November weather

I love fall! I love the beautiful changing leaves. But when you have three large trees in your yard the leaves get a little old, specifically the raking of the leaves.
Ok, there is an upside to the raking....





Eleven big black garbage bags later and our yard was ready for winter! None too soon either because now we have snow!

And snow angels!

Scary and Cute!

We had so much fun on our vacation! But I must admit it was nice to get back to these three monkeys! We kind of like having them around!
We got home the day before Halloween so I spent Saturday running around buying candy and last minute costume accessories that they just had to have!
We had a lot of fun! Who wouldn't enjoy spending Halloween with a vampire, a zombie cowboy and Tinkerbell?







Isaac talked me into being a zombie with him!

We got home and the kids proceeded to hide their candy so I wouldn't eat it! Who me? Never!

Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas!

I'm back with Vegas pics! After our awesome cruise we thought it would be fun to spend a night in Las Vegas and being the royal couple that we are we just had to stay at the Excalibur.


This was our boring room.

But this was the view from our room. Oh yeah!


Come on Jackpot!

Come on Sponge Bob!

For dinner we went to the "Tournament of the Kings" show. We had so much fun! We weren't allowed to take photos and Robert wouldn't let me break the rules and do it anyway! But, basically what it is is a jousting dinner show filled with horses, kings that joust,a wizard, dancing peasant girls, acrobats and a dragon! And you get to eat a "medieval meal" with your hands! The crowd is encouraged to cheer for their assigned king, or in our case, the dragon! We lost our voices from screaming, cheering and booing! It was so much fun!


We were exhausted after the show and bed sounded really good, but hey we were in Las Vegas! We had to go out on the town! We went to the Bellagio to watch the beautiful fountain show.




And of course no trip to Vegas is complete without a picture with Elvis, or Elvises, Elvi?

Back to the Real World!

Well, we've come home to the real world and trying to get back in to the swing of things. I'll tell you one thing, it was really hard to get up on Monday morning and go to work after being pampered all week long!
Anyway, it was awesome! We had a blast! The cruise ship was huge, the entertainment was great, the food was to die for! It was so nice just to get away and have some alone time. Our last trip together was when Maggie was a baby, so it's been awhile. Of course if we didn't have anyone to watch our kids we wouldn't have been able to go so we so appreciate Sean and Angie and Mom and Valerie for watching the kids while we were away. It's so nice to have the peace of mind that your children are in good hands while you're gone.
We left on Sunday morning and drove to Las Vegas where we stayed at luxurious "Hotel Hefe". Thank you Jeff and Maren! It was really fun to catch up with them. They fed us a delicious dinner and we kept them up way too late playing dominos. I hope the fun made up for their lack of sleep!
Monday morning we headed out early for San Diego. I say "we" like I actually did some of the driving, but I'm embarrassed to admit that I dozed off and slept most of the way! Robert is a trooper to put up with me! We left the car at the Park and Fly and caught a shuttle to out cruise ship.
I didn't know what to expect. I was excited and nervous when we pulled up to the Carnival Elation. We boarded the ship at about 1:00 and after finding our room we headed up to the Lido deck for some lunch. After lunch we took ourselves on a tour of the cruise. It was huge! There was a lot to see!



After lunch we took ourselves on a tour of the ship. It was huge! There was a lot to see!



The long hallways of cabins reminded me of The Shining or something, kind of eerie!

The ship left port at 6:00. We stood on the deck as we sailed away and enjoyed the view. The pictures we took really don't do it justice. The sunsets were amazing. The stars reflecting in the water was absolutely beautiful. The lights of San Diego in the distance were incredible.

Dinner time was at 8:00 in the Imagination Dining Room. For breakfast and lunch we ate in Tiffany's Restaurant or at the Patio Snack Bar but dinner was held in the dining room where the fancy schmancy food is. It didn't take us long to figure out that cruises are all about the food! It's everywhere and readily available 24 hours a day! It's all paid for so you can order everything on the menu if you want to! I didn't go quite that far but I ate my fair share of delicious foods and I'm scared to try on my skinny jeans just yet!



Tuesday was our "Fun Day at Sea". There were a lot of activities to pick from but we enjoyed a lot of rest and relaxation too. We slept in every morning and took a nap every afternoon. What a life! The ship had all kinds of entertainment. There were shows and comedy acts, dancing and lots of live music. Cameras weren't allowed during the show but the Mikado Lounge is pretty impressive even when it's empty.

We were told that Tuesday was Elegant Night so I'm glad I brought a skirt with me! There were women in evening gowns and men in tuxedos so we felt a little under dressed but we didn't get kicked out of the dining room or anything so it was all good!

On Tuesday night we watched the Elation dancers perform...for about 10 minutes. The ship was really rocking that night and I had a hard time walking, I don't know how they were able to dance! The cruise director came out and said that they were canceling the show because it just wasn't safe.
The wind reached 50 knots, whatever that means, Robert says that 1 knot is equivilent to 1.4 miles per hour. We did think it was pretty funny to just sit back and watch the people try and walk. The ship would rock to the right and all the people would stumble to the right, then the ship would rock to the left and all the people would stumble to the left. Not that we were doing any better at keeping our balance, but it was pretty entertaining! The waves woke us up that night as they crashed against the ship. It was kind of scary. But at least we had this little towel man to protect us!

In the morning all was well and we woke up in beautiful sunny Mexico!


Ok, so I'm sure parts of Ensenada are sunny and beautiful but I was expecting warm beaches and it was cold and windy. Still it was quite the experience to walk the streets of Ensenada and see all there was to see. We bought some little trinkets to bring back to our kids. The kids would have loved all the excitement of this tourist town. Maybe next time we'll take them with us....maybe...


There were lots of things to do on our last night, the Farewell Night. I thought it was kind of funny what a big deal they made of the last night because honestly, it was a three day cruise, you'd think by the way the staff acted that we were leaving after a month! There were lots of things to do that night. Robert won the Movie Quote contest. Check out the golden plastic ship he won!

We sailed out of Ensada on Wednesday night and when we woke up we were back in San Diego.

The departure was pretty painless and much less complicated then I expected. Almost as soon as I stepped off the ship I felt as if I were waking up from a wonderful dream. I wish I could blink my eyes and be right back on a lounge chair overlooking the ocean. This was a vacation I won't ever forget and I'm so glad we got the chance to go!

I have more pictures of Las Vegas to share but it's late and I'm tired. I think I'll go dream of the ocean!