We had an amazing time in California and Mexico. Here are some pictures of us on our drive up there. We were surprised that it only takes about 10 hours. We stopped in Vernon for some amazing nachos (at about 10 am), and stopped again in Cedar City. All in all we stopped for about an hour and still made it there in 11 hours. When we arrived at David's house, he took Steve and me out for sushi, and the kids got to hang out with their cousins and have some pizza delivered. Thanks for a great meal Dave.
On Thursday Dave took us to Disneyland. It's been a few years, and was really nice this time because the boys took off together, and the girls took off together, and Steve and I got to go on the nice relaxing rides, and enjoy time together. We bumped into Steve's brother John and his family while we were there, we went on "Soaring over California" with Molly, Chloe, and Clara. It was fun spending some time with them. We actually bumped into them 3 times, I didn't think we'd even see them once unless we contacted each other on cell phones. The day at Disneyland was perfect! The weather was sunny, but not hot. The lines were short, we got to ride on everything we wanted, and even though there were fast passes to the most popular rides, we didn't need to use any. It was such a fun day! Thanks so much to David for taking such good care of us. You're AMAZING!!!
On Friday we started our cruise, there were so many fun things to do on the ship. There was a basketball court, which is where Steve Jr. and Conner spent most of their time. Jessica participated in a free throw contest, she won a keychain (by missing all 3 shots). There was a rock climbing wall, each of the kids climbed it at least once. These are pictures of Kaylea and Conner on the wall. The sun was out on the days we wanted to be tanning and swimming. Jessica, Kaylea, Conner, and me enjoyed the pool on Friday and Saturday.
I don't have pictures of our shore excursion on Saturday, I was afraid of ruining the camera, but we went out on Kayaks on the ocean. We went from a beach to "La Bufadora" which is the blow hole by Ensenada. We saw it the last time from a lookout above, but seeing it at sea level was really neat. There were 2 people per kayak, Steve Sr. took Conner (lots of work for dad), I went with Jessica (lots of work for Jessica), and Steve Jr. went with Kaylea. Kaylea kind of paddles her own way (lots of work for Steve). We had to be careful because the waves were pretty big, and we didn't want to flip the kayaks. There were places where rocks jutted up out of the water that we had to stay away from, the waves wanted to push us into them. But it was well worth the work to get to La Bufadora.
We then got to do a little shopping at the local flea market. Jessica and Kaylea wheeled and dealed for 1/2 hour and came back with some amazing neclaces, sunglasses, and purses. Conner got an amazing deal on a neclace, and baseball cap, and Steve, Dad, and I got some churros, and tacos. Much better tasting than American made. A very fun day in Mexico.
This is our last evening on the ship, we had nice dinners every evening. Our waiters always put on a great show for us. On the last evening our waiter came out with a cake on his head and danced around, then he put the cake on Conner's head, and they danced around together. Then they brought out a special cake for Jessica that had candles on it and had "Happy Graduation" written on it.
By the time we got off the ship on Monday, we were definately anxious to get back home. We left at 7:30 right from the pier, and made it home by 6:00 our time. We of course had to stop at In-N-Out one more time in Las Vegas for an amazing hamburger on the way.
