First stop: Roatan Honduras

Like I said before, we pretty much booked this cruise for the itinerary. The first two stops were the ones I was looking forward to the most (Honduras and Belize). 

In Roatan, we rented a jeep and had a beach day, did a little exploring, and spent some time shopping. We found a nice little beach that we had to ourselves for pretty much the entire time. The boys loved it so much they didn't want to leave. As we got back to the port, we ALMOST decided to go zip-lining, but we thought it might be too much to cram in to our day. 

Roatan was beautiful, the people seemed friendly, and we decided that it was a place that we would want to vacation at for a longer amount of time...

...then, we heard after we got home that a Norwegian crew member was killed there in an attempted robbery just a few days after we left...and I started researching and saw how high the crime rate is...now I'm not sure. I never felt unsafe. But maybe I should have? I don't know. 

Before Archer fell asleep!

And after...poor B!

Family pic behind a little restaurant - of course there's always one kid with eyes closed or a silly expression!

The Cruise

Last year was our first cruise. We chose the cruise line (Norwegian) purely because they had an itinerary we wanted, they had cabins that could accommodate 5, and it was affordable. Since we had a great time, we decided to stick with Norwegian this year, but we ended up in a suite on a bigger boat.

It was nice to have a bigger room and some better dining options. We even had a table in our room and enough space that we could have a meal together in our room, which is a very nice feature when you have three exhausted kids!

So this year, our itinerary was Roatan Honduras, Belize City, Costa Maya, and Cozumel. We chose the itinerary for the first two stops mainly, and Honduras was definitely our favorite stop with Belize being a close second (probably mostly due to the fact that we booked an excursion on that stop that ended up being excellent). 

We ended up leaving our camera on board and we're in the process of attempting to get it back...otherwise all we have are a few cell phone pics! :(

Just after we boarded. This was at the steakhouse that is one of the specialty restaurants for dinner, but since we were staying in a suite, we got to have breakfast & lunch there. It was SO GOOD! We ate there pretty much every day. Soooo much better than the buffet!

Sunset our first evening, from our room. 

John turned 33 (!) while we were on the cruise, and we celebrated at the French restaurant on board.

Tampa

Warm weather and sunshine! We have been enjoying a spectacular vacation that is unfortunately coming to an end. I am not ready to go back to 40 degrees, but we all miss home and the pup. Archer has been looking at pictures of Ender constantly, and declared that he never wants to take a vacation without her again. Sweet boy! I promised him lots of camping trips with Ender which seemed to satisfy him. 

Anyway, we started out our vacation a little south of Tampa where my aunt & uncle are staying. We spent a few days with them, playing at the beach and hunting for shark teeth. We also went to a state park where we took an air boat ride and saw LOTS of alligators (and some cool birds, but of course the boys only cared about the alligators!). It was the perfect vacation kick-off. 

Airport with Arch (and his "kitty baby")

Zonked out kids 

Beach!

The shark teeth. Preston especially loved hunting for shark teeth. He was very determined and found A LOT of these teeth. 

John, Preston, Archer, Teddy, Uncle Al, and Bryton watching some basketball

Gators!

Blue Heron

And more gators!

Archer's binoculars that he pulled out many times on our trip

Teddy trying to leave with us!

After a few days exploring the area, playing with Teddy (the awesome poodle!) and most likely driving my aunt & uncle a little crazy (although they did seem to tolerate our craziness fairly well!), we headed back up north to Tampa to the cruise terminal.

As with last years' cruise, I picked this cruise for the itinerary. We aren't ones to care too much for ship amenities at this point, although I'm sure that may change as the kids get older. We are perfectly content to sit out on the deck reading, take the kids for a swim, and let the kids play in the kid's club. But, we did dock next to the Norwegian Epic, and the boys were marveling at the water slides!

Pinewood Derby

A lot has been going on here. A LOT. But I can't really post much about it just yet...so let's just say John has officially resigned from his job, effective the beginning of May. Big changes are going on in our household! 

In the midst of the changes, life carries on. We are going on vacation SOON! My brother & his family are coming to visit even sooner! The boys have their last swimming lesson (for now) on Saturday. They will be starting parkour in a few weeks after a very successful trial class. 

The boys at parkour

And then the ever-present cub scouts. The #1 favorite activity for the big kid. Kid #2 is ecstatic to start next year. Last night was pinewood derby. Preston designed and did most of his car by himself. John helped with the logistics, but I was so proud of Preston for how hard he worked on it. He made it to the finals for his pack! I think he ended up somewhere around 6-7th place or so? Either way, he was pumped to make it to the finals! He's a pretty competitive kid so I was hoping he would understand that he did WELL to make it so far, and I was glad that he was excited about it. He also earned his wolf badge last night, so he'll be moving up to bears next year. Good job, Preston! 

And he's already begun planning out his car for next year!

(His car is in the lane closest to him)

There it goes! 

So Little Time

So many things going on, so little time to blog about them!

Where to even start...

We re-sided our house! We are still waiting on one window, and we need to paint the trim, but that is obviously not happening since the weather outside is very un-Spring-like. 

And on that note, we just spontaneously booked a vacation! We were planning to go next Fall, but for various reasons that is probably not going to happen, so we're going on a cruise! We went last March and had an amazing time...hopefully we will repeat that. I can't wait. And every day, I have to give the countdown to the boys who are bouncing off the walls excited. They had so much fun in the kid's club last time that they can't wait to go back. Sadly, I think they are counting on their favorite person working there and they might be a bit disappointed when they realize new boat = new kid's club employees. 

Otherwise, birthday parties:

Lost teeth...

A little dental work...

Lots of time in the snow...

And rainbow loom messes...

John was gone this weekend (working in Boise), so I've been trying to keep the boys busy which is difficult considering it "feels like -6" according to my phone. And I would agree - it's COLD. The snow is currently falling, and blowing horizontal as it does. Good thing I have a warm weather vacation to look forward to!

Is it Spring yet?

No. No it's not. 

Instead it's currently dumping snow on us. I thought things were taking a turn for the better after our negative temperatures/highs in the single digits, but instead we have low 20's and snow. Ugh. Not sure which I'd prefer, but I'm definitely not a fan of either one! Give me 80 degrees and sunny all year round please! Or at least above freezing. I'd take that at this point.

6 weeks until Spring, right? I can make it!

Oregon just had a huge snow storm (well huge for Oregon), and I was reminded of why I used to like snow and now despise it. In Oregon, everything shuts down. People enjoy the snow because it comes maybe once a year (maybe!), and only lasts for a few days. Here? School and work go on like normal, even with 3 feet of snow on the ground. Ice? Deal with it. Temperatures that feel like -30 with windchill? It's okay, just keep the kids inside during recess (yes, this happened all last week...I felt so sorry for the teachers!).

But enough complaining. For now. And a few pictures to liven things up!

Monster jam!

Swimming lessons...B has now learned to take breaths while swimming, and Arch can swim the width of the pool (no breaths yet). Preston is working on perfecting a few different strokes. I'm so proud of them & impressed at the crazy progress they have made since we started in September!

Under the Weather

My poor littlest boy has been under the weather today. I feel fortunate that we haven't had much sickness in our family this winter (or really, any winter), but occasionally a boy (or two or three) gets a little run-down, and that was Arch today. He's been running a fever and his little body aches. He has been voluntarily relaxing on the couch which is completely unheard of for him! He even took a few little naps! 

Ender was pretty concerned about him. She couldn't figure out why he wasn't playing with her, and she ended up resigning herself to napping on the floor next to him. Really, I think she was probably just irritated at the lack of attention!