO excited to actually be out swimming. He didn’t go very far away from the shore, and stayed very close to us but he was actually swimming, on his own!

Starting to swim in the Cayman Islands is a pretty cool life experience.

The rain had eased up a bit and the weather was actually pretty nice. It was warm, but we were not being fried to a crisp by the broiling sun. I was actually pretty happy that it was a bit cloudy because then I wasn’t stressing about sunscreen and making the kids wear shirts and hats and trying to avoid sunstroke.

They could just play without being nagged at. It was a win/win for all of us.

About an hour before we were scheduled to leave, the rain started up again and then…..

Can you see in that picture? Click on the photo to make it bigger…..

Yes, Lightening. We had Thunder and Lightening and it was kinda of cool. It was far enough away but still….it was interesting.

The bus returned for us around 3:30pm and we headed back. The last call for boats to the cruise ship was at 4:30pm and there was a HUGE line up. So instead of looking around a bit, we just got in the line up and headed back to the ship.

It had been a WONDERFUL DAY and we had so much fun. The rain didn’t dampen our spirits, in fact, we were SO looking forward to being at COZUMEL the next day and heading to the beach AGAIN!

If you are interested in looking at all the photos from the Grand Caymans, click here!

I didn’t take too many photos because I was concerned about getting water and sand in my camera.

I’ve gotten a few questions and I’ll be answering them when I talk about the next sea day (which is day 6) so if you had any questions about our trip or wondered about something, let me know and I’ll be sure to do my best answer them.

A Day at Sea

By Monday (October 3rd) we were more than ready for a quieter, slower, more peaceful day. We had been going, going, going for the past 3 days and it was wearing a bit on all of us.

The night before, we had been notified that there was going to be a special breakfast with the Disney Characters the next morning.

The kids needed to be woken up almost every morning of the cruise, they were just so tired out from the previous day’s activities. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but on this particular morning, we slept in longer than we should have and had to rush to make it to breakfast on time.

“Rushing” is not necessarily the most amazing way to start the day, eh?

We did manage to make it down to breakfast on time with our camera’s and autograph books and we ordered breakfast and waited. It was so cool to see how excited the kids were to see Mickey and Minnie and the others. From the 14 year old all the way down the the 4 year old….the air was just buzzing with the anticipation and excitement. For the record, my one year old was NOT excited about meeting Mickey and Minnie….not that he had any clue either way, but when they did come around……he was….well, he was terrified, to put it mildly! He did not like them AT ALL! It was pretty cute!

Before Breakfast even arrived at the table, the Character’s started visiting…

We met Minnie and Micky,

and Pluto….

and Goofy…

It was so fun!

While we were finishing up our breakfast, our head server came over with some special hats…

So Cute!

Maid Marion…

Robin Hood…

Pirate Jon…

This one has me a little lost…..Any Ideas?

After breakfast, we wandered the boat a little, did a little swimming, played in the arcade, had a small bite to eat and then made everyone take a nap. The kids had been hanging in there pretty well, but they were a bit snippy with each other and I figured it was something that a small nap would help…..and it did!

We woke up just before the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party was about to begin and so we hurried down to have “a spot of tea” with Alice…..

There was “apple juice” tea and oatmeal cookies and we all learned how to have a proper Queen’s tea party….we even learned about manners. And then the Mad Hatter came in and things livened up a bit….

“Clean Cup! Move Down!”

The kids wanted to get their picture taken with Alice and the Mad Hatter and so we lined up after the tea party.

By the time the tea party was done, we had enough time to rush back to our rooms, and get dressed for dinner and head back on down to dinner….sometimes it felt like all we were doing was eating.

The kids were so excited because they got things like hamburgers & fries and chicken nuggets & fries for almost every meal (except breakfast).

Can you see the Ketchup Mickey on Siah’s Hamburger?

Or How about Goofy’s paw print?

The Gluten free dinner’s were okay. They were pretty bland and definitely not creative, but once I started asking for specifics….like I chose salmon one night and it came really dry and completely unseasoned…and the next night I asked for it again with a lemon dill sauce…..and it was AMAZING!….it was much better. I didn’t figure I was going to get dessert but this night they brought out the MOST DELICIOUS Chocolate mini cake. And Jon thought to take a picture….YUM!

The nicest part was that it was both Gluten and Dairy free and so Siah could have it and he was SO EXCITED. When he saw this picture on my screen, he said, “Mom, that cake was DELICIOUS, right?” Yes, baby! Yes, it was!

When we got back to our rooms, we were greeted by this friendly fellow…

It looks like Judah is going to “take him on”…

As we went to bed that night, this was the view out our balcony…..

The temperature was still hot and muggy but it had been a grey and cloudy day. We were looking forward to our day at the beach in the Grand Cayman’s and as the ship gently rocked….we drifted off to sleep!

If you’d like to see the whole set from this day, click here!

Do ya have any questions for us, about our cruise? Let us know and we’ll try our best to answer them for you!

Day 2 – Key West

After a good sleep, we woke up on Sunday morning ready for the day.

We headed down to the restaurant for Breakfast.

We found that to get through breakfast took just over an hour which was longer than we’d like, but it was mostly because we had to special order the food for Josiah, Judah and myself….but, the food really was delicious.

After Breakfast, we had some time to explore the boat because we weren’t docking into Key West until just after noon.

We decided to head on up to the pools to see what fun we could have up there for a few hours.

There are three pools on the boat. The adult only pool (that we never even got a chance to check out), the Goofy Pool (that’s the one that Jeremy is in, in the photo above) and a Mickey Pool (that is more suitable for littler kids).

Attached to the Mickey Pool is a Water Slide and Josiah must have gone down the slide over 30 times…

Over and Over and Over….

He had SO MUCH FUN! And we were loving watching him have so much fun! The girls were a bit bummed that they were too tall for the water slide, though! Because Judah is still in diapers, he wasn’t allowed in the pools, but they had this cool little water play area over to the side of the Mickey pool and we let Judah play a little in there.

He had a BLAST playing with the water fountains, but he kept trying to sit on them….it was so funny!

We were really enjoying the hot weather and the sun.

It was so nice to just be able to sit and relax….although I was worried about us burning in the freaking amazing sun. Thank God for Sunscreen!

The ship was getting close to Key West and so we decided to go and get ready to go ashore.

We hadn’t chosen to go on a “Port Adventure” at Key West, but we did decide to just go ashore and see what we could see and find. We couldn’t go very far because Angelica couldn’t walk very well and definitely not very far; and the HEAT…..well, it was a whole lot hotter and more humid than anything we were used to.

The kids found Key West to be a bit difficult because of the heat and humidity but we did still manage to find some fun things to do and see.

We got some gelato…and sat on the steps of this old museum (I think it was a museum!) to eat it.

The baby slept!

Found a tiny baby coconut that had fallen to the ground…Jeremy was pretty excited about it.

It appeared quite busy and so we carried on down the road until we found this alley…

There was a whole bunch of things to see and shops to look through and the best part…according to the kids….there was shade and even a place to sit.

We managed to pick up a few souvenir’s at the little shops. I LOVED the old cobblestone roads…cruel as this might sound, I’d LOVE to go back there WITHOUT the kids. There was so much to see and some really cool pictures to take (if we had the time and just a few less things to juggle).

We got back to the ship and had just a little time to relax before we needed to head on down for dinner. I pulled out my camera and snapped a few pictures. I couldn’t understand why the pictures looked so fuzzy! My camera was all fogged up because it had been so warm outside and we were now in the cold air conditioned room.

Regardless of the fog, I still liked these pictures of Judah….

Here is one shot of Jeremy…

We managed to get all dressed up and down to dinner on time.

I really, REALLY liked getting dressed up for dinner. In fact, I’m thinking about having a dress up dinner at our house once a week.

After dinner, we went back to our rooms to change and when we got there we found this….

While we were at dinner, each evening, the Room Hosts would turn down the beds for the night and leave some amazing folded towel animals. It was a lot of fun to come back to the room after dinner and find out what animal they had created each day. There was even a class at the end of the week that Jeremy went to, because he was so excited about the “Towelgami”.

Jeremy and Josiah went to the Kids Club, and Xandra went to the Pre-Teen Group (and stayed until midnight, the crazy girl). Angelica and Jon and Judah and I relaxed a bit and attempted to get the room a bit more organized.

Angelica was still feeling pretty weak and tired; and she stuck pretty close to Jon and I for most of the trip.

It was a pretty good day and as we headed to bed for the night, we were looking forward to the next day which was a whole day at sea while we traveled to The Cayman Islands.

If you’re interested in seeing the whole set of pictures from this day, then click here.

The set of pictures is a bit out of order because there are downloads from 3 cameras.

Orlando and Day 1 of the Disney Cruise

We woke up on Saturday morning and sometime in the night we had played musical beds…

Well, actually just Geli and Jon switched rooms because apparently Jeremy was breathing heavy and it was bothering Angelica.

As it was the beginning of one of her chemo cycles, she was on the steroid Prednisone for 5 days and it makes sleeping difficult…so little annoyances become HUGE annoyances. Anyway, she crawled into bed with me and Judah; and Jon went and slept in the other room with Jer.

We got everyone up and repacked all our stuff because we had to have it ready for pick up at 8:30am as that is when it was being picked up to be sent to the boat. We grabbed a quick breakfast and then headed out to where the shuttle would take us to the ship.

It was about an hour’s bus ride from the airport to Port Canaveral and when we got there we got in touch with my cousin who lives in Florida. She lives about 2-3 hours away from Port Canaveral but Charlene and Jeff and all 4 of their kids had piled into their van early that morning and drove up to see us. We snapped a quick picture while we were waiting to connect with them…

It was SO HOT! So much hotter and WAY MORE HUMID than we were used to, but it was WONDERFUL at the same time. We were LOVING the heat and the sun. This next picture has nothing really to do with the story, but my little dude is just so cute so I had to throw it in….

Charlene picked us up and we drove to the closest Mcdonalds as we figured that would be the easiest and most comfortable place for all “9” of our kids to hang out and burn off some energy while we (the adults) got a chance to connect and chat.

Cousins

It was SO AWESOME to be able to connect and hang out and see them and chat and…..well, I could just go on and on. It was such a HUGE bonus to this already wonderful trip and I am so grateful and thankful that we got the opportunity and that Charlene and Jeff went so out of their way. You guys are amazing!

We managed to get a few pictures of both Char and I and of all 8 million of our children…

We even got some nice stranger to take one with the Jon and Jeff included….

I so wish that we lived closer to each other. It would be so fun to be able to get together more often. Jeff and Charlene are amazing people and their kids are such cool little people!

They took us back to the Port because the kids were starting to freak out about “getting on the boat” and so very reluctantly we said good bye.

It took a while to get signed in and registered and our pictures taken and all of the other stuff required to get us on the boat and the kids were thankful for the couches and movies playing all over the Disney Terminal.

Finally, FINALLY…it was time. All the papers were signed and the kids were registered and we could go onto the boat….You walk through that Mickey and into the walkway that takes you right into the boat.

And with that, our Cruise…..Angelica’s Wish Trip officially started. It was SO exciting. We went up to the Promenade to be apart of the big Kick off Party….

There was music and dancing and shiny metallic streamers to shake and…….. well, it was pretty emotional to just be there.

Right in the middle of all of all the excitement and partying, Judah just couldn’t take it any more and he just fell straight asleep. My sweet boy, he’d done so well with all the travel and the different planes and bus ride and hotel and he just couldn’t take it one moment longer.

To say that we were excited is such an understatement. It was AMAZING to just be there. We sat up on the deck while the party carried on and watched the boat push off from the dock. It was a bit surreal to realize that we were finally here after months of thinking and dreaming.

It had been a pretty exhausting 2 days of travel and so we just sat for a moment and relaxed….

Then it was time to go and get dressed for dinner. They require you to dress up a little for dinners and I loved it….it made the dinners just a little bit extra special to have to get dressed nice and then the kids were on their best behavior because it felt extra special…We were seated at table 28 and it was RIGHT BY THE WINDOW. Just after we sat down to eat, we were treated to an AMAZING sun set..

That first day is a bit of a blur because we were so tired, but we basically walked around the ship a bit after dinner and then we headed back to our rooms and finally with much effort (because they were a little buzzed on the excitement of it all) got the kids into bed. The next day we were going to be getting off the boat at Key West and we couldn’t wait to go and see what Key West was like….

If you’re interested in seeing the rest of the pictures from that day, click here!

We’re Baaaaa-aaaack!

Well, it’s Wednesday night around 5:30pm and I think that aside from sleeping…this is the first time I’ve sat down since we’ve gotten home.

Yah, things have been a bit busy, a little insane and to top it all off, we’ve been EXTREMELY exhausted!

Fun Times!

We had an AMAZING trip – a HUGE THANKS to Children’s Wish – without them, Angelica’s Wish Trip would have not been a possibility. We are so blown away by the generosity we have been shown.

I think that I’m gonna break the trip up into a few posts because there is just WAY TOO MUCH to share and it would be the worlds longest post if I tried to combine it all into just one.

It seems like forever ago that we were trying to get everything ready to go….

I climbed into bed just after midnight and tried to get my brain to settle down but it didn’t work very well. I’d been going, going, going for the past 3 days and had a horrible time to settle. I fell asleep shorty after 1:00am and woke up at….

It was a miracle….the baby slept through the night….well, he slept all the way from when we put him to bed until we picked him up and put him in the carseat to drive to the airport.

Here she is….the “Wish Girl”. Awake and ready for her trip….well, mostly awake but Oh! So! Excited!

We finally were all in the car and ready to go….

All I’ve got is camera phone pictures and so the quality is not that amazing!

We made it to the Airport perfectly on time and got checked in. There was an issue with us checking in…..a boarding pass for Judah never printed off….and there was quite a kufuffle as they tried to get one printed for him. Finally they printed an extra one of ours and crossed out our name and write his name on instead.

By this point, the kids were hungry and we had about an hour until our plane boarded….Jon went looking for something that would be gluten-free so that Judah and I could eat it as well…

….at this point last night, I had to take Angelica to physio and then it was a whirlwind of bedtime activities and now it’s 8am on Thursday morning….and sometimes I just wish my life would slow down for a while…

Jon eventually found something that was safe for us to eat and soon after we boarded. The whole concept of flying in an airplane was almost as exciting as the Cruise…..the kids were enthralled with the “tv’s” in the back of each chair…

We finally settled in for the 4.5 hour flight to Houston. The early morning excitement (and the Gravol that I fed them) took it’s toll and a few of the kids slept.

The baby woke up midway through the flight and of all the kids, he was the most difficult to entertain and even then, he did SO good!

We had enough time in The Houston Airport to find some food and pick up a souvenir or two and then we headed to our gate and waited there for a while. Trying to find gluten-free food on the go and in unfamiliar places is not the easiest, but fortunately there are enough places to choose from and we were able to find food every time we needed it.

Josiah was so excited about the idea of the airplane and he just watched out the window at all the activity as the airplane taxied up to the tunnel and unloaded and loaded up all the luggage….

We finally boarded the second flight to Orlando and although the kids were doing so well, we were all getting tired. We ended up traveling for 10 hours that day and we were all tired out by the end of the day….add in a 3 hour time change and there is a recipe for a disaster, but it all went so well. I have some pretty amazing kids, if I do say so myself.

We showed up in the Orlando Airport and spent some time trying to figure out where our luggage was and where we were supposed to go and finally we got checked into the Hyatt and found our luggage and went to grab a quick bit to eat…..this was probably the worst part of the day.

We asked for a gluten-free meal and the chef even came out to talk to me about it and then when the meal came, I ate a bite and then looked closer and was sure that there was barley in the rice mixture….I asked about it yes, they had given me the regular portion….I was pretty thankful that Judah had refused a bite when I had offered it to him but was pretty upset that they had messed up like that. I left and went back up to the room while the rest of the family finished up their food. The restaurant was so apologetic, and did give me a gluten-free dinner after that, but it really set me up to feel very stressed about food for the rest of the trip…..

Having said that, if that was the worst part of the whole trip that day….then the day went pretty well, considering that we woke up at 3am and traveled ALL DAY and didn’t get to sleep until after 10pm Florida time.

We finally got everyone to sleep, even though they were SO excited about heading out on the cruise the next day.

If you’re interested in seeing any more photo’s from our first day, click here!

Exile Island – the Wish Kids Edition

Today was quite a day!

Our family took part in an event put on by the Children’s Wish Foundation.

It was a “Survivor” type event, called Exile Island, that took place at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and it was AMAZING!

Every “Wish” child was partnered with a “Sponsor” who’s goal was to raise money for the Children’s Wish Foundation. The day was filled with activities and challenges that the “Wish” Child & Family and “Sponsor” worked together on to complete and possible win!

Our kids were all excited about today, mostly because they got to skip school to be apart of today’s activities. I think that they would have been more excited about the day had they known exactly how fun this event was going to be. We showed up at 11:30am and registered as a “Wish Family”.

Registering

After registering, we headed over to the lunch table to snag a few DELICIOUS sandwiches that were made by Marmalady Catering! AMAZING!

The Opening Ceremony was hosted by Tamara Taggart who is absolutely lovely and after it was finished, the events began.

Each team was responsible to make a flag to represent themselves and seeing as we are headed out on a Caribbean Cruise to Disney’s Castaway Cay……the kids decided that we should be called “the Castaways”

Our Team Flag – The Castaway’s

The Wish Kids were all introduced and then called up to bang the official GONG! How fun is that?

Just after Geli rang the GONG!

Our Sponsor was the lovely, Andrea Shaw of the TwentyTen Group.

It was an absolute pleasure to be partnered with her. She was kind and loving and so SO sweet with our entire family. She made today so much fun for all of our family and we are so grateful for all she has done in raising money for the Children’s Wish Foundation. It’s hard to fully express the gratitude that I feel and so a simple heartfelt Thank You will have to suffice.

I’m realizing now that I don’t have a picture of our family and Andrea and I’m hoping that I can get a hold of one because I know that there was one taken by the event photographer……now to figure out how to get my hands on it?!?

This was such a great event and our WHOLE family had a great time…from the adults all the way down to the youngest member of our family.

Judah…..although I think he was probably more excited about the balloon rather than the day’s activities.

After one of the challenges, the team was supposed to decorate a t-shirt and here was our team’s contribution.

Here is photographic proof that I was actually AT this event. I spent a good part of the day holding Judah and corralling Siah but I stopped for a quick moment for a shot of Siah and myself.

One of the events was a Scavenger Hunt and as part of it, you needed to dig through this kiddie pool full of crumpled newspaper to find certain items….

During the Scavenger Hunt

Siah had been eyeing the pool up for most of the day. He was SO EXCITED when the event was over and the pool had been dragged off to the side and the had the opportunity to jump in for himself…..

And SERIOUSLY…..what event would be complete without a Dance Party…

Jeremy has some MOVES! He’s pretty cute, if I do say so myself!

The little boys were up and down the stairs of the Vancouver Art Gallery a million times and I got so sick of yelling at Siah to get down off the Lions….apparently they are a HUGE climbing attraction for little kids.

The Last challenge of the Day was a Food Challenge….where the teams were required to whip up some Whipped Cream…..BY HAND!

and the Andrea, our sponsor, had to find gummy worms in the bottom of the pie….without the use of her hands. YUCK!

She is such a trooper….

It was a LONG, FUN-FILLED, Action Packed, AMAZING Day. It was a day that we will not soon forget. Everyone is so completely worn out from the excitement of the day, but in a good way….

A HUGE THANK YOU to Children’s Wish for putting on the Exile Island Event and for helping to make Wishes come true. And another HUGE THANK YOU to ANDREA for all her hard work and support.

It was so touching to be apart of this event and to see all the special, inspiring Wish Children. To know first hand the impact that getting a wish makes, is huge! To see all these people working together to make these wishes a reality is something that I will never forget.

If you are interested, you can go to their website and donate now!

To see the Wish Kids, to hear their stories, to witness their challenges and to see that in spite of any hardships that they go through that their spirits are so very VERY strong….well, it’s all so very VERY touching and so very rewarding to be apart of making these wishes come true!

We are SO looking forward to going on Angelica’s Wish Trip at the end of this month. After the event today we were given a huge box full of stuff for our cruise…

But, I think that this post is long enough and so I’ll post about the Wish Trip Box in another post.

I apologize for the crappy iPhone photos, but with my hands full this afternoon, it was this or nothing and I preferred this to Nothing! If you are interested in seeing the whole set from today, then you can click here.

Tuesday July 18

After a full night of sleep, my alarm woke me up to start getting ready at 7:30am, I got ready in 10 min. then waited another 40 for Mia to get ready so we could go to breakfast, again at EuroPan. Then we all waited in the lobby ’till ’round 9:30am for the bus. And off we were to a country club to swim for the afternoon.

On the way there, we went through a tunnel, and I tried to hold my breath ’til we got out. I didn’t last. When we got out of the tunnel I found out the tunnel went all the way under the Hudson River.

We got to the pool around 10am and right away I jumped in the pool, I was the first one in. I swam for about 2 hours in the deep end, which was 8 to 10 feet deep, with two diving boards.

It was super sunny so when we were called in for lunch I grabbed some food and stayed in the shade talking to some new friends for about an hour.

Then I was back in the pool ’til we had to go, around 3ish in the afternoon.

Back at the hotel we had free time. I went up to the suite and tried to Skype home, but it didn’t work on my computer. I tried to get it to work but it still was wonky when we had to leave for dinner at Carmine’s, an Italian restaurant.

(The bathrooms at Carmine’s had mouthwash in soap dispensers and those little ketchup holder container things that you find in McDonald’s and Wendy’s to put the mouthwash in.)

Then we went to go see the Lion King, which happened to be right across the street.

We walked into the theater, and it was HUGE!! We went to find our seats, which, ’cause of who we were, the Sunshine Kids, we got good seats, we weren’t right up close like some of us kids would have liked, but we were close enough that we could still see the actor’s expressions.

The play was A·MA·ZING(said slowly and emphatically)!!!!!!!! The stage moved up and down and tilted and turned and the costumes were SO cool, and it was just like the animated version, just with people. My favorite of the main characters was Rafiki (though in the animated version it was a guy, and in the Musical that I went to it was a girl), and out of all the other animals were the cheetah, and the giraffes. I liked the giraffes because they stood on stilts and leaned on stilts, so they actually were tall, and I liked the cheetah because it had the best costume, the actor wore a head thingy that moved the cheetah head, and her legs were the cheetah’s back legs, and she stood so that it actually looked like how a cheetah stood and the actress held poles that moved the front legs of the cheetah and if she leaned back the cheetah would, like, stand on her hind legs (I don’t know how else to say that last one.).

After the play was over, we stayed in our chairs until everyone else was gone, then went up to the front and got a meet and greet with the cast. They said to ask them anything, so one of the kids from our Vancouver group asked, “What was the weirdest question you’ve ever gotten asked?” And the actress that played the cheetah answered that she once got asked what her favorite type of pasta was.

Then we got a tour of backstage, and the changing rooms, and we got to see where they kept all the costumes when they weren’t using them (most of them were kept up above everything, and out of the way).

And then we all got together and got group photos of us Sunshine Kids and the actors that were still there.

After everything was finished we headed back to the hotel and were told to go straight to our rooms and that we should get ready to go to sleep. I was so tired that I basically put on my pjs, brushed my teeth and got in bed and I don’t even remember laying down before I fell asleep.

And I still had water in my ear.

To see all of the Tuesday Photos click here….

Ambleside

Last Tuesday we woke up and it was just another day.

This summer has been a bit of a bummer. It has not gone exactly how we had planned or expected and while nothing terrible has happened, it’s not been as relaxing as I’d hoped!

Around 9:30am, I decided that if the kids and I could get the house cleaned and packed and ready to go by 11:30am – that we’d head out to the beach. At this point, I still wasn’t sure which beach I would head to as they are all about an hour away from us, but I was determined that we were not going to just sit at home and do nothing for one more day.

The kids were pretty excited and we managed to get everything ready and done just after 11:30am and so off we went.

As I pulled out of the driveway, I was still unsure about where we should go…I was contemplating 3 different beaches…White Rock, Spanish Banks and Ambleside.

In the end, Ambleside in West Vancouver won out mostly because I could park and be on the sand in about 20 steps and with 5 kids in tow and all our gear – the close proximity to the beach, the parking spot and the bathroom were key factors in my decision.

Traffic was NON-EXISTANT and we made it there in just under and hour. The weather was not AMAZING, but neither did it suck. It was one of those days, where it was cloudy, but there was still the possibility of getting a burn if you didn’t take the right precautions.

As soon as we hit the sand, the boys were gone, headed straight for the water. Jeremy stopped long enough to point out a good spot that he figured I should put the blankets down on and I agreed, it was a pretty good spot.

We laid the blankets out and put the baby on them and he instantly crawled the edge of the blanket and picked up handfuls of sand and hucked them ALL OVER THE BLANKETS! At that point, I moved him over into the middle of one of the blankets and then took possession of that blanket. The girls shook all the sand off the other blanket and ATTEMPTED to keep it sand-free…….between the baby and the 3 year, it was a losing battle. I didn’t even try to stop him from loading up my blanket and to be honest, I just didn’t care.

The kids played and played and played and played.

The weather was perfect….warm enough that you could just wear a tank top, but cool and cloudy enough to keep just about everyone else from coming to the beach.

The kids tried to go in the water and the girls went in past their waists…..crazy kids. Josiah went in but decided that he didn’t want to go in, but then fell in and so that was that.

He came up and got a towel from me but from that point on, he was a sandy mess….it was…..AWESOME! sort of….

The kids were playing so nicely together and except for the occasional squabble between Jeremy and Josiah, it was the best couple of hours that we’ve had in a while.

I was able to just sit and then every once in a while retrieve Judah and bring him back to the blanket….and then he’d start crawling back towards the water again stopping every now and then to pick up some random object and put it in his mouth.

The kids splashed in the water, made a sand wall, dug a hole, buried Jeremy, and played on the playground. We ate lunch and had snacks and went to the bathroom and the only mildly upsetting time was when we lost Josiah for about 90 seconds. He had come back with me (from the bathroom) and was right behind me. I guess, when we walked over the cement wall and onto the beach, he stayed on the wall and walked back along it towards the bathroom. I made it back to the blanket (which was about 10 feet away) and sat down. Talk to the girls about how the baby was when I was gone, turned around and Siah was gone…..Xani and I ran around like chickens with our heads cut off and fortunately, the lady next to us spotted him on the wall back by the bathrooms…..I had a short little chat with him and after that, he stayed pretty close.

The biggest downside to the day was when Jeremy decided to not feel well about an hour before we had planned to come home. He was complaining of a headache and an upset tummy and stopped playing, wrapped his head in a towel and lay down on the blanket. Then he wanted to go and sit in the van and was moaning loudly about needing to barf.

After that, We packed up pretty quickly and headed home….unfortunately, the traffic was just starting and we had about an hour and a half drive from West Vancouver back to Langley. FORTUNATELY, Jeremy slept the whole way home and that seemed to help a little. He never did end up barfing (Thank God!) and by the next day he was 100%, so who knows what his issue was????

It was an awesome day and we will definitely be headed back there before the summer is over.

If you’re interested, you can see all of my photos from our Ambleside Adventure by clicking here!

On a New York Monday….

We woke up at 7:30am and went next door to EuroPan for breakfast. I didn’t sleep too good the night before. My foot felt okay, but still hurt from all of the walking and standing that I had to do at the airport the day before.

This is me trying to get a photo while we were driving past….and that’s why it’s only half a picture

We met in the lobby of the hotel around 8 o’clock, piled onto the bus and headed out to the Empire State Building.

We got our own buses for everywhere we went. The Empire State Building has 102 floors total. We just went up the 86th Floor Observatory.

We looked around the Observatory and then went back inside and went down to the 80th floor where the gift shop is. I picked up some souvenirs there for my family. Then we went to the Skyride which is basically a moving chair and a movie but makes you think you are looking out of a helicopter. You see all the different tourist attractions around New York. They still include the Twin Towers because they were a part of New York and they don’t want them to be forgotten.

Taken from the 86th floor Observatory

We went back to the main floor, piled back on the bus and went to Mickey’s Mantle which is a restaurant owned by a guy who likes baseball. There we were fed what I like to think of as a family style buffet, where they brought a bunch of food out in large quantities.

After that we were gonna go for a carriage ride, but it ended up getting too hot for the horses. So instead we went back to the hotel (our rooms were on either of two floors, 37 and 39, and there was a suite on floor 42 that was kinda like a common room area where there were TVs and board games and cards and couches and we could use our computers I later found out.) At first I went to my room and read while I iced me ankle, but then I got bored and went to the suite, where I played cheat, and won, then Scrabble, and won by like at least double everyone else. Then we had to clean up fast and head back to the lobby to go to a Chinese restaurant that I din’t catch the name of.

An interesting thing I saw when I was there was; there are McDonald’s EVERYWHERE!!! Like one on every block.

There were some pretty interesting signs in New York!

At the Chinese place we had another family style buffet type meal, then walked a block or two down the street to the Blue Man Group.

It was so AMAZING!!!

OK, so a few years ago in Abbotsford, in Elementary school, there was a group of guys that came to our school, they had all these tubes and bicycle wheels and tons of stuff that you’d find in a junk yard. And they’d found a way to use these things to make music. The Blue Man Group was like that only like 100 times better, and they found a way to add colour and to make it look kind of techno and add, like, a mime-ness to it, the Blue Men didn’t talk or make noise themselves, they used the tubes and pipes and things. They got the audience to go up, and they gave out paintings that they made right then, and near the end they had rolls of toilet paper attached to the roof and they got the audience to throw it foreword so it looked like really really long streamers while they used strobe lights, it looked SO SO SO COOL!!!!!

When the show was over we got pictures with the Blue Men, and I bought a t-shirt and a Blue Man CD to take home.

Then we went back to the hotel where we had to go straight to our rooms, it was like, 11pm, and get ready for bed. Me and my roommate, Mia, watched some TV, and ended up actually going to sleep around 1/4 to 1, and that was my first day at New York.

To see the rest of the pictures from Monday, click here!

New York – Day 1

Angelica had to get up SUPER EARLY on Sunday morning because she had to BE at the airport at 5:30am. This meant that she needed to leave our house around 4:30am….which means that she had to wake up even earlier.

Jon and Geli managed to get off for the airport on time and they met up with the rest of her group.

After a hug and a kiss, she was off…

They landed in New York on Sunday evening…..

Airports always have neat art or sculptures in them don’t they?

Angelica came home telling us about the amazing vending machines that she saw and it seemed quite fantastical until she showed us this photo of a vending machine full of ipods and cameras and games and accessories…..is that not just insane!

Of course you’ve got to take a photo of the New York Taxi’s…..

They got into their hotel and got settled and after a LONG day of traveling they settled down for the night because the next day would start a WHIRLWIND of activities that would tire any of us….

The view of the sunset from Geli’s Hotel Room.

We’ve decided to break each day up into it’s own adventure and story and so come and check back in to hear more about Geli’s adventure…..

To see all of the pictures from Sunday July 17th – click here!

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