Austin's 9th birthday

For Austin's birthday this year, he decided that he wanted to have a snow tubing party.  I was nervous about the weather. Austin always likes to do something different for his birthday.  We had never went to a snow tubing party before. 

This winter has been mild. It's a bummer for skiing.  However the day of his party, it was cold.  The temperatures were in the teens.  The kids didn't seem to mind though. Everyone had a great time!  We had about 20 kids come.

On his birthday, he went to school.  Then after school, we went skiing.  Skiing is Austin's favorite activity.  We all skied for a few hours then went to IHop for dinner.  Austin loves breakfast for dinner so it worked out.   Austin also loves smiley faces.  He makes them all the time and he even had to add one to his basketball birthday cake.

Brian traveled to Las Vegas in January.  With all the activities of ski club, basketball and soccer the kids were okay with him being gone. Luckily it was a short trip as well. 

Brian coaches Austin's basketball team.  He's been busy with that. Austin and Brian have enjoyed it too. Sydney continues to do soccer, basketball and piano. She's busy.  She has started to love basketball again. Next year she should be able to be on a team that plays games.  Right now, she just practices once a week.  That makes us happy.

New Year's Cruise

We left Saturday afternoon for our cruise.  We flew to Houston first then to New Orleans.   Brian had a basketball practice Saturday morning.  Then we finished packing and got ready for the airport.  Our flight was at 6:30pm.  We flew to Houston.  Then we only had an hour layover in Houston for our flight to New Orleans.  Luckily he had no issues and our flight was on time.  We arrived in New Orleans at 11:30pm.  Then we took a taxi to our hotel. We stayed at Hampton Inn Convention Center.  It was a great location and they were very nice.  We even got upgraded to a bridal suite room.  It’s the biggest hotel we ever had. 

On Sunday morning, we had a nice breakfast at the hotel.   Then Brian found a street location that was nice for pictures.  We took an Uber (Brian knows how do to that, me not so much, lol).   We got a family picture then we walked around the city.  We walked down to the Mississippi River. It was very foggy.  Then we walked and saw some street performers.  We stopped at a store and the kids got a headband and necklace for New Years.  Then we went to Bourban Street.  The kids were not as impressed with that.  They had several slushy machines all with alcohol.  That greatly disappointed Austin. 

Then Austin kept seeing a trolley and he really wanted to ride it. I wanted to ride it too.  It did look cool.  We found out how to get on and we rode it just a few blocks.  That made Austin very happy.  Then we took an Uber back to our hotel to get our stuff for the cruise ship. 

We were annoyed when going though security with they took half open water bottles.  We always travel with 4 water bottles and empty them before going though security at the airports.  I didn’t think it was a big deal with the cruise.  We have cruised multiple times before without issues.  Then we went to get on cruise they were not giving Lattitudes members priority boarding.  They were just sending everyone in the same line.  Again not the biggest deal but still annoying nonetheless.  Once on board, we headed up for lunch.  We explored the ship.  Brian and the kids did the ropes course.  I didn’t have the right footwear and was fine just chilling and watching them.  We had dinner at the main restaurant. 

On Monday, it was a sea day.  We went swimming. It was a little cool but we still had fun swimming for a bit.  We also did the ropes course.  Austin and Sydney also did the spider slide and the bounce jump.   Austin and Sydney enjoyed watching some TV in the room as well.  They don’t watch much TV at home so they enjoyed this chill vacation.  It was also formal night so we got dressed up for pictures and had them taken throughout the ship.  Then we enjoyed dinner. 

On Tuesday, it was New Year’s Eve.  We docked in Cozumel.  We went to Playa Mia.  We enjoyed it there.  We went to the floats out in the ocean first and climbed on them.  Brian, Austin, and Sydney climbed on the inflatables and jumped off.  I was not as brave.  We played out there for over an hour.  Then we back to the beach and the kids played in the sand.  They really enjoyed it.  Then we checked out the pool, slide and playground.  We ended our time there on the beach.  It was a great day! 

That evening we chilled in the room for a bit.  Then I took the kids up on deck to play.  Brian and I had a miscommunication.  I thought we would just be up there for an hour then we would nap.  Brian thought since we went up there we would not be napping.  Brian and Austin were on the ropes course for 2 hours.  Sydney and I didn’t have much to do.  Finally they got down and we got ready for dinner.  Dinner was not very good.  After dinner, we went up to the buffet for snacks.  We walked around the ship trying to keep everyone awake until midnight.  I was not felling well but wanted to make it to midnight.  We were on the top deck on the ship watching the cruise director smash 2019 ice sculpture and put in the 2020 sculpture.  Then I knew I had to get to a bathroom.  Luckily I made it in time before I vomited everything I had that night.  It wasn’t a great New Year’s for me. 

On Wednesday, we were in Honduras.  We booked a shore excursion for horse back riding.  We thought it sounded cool and the kids were excited about it.  We had a 45 minute drive to it.  Once we arrived, we checked in and got some information (trying to sell us stuff) we got on horses.  The horses were well trained and knew exactly what to do.  We walked around the park then they went into the water to in island.  That was a cool experience.  The water was deeper than we all thought to get there.  But the horses did great.  Sydney said this was the highlight of her trip.  After horse back riding we hung out at the beach until the transportation took us back to the ship. Unfortunately it was raining a lot so there was not much to do.  We also bought the pictures they took of us while horseback riding. 

On Thursday, we were on the private island in Belize.  We enjoyed the beach for a long time.  The kids made a deluxe sandcastle.  They searched for shells in the ocean then collected them for their castle.  The worked on it for hours.  They played a lot in the ocean too. They also checked out the little splash pad area and the pool.

On Friday, we docked in Costa Maya.  This is Austin’s favorite port.  He loves the waterpark there.  We were undecided on weather to do it because we were only in port until 1:30pm. But since Austin loves it so much we did it.  When we arrived it was extremely windy.  In fact, one of the ships were not able to leave the day before because of the wind.  We luckily were able to dock and get to the waterpark.  At the waterpark, they have ziplining. Sydney and I had never done it there before.  Last time we were there, Sydney didn’t want to do it.  This year she did. It was cool! After ziplining, we did the zip roller coaster which was fun too.  The only crazy part is it lands in the water.  We got wet!

Then we checked out the long lazy river and the pool.  We went to the kids play area with some slides too.  Austin and Sydney played together on the little slide area.  Then Austin and Brian went to the big slide area. Sydney was not interested in doing the big slides.  Sydney and I played Marco Polo in the big pool.  Then it was able time to leave.  Brian and Austin came over before they did one more big slide that went straight down.  After they were done, Austin wanted to do it again.  Then Sydney wanted to do it.  So Brian took both kids down it again.  Then we went back to the ship. 

Saturday was a sea day.  The kids had also gotten into Deal or No Deal gameshow while on this cruise.  Some guy gave them a used card and they enjoyed playing with that.  Brian even came up with a game that if they had a match on the card, he would give them $5.  They really enjoyed that.  It was cooler on Saturday.  But that did not stop Austin from going down the big waterslides on board.  It was freezing. I had my coat on but Austin was going down waterslides. That crazy kid.  Sydney enjoyed climbing to the top of the rock wall. 

We had a great cruise vacation.  It was relaxing and we got to do a lot of fun stuff.  We do a lot of cool things all the time but our schedules are always on the go.  Sometimes I wonder if that’s what we should be doing but it works for us.  We have very little relaxing time.  Brian works so much so it was great for us to reconnect as a family without much internet and enjoy each other.