The Alexanders

Last month Craig and I took a cruise! Can you believe we were able to get away ALONE for a whole entire week?! Seriously. We did. Thanks to Craig’s brother Chris for a couple of Southwest Buddy Passes, we were able to fly for free to Ft. Lauderdale where we caught the Carnival Freedom which cruised to Key West, FL, the Grand Cayman Islands, and then finally to Jamaica. We had an awesome time! We left on a Saturday and returned on the following Saturday, and I didn’t really miss the girls too much until about Wednesday. By then I was really missing them and needing some hugs and kisses. But we made it through and finally got back home to them late the following Saturday night where we could not even wake them up from sleep to hug us! We tried, we really did, but they were zonked out!

Here is a recap of our trip:

Saturday we flew to Florida and spent the night in Ft. Lauderdale so we were already there the day before and had plenty of time to get to the ship and get everything done before they disembarked. (Yeah, we got the ship lingo down. Ha ha!)

I was not prepared for the size of the ship. I mean, I knew cruise ships were big, but my goodness. It is literally like a floating city! Or maybe a huge floating hotel. Anyway, it was awesome.

It was so much fun doing whatever we wanted and not having to worry about anyone’s eating schedule or napping schedule! We did eat a lot and take naps, but whenever we wanted to. :)

The ship had 11 decks I think and the below picture was deck 9, the open deck with a couple of pools and this awesome water slide. There was so much to do around the ship that you could be playing a trivia game with a group of people, laying by the pool, eating, gambling, drinking, dancing, playing putt-putt (I beat Craig severely each time we played!), volleyball, basketball, working out, or any number of other things anytime you wanted. Plus there was a real live show every night with incredible singers and dancers!

This picture was one of the lounge areas with a bar where there was almost always live music. There was live music pretty much in every lounge, bar, or club every night. It really added a lot.

The food and the service were both incredible. We had service in our room twice a day and at night when they turned down the bed and put chocolates on the pillows, they would make these cute little towel animals every time using my sunglasses which were on the desk.

We had a certain dining room to eat dinner in if we wanted to go somewhere nice and the food was SO good! We did have a table to ourselves but it was so close to other tables that we always ended up talking with the other people before long. It was more awkward not to talk! I first thought I would hate this and it would be too awkward but I actually enjoyed it and by the end of the cruise we were friends with one couple that we were seated by several times! It was cool to meet new people and hear their experiences on the islands and the ship.

Anyway every night the dinner was an appetizer, salad, main course, and dessert! And you could choose more than one item from each course if you wanted! It was already paid for, so go for it, right? One of my favorite desserts was this chocolate melting cake (like a lava cake), and I had to take a picture for Avery one night when they brought it to me with an extra ice cream and said, “Here you go…Mickey Mouse!”

Going with the food subject, one night we made a reservation at the incredible steakhouse onboard which was the only restaurant that you had to pay extra for. It wasn’t included in the price of the cruise but was only an extra $30 a person more so we tried it out and I seriously wish we would’ve gone another night! I ordered Surf and Turf, Craig of course got a steak, and we snapped pictures of most courses. It was SO SO good.

(Forgive our poor food photography skills!)

My Crab Cake appetizer

Craig’s Portobello Mushroom and Tomato appetizer

Craig’s steak (I think ribeye)

My Surf and Turf (I’ll have to admit that I didn’t like lobster as much as I thought I would. I thought I’d had it before, but I didn’t love it as much as all the other seafood I’ve had. Kind of tough.)

Craig’s fruitini dessert {they had fresh fruit everywhere on this ship and always an option for dessert so Craig was in heaven because this is his favorite thing for dessert. Isn’t that weird? I mean, sickening? :) }

A true dessert…the chocolate sampler, a different chocolate dessert in each little cup.

I seriously gained weight on this trip although I was too chicken to weigh and see how much!

So, on to excursions!

First we stopped in Key West. It was the first full day of the cruise and I felt like we had barely even explored the ship, so we didn’t do anything there. Just walked around for a couple hours or less and then got back on the boat. Here are a couple of pictures from Key West.

The next day was a full day at sea which was fun because there was more going on around the ship. Games, entertainment, etc. We felt like teenagers taking pictures of each other and ourselves all the time but when you’re on a trip by yourselves it’s hard to get pictures of both of you together unless someone takes pity on you and does it for you! So here are a couple of those from the week.

Too bad you don’t get to help pick the pictures when you’re not the blogger. :)

This was one of the elegant dress nights. This is as elegant as we get when you have to cram your nice dress and sports coat into a suitcase and have no iron!

We didn’t plan it but we did coordinate most every night! I guess old married couples start to do that. Ha ha!

Again so sorry you don’t get to help pick the pictures, Craig. Here Craig was trying to keep his eyes fully open for the picture. He sometimes (read: always) has a hard time with that! Notice again the yummy fruit he has.

OK back to excursions. The next day was our favorite…the Grand Cayman Islands. We had already planned a snorkeling/stingray trip ahead of time and we are so glad we did! We went on a smallish boat with a small group of people out to an area off of the Caymans where there was a natural reef area that was great for snorkeling! After a while of doing that, we drove the boat a very short way to Stingray City which was just a sandbar area where tons of huge stingrays are swimming around waiting for you to feed them. It was so amazing and I am so glad I did it. Craig is fearless and probably would’ve done it even if they were not tame. I was a bit scared but once I read about it and looked at pictures ahead of time I felt better about it. Plus tons of people do it every day so how bad can it be right? They showed us how to feed the stingrays and how to hold them. The tour guides even had names for most of them because they come out everyday and have gotten to know these creatures. It was amazing and I will never forget it! Below are some snorkeling and stingray pictures. A lot of these are taken with a disposable underwater camera so they’re not awesome quality.

An eel!

The guides showed us how to hold them. They were so soft underneath and Craig was really good at holding them for a long time.

Terrible quality but hey…proof that we had some alone time in the middle of the ocean! (Well, ok, pretty close to the coast, and surrounded by a hundred people and about 30 stingrays!)

We loved this trip and it was by far our favorite thing all week. The next day our ship docked in Jamaica and we went to Dunns River Waterfall. This is one of Jamaica’s most popular tourist areas. Unfortunately we had a second underwater camera that we took on this trip and we lost it the next day on the ship. Someone somewhere out there has a lot of pictures of Craig and I in the waterfall! It was so beautiful, though. It was a giant waterfall that ran down a long area of rocks. You start at the bottom and climb up the rocks and through pools of water until you finally reach the top. Jamaica was a little scary and had a lot of sketchy people, but I’m glad we saw the waterfall and climbed it, too. Because we probably will not be going back to Jamaica…ever. :) Here is an internet picture of the falls. Our tour group climbed it in a line and we all held hands to help people keep their footing just like in this picture.

The second part of this tour was lunch at a nice restaurant on the way back to the ship. They had a pretty nice waterfall there and a nice outdoor eating area.

The rest of the time we were relaxing by the pool or on the decks on the ship, reading and/or napping. We also learned to dance the cha-cha one night (yes I really got Craig to do it!), and enjoyed many games, shows, and dinners as I said before. Here are a few last pictures.

It was so nice to have a great view of the ocean while you ate!

Oh one last thing. On the second to last day, someone on board had a medical emergency and the coast guard helicopter flew out to our ship and dropped their basket to pick the person up! It was crazy and of course everyone was out to get a look.

A special thanks to Chris for the buddy passes and of course to Nona and Aunt Staci who kept our girls happy and spoiled rotten while we were gone! We couldn’t have gone without you all!

OK this is going to be a large post about all of the Easter activities we did and pictures that we took. Here goes!

The week of Easter, we went to my friend Christy’s house so the kids could do a few Easter activities. Christy read them an Easter book, they colored an Easter picture, and then we made resurrection rolls. In case you have never heard of them, you roll out a crescent roll (represents the tomb), roll a marshmallow (Jesus’ body) in butter and then sugar/cinnamon (the oil and spices that were put on Jesus’ body). You then put the marshmallow in the crescent roll and roll it up and seal all the openings. Bake for 10-12 minutes or so and when you open your tomb, Jesus’ body is gone! He has resurrected (or melted)! And then you can enjoy your yummy sweet roll. It’s a cute activity. After that, we went outside for an Easter egg hunt. Bailey really couldn’t have cared less about egg hunts this year! I really thought she would get into it, but no. Anyway, it was a fun time together with friends!

The girls even got to enjoy Coleman’s power wheels Hummer! They had a lot of fun zooming around the yard!

The below picture was right before Coleman gunned it and Bailey flew forward and ripped through her seatbelt! :) It was hilarious since no one was hurt!

Christy has this great Texas-shaped stepping stone which I love due to my true Texas roots! Yee-haw! I remembered taking a picture of Avery on the stone a couple years back so I had to take one of Bailey standing on Texas as well!

Here’s the one of Avery—I was hoping they were the same age, but Avery had just turned 2. Isn’t it crazy how much bigger Avery looks in this picture than Bailey—and they are only 9 months apart! Can Bailey really grow this much in 9 months?!

OK back to Easter…

The next thing we did was go to the Community Easter Egg hunt that is put on by one of the nearby churches (not sure which one). We have never been to this because we are usually out of town on Easter, so it was fun to go with the girls. A man went over the resurrection eggs with the kids and then they were let loose in different age categories to grab as many eggs as they could!

See, this is all Bailey wanted to do—roll around! She didn’t care about the eggs at all! :)

So that was Saturday, and that night after Bailey went to bed, Craig and I went over the resurrection eggs with Avery. In case you haven’t heard of those, it’s a set of 12 plastic eggs and each one has something inside with a corresponding bible verse. Such as, a silk leaf to represent Palm Sunday, or a nail to represent Jesus being nailed to the cross. You go through each egg from 1-12 and it tells the whole Easter story until you get to the end and the last egg is empty just like the tomb was! This is the first time that we fully explained to Avery everything that Jesus went through. From the beatings to the crown of thorns to the nails in his hands. She was pretty surprised by the details but didn’t seem upset or anything. I’m not sure that a 4 year old can empathize much with any of the details, so I’m sure (and hope) that with each year that passes, the story will impact her more. Please ignore these scary-looking pictures of me! :)

After that we dyed Easter eggs and this was our first time to do this! I guess in years past I either forgot about it or was afraid of the mess! I’m not sure which! Craig had to go somewhere so it was just Avery and me, and the only picture I got was of the end-result! It was pretty fun.

I was up really late that night making the girls stuffed bunnies. I had found this project a while back and kept forgetting to make them until, of course, the night before! I really wanted them in their Easter baskets, and to be “green” they were made from some of my old sweaters that I was going to get rid of! I will say that I flat out told Avery that their gifts were not from any Easter bunny. She asked me if the gifts were from the Easter bunny and I said, “No, they’re from me and Daddy to celebrate Jesus being resurrected! He’s alive!” She totally did not care about the Easter bunny and though I hope she doesn’t make some mother mad one day by ruining it for her kids, I do think that it is most important for her to focus on what really matters on this holiday, Jesus’ resurrection, which our faith stands on. So to celebrate, we gave them each a stuffed bunny, a book each, and a CD called Songs for Saplings. It’s a song for each letter of the alphabet and each one is a bible verse to music so it’s easier for kids to learn them! Also Avery got a set of dominoes, and Bailey got some new shirts.