Cruisin!!

Last fall, a friend of mine asked if I had plans for spring break, which I didn't. She invited me to go on a cruise with her. I thought, "Why the heck not?" and booked it. The kids and I chose some shore excursions to do, and excitedly watched as we got closer to our departure date. The week before we left, Matthew got sick. He had a fever that just wouldn't go away. And he was coughing a lot. I knew he wouldn't be allowed on the boat if he was sick and I was getting nervous. I took him to the doctor to make sure it wasn't the flu. It was just one of those "let-it-run-its-course" things. My favorite!!! (Insert eye roll here)

Poor little dude was NOT himself.

Day 1: Portland to LA
The day we left for the cruise (Matthew was finally acting normal again), we woke up at 4:00 in the morning and flew to LA, and met up with our friends and got on the boat. Oh! And I ordered an Uber ride by myself for the very first time. Once we got settled into our room, we were so tired and I just crashed. Aaaaaand, I ended up sick with the virus Matthew had just gotten over. Awesome. (insert another eye roll here). We ended up having dinner and then just hanging out in our room and going to bed early. It had been a long day.

Sleepy, but excited travelers.

Mini golf on the ship!

The kids loved their window perch in our room

Day 2: Pacific Ocean

We were out on the open ocean. It was sunny and beautiful. The kids swam and went down the slide several times. They also hit the soft serve ice cream machine a few times. 

Day 3: Cabo San Lucas

As we were coming into the bay, we saw a couple of whales breaching. It was so cool! We also saw a stingray jump out of the water a couple times right by the boat. And there were some huge birds flying all over. We found out later they are called Frigate birds. The boys continued their daily ritual of a round of mini golf after breakfast, followed by ice cream. 

We decided to stay on the boat that day and just take it easy. I was still dealing with a fever and I knew the next couple days were going to be pretty active. It was so nice because so many people left the boat that we sort of had free reign of many of the activities. The kids went down the slide a bunch more. They lounged in the hot tub. We all ate ice cream. I read a bit. It was a lovely day.

The boys in their perch

The sunset was so beautiful that night. 

Day 4: Mazatlan

Our excursion for the day was a turtle sanctuary and beach resort. The baby turtles were so cute. This sanctuary has been operating for almost 100 years. They have a bunch of nests that they manage and they watch when the turtles hatch and head to the sea. The ones that don't start walking to the water, they keep for a couple years until they get stronger. Those are the ones we were able to interact with in this big pool. The boys were so giddy to be able to hold the little babies. 

This is one of the nesting boxes and we could see a little one hatching and coming up out of the sand. They were going to be released the next day. 

After playing with the turtles, we went to the resort and the kids played on a giant inflatable slide. Sean visited the ocean for a bit and Matthew swam in the pool. I sat in the shade and enjoyed the warm breeze. 

When we got back to the boat, we needed to refuel with more soft serve ice cream.

There was a paper airplane competition and it was really cute watching the boys very carefully folding their planes. Sean took the lead for a bit, but then it was snatched from him. It was still a fun time.

Day 5: Puerto Vallarta

Our excursion for this day was another beach resort. There was a ropes course the kids were going to do there. While we were on the boat ride out there, we got talked into an animal encounter with stingrays and a sea lion. 

So stoked for a boat ride.

When we first got to the resort, there was a yummy buffet lunch ready for us. It was so good. I finally had some Mexican food. I love guac!! And the desserts were also delicious. 

Then it was off to the ropes course for the kids, but first, flamingos!

Ok, I'm going to interject a story here. When we were setting up a time for the ropes course, the guy asked if I was the only adult in my group. I told him I was. He said there was a part of the course where an adult needed to pull a donkey up a hill, but he assured me it was fine because there was someone that could help me with one of the boys. When I got to the place where the boys got geared up, the lady there asked again if I was the only adult with my boys. I said yes again. She said ok (but I could tell she didn't love that). Everyone else there only had one child participating, so no trouble there. The other lady helping asked me one more time, if I was the only adult with my boys. I was so close to shouting at them "Their dad is dead, ok? It's just me!!" But I remained calm and knew it would all work out. Once we got closer to the part where the kids were going on the donkeys, she said that she would take Matthew and show us all how we needed to lead the donkeys up the hill. It was totally not a big deal at all, because she was there to help anyway. Ugh!!

Back to pictures of the adventures! 

After the ropes course, we hurried down to the animal encounters. The stingrays were so cool. The one we got to touch was named Goliath. Matthew was really excited about this. For a while his favorite animal was a stingray, so this was pretty special. There were some other rays swimming around us too, and they would rub against our legs. 

Next up was the sea lion. Matthew was not getting in the water with it. It was pretty intimidating to be so close to an animal bigger than me. He felt like a big, wet dog. 

We only had a little bit of time to play at the beach. I wish we had another hour to just relax, but we needed to get back to our ship. The crew on the boat was super entertaining. They put on a show for us and they were just all really nice and funny. Matthew was exhausted though, and slept through it all. It had been another full day. 

 Day 6: Cruising back to LA
This was a windy day, but still warm and lovely.

There was an egg drop in the afternoon. We were given instructions and a few hours to make our devices. Then we all gathered together to get our eggs and to see how our apparatuses turned out. Most of them were successful and all the kids got medals. It was a very well attended event. 

 

I was feeling mostly better, but still a bit tired, so we watched a lot of cartoons in our room. 

Day 7: Final cruising day back to LA

This day was so windy, the kids decided not to play their daily mini golf game after breakfast. But you can bet they didn't skip their ice cream!

  

They came up with a little game of rocking these chairs all over the deck. Funny boys

We went to an activity to learn how to fold towel animals. It was fun and followed by a towel-animal puppet show. 

Here are the animals that were left for us each day

Stingray

We think a lobster

Dog

From this angle we thought it's a crab,

from this angle, we thought it's a frog.

Elephant

Love

All in all, we had a really excellent time. I felt like so much of what we did was geared for the kids. I think if I hadn't been sick I would have done more of the night activities. Even with that setback, it was still so nice to get away and be warm and have something other than school to do for a while. I sure wouldn't mind going on another cruise some day.