Happy Halloween

Another year has past and the best holiday rolled up on us pretty fast.

Last weekend we went to the "pumpkin patch" to get our pumpkins for carving and painting.














Max had baseball practice this week and the coach encouraged the kids to wear their costumes. The coach showed up in a superman costume and Max thought that was pretty cool.


Andy pub bleach on our pumpkin after carving it on Sunday so that it would make it until Thursday and it worked. Normally it's rotting by Halloween due to the weather here, but the bleach worked!


We started Halloween with my work party. This is always a fun event where the whole building is decorated in various themes based on what that department chose to do. My department decided on an Addams Family theme with our decorations. Other departments had games with their theme. Now Max wants and automatic nerf gun for Christmas.






Max decided he wanted to be Bowser for Halloween so of course I thought it would be a good idea to do a family costume. Andy is such a good sport!


Following my work party we went over to the Campbell's neighborhood for trick or treating like we do every year. Their neighborhood is so awesome. Max got many full size candy bars. Their neighbors are very generous.

Here are our costumes complete with the mustaches. The mustaches didn't last very long because it was hard to drink with the large mustaches hanging over our lips.


Max had a blast trick or treating with his friends.


And just like that Halloween is over with and we are onto getting ready for the next holiday.

Vacation: Part 8

It's Friday and we spent the day at Disney's island, Castaway Cay. This is a private island in the Bahamas and it was another beautiful day. It started out pretty cloudy, but by noon it was another hot and sunny day.

We got up early on Friday for breakfast and the amazing view from our balcony.




We spent the day on the beach swimming, playing in the sand and going down the water slide multiple times.










We tried snorkeling again but Max was done five minutes in so I went back to the beach with him while Andy went to snorkel for fish, Mickey and the submarine at the bottom. They put Mickeys and a submarine at the bottom to lure the fish in for better snorkeling. It also makes it more fun for the kids, but my kid still wasn't interested in going out there. He had no problem snorkeling in Cayman where there were no fish, but if there are fish he really is not into it. Hopefully he will be in another year or two.








After a full day in the sun all I wanted was a family picture in front of the Castaway Cay sign with the boat in the background, but guess who was tired and not into it? Yes, that would be Max. Here was our best effort.


Then we tried this.


I tried to get one of just Max with the boat behind him, but that didn't work with a very tired six year old.


We had our last dinner in the main dining room and the kids went to kids club for an hour while the adults had some time together at the wine bar.


We picked the kids up for some night swimming so they could go down the aquaduck one (or eight) more time.

Saturday morning came and we had our last breakfast together on the boat before we stood in line forever to disembark.


We got off the boat and the kids were excited that our ride back to Orlando was in a limo and not a giant van.


We hung out in the airport hotel for hours before our flight took off at 4:00 to head back to reality. Max got a salad and watched one of his shows and he was a happy camper.


We made it back to Arizona with no problems. Grandma L picked us up from the airport and the dogs were super excited to see us, but I am sure they were spoiled by grandma L while we were gone. It was such an awesome vacation and I look forward to doing another Disney cruise...hopefully sooner rather than later.

Vacation: Part 7

It's now Thursday and it was a sea day. This means we were out to sea all day and never left the boat. We had plenty to do on the ship. We definitely had plenty to eat.


We played mini golf a handful of times.




We swam and went down the giant slide quite a few times. I also enjoyed the views of the ocean as we were on the top deck.


Andy and Brian went to a tequila (I think it was tequila) tasting and they had fun doing that.


We played Bingo and Andy won over $400, so of course I had to take a picture.




It was time to get ready for dinner and get some professional photos again.









We celebrated Brian's birthday.


Here's the Halloween tree they have in the atrium of the boat.


We found a turkey in our room when we got back. At least the turkey didn't eat the chocolate left behind.

Vacation: Part 6

It's Wednesday and it was the day we were in Jamaica. This was a very fun day. We did an excursion where they took us to a "beach" that had the giant blow up obstacle course in the water. This was fun, but way harder than I ever thought it would be. It took us an hour to get through it and we all fell in the water multiple times. Our "guide" worked really hard that day to keep fishing us out of the water.












Following our very exhausting activity it was time for some Jamaican lunch.


Our excursion was over and the bus took us back to port. We found out there was a Margaritaville in port that had a pool, so why not stop to check it out. We had margaritas by the pool, sat in the Jacuzzi and enjoyed the waterfall.








Wednesday meant pirate night. This is the night Max was really waiting for all week long. He couldn't wait to dress up as a pirate and use his light up sword and hook. I was looking forward to this just for the family pictures.








Pirate night ended up on the deck with a dance party, live pirate show, followed by fireworks. Max was exhausted after the show so we went back to our room and watched the fireworks from the verandah where it was not crowded.