Cruise 2011

We had an amazing opportunity to go on a cruise this month. We took our kids and we went with my Mom and Dad, my sister Chelsea and her husband DJ, and his parents Dana and Rand. We sailed out of Tampa, Florida. We left of Sunday, January 15. We spent Monday at sea. Sunday night our family got really sick and I was worried that this was going to be the worst vacation ever. We survived and by Monday night were feeling much better.

Our first stop was Grand Cayman. We went to stingray city and interacted with the stingray's. Then stopped at two other spots and went snorkeling. David loved the stingrays and Kage loved snorkeling. The weather at all of the stops was just amazing.

Our second port was Isla Roatan, Hondorus. We took a taxi over to a private resort and spent the day on the beach. Roatan was beautiful! It was probably my favorite spot, it was so tropical.

On Thursday we were supposed to go to Belieze but because of some lack of agreement with the tenders they canceled Belieze and we went straight to Cozumel Mexico. Kelly, DJ, my Dad, and Dana went scuba diving. They all came back saying how amazing it was. The rest of us hung out on the beach while they were scuba diving then we went parasailing. That was very fun.

Because we didn't get to go to Belieze they took us to Costa Maya Mexico instead. While this wasn't my favorite stop it was still very interesting to see how they truly live in Mexico. Many homes there didn't have electricity. They had been hit by a category five hurricane in 2008 and there is still a lot of visible destruction. We took ATV's through the town and along a road that ran along the beach. We stopped and played on the beach for about a half hour. We went to Senior Frogs for lunch. It was fun even though they totally ripped us off (our bill for 10 of us was $279.00). We all got balloon hats.

We had a fantastic time and wish we could turn around and go back today!

Ice Castle and swimming at the creator

Yesterday Kelly and my dad were finishing their last dive's to become certified Scuba divers. My mom and I and the boys went up as well. We started out going through the ice castle in Midway.
After we walked through the ice castle we joined the guys at the creator and went swimming.

Happy New Year

We spent New Year's eve playing games and having good food with our good friends the Love's at our house!

Christmas

We spent Christmas eve the traditional way with Breakfast all together in the morning then over to my Mom and Dad's that night for a fun evening of food, games, the Nativity story, and of course P.J.'s (Thanks Amber for the collage, I didn't get any pictures that night). Christmas morning was great at our house. We got up around 7:00 am and we were all done by 8:00 am. Kelly's Dad and his wife SueAnn spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with us.

That afternoon my parents came over for shrimp boil dinner, games, and then we all headed off to a movie. At the end of the night I asked Kage if he got everything he wanted and he replied "and more." I would say that made for a pretty good Christmas.

UROC Christmas Party

We had the UROC Christmas Party on Monday, December 13. We had a good time visiting with club members, eating food, and exchange white elephant gifts. Our friend Dave made a t-shirt of Kelly flying a rocket with the caption "I love Kelly Hall" Everyone got a good kick out of it.

December

December was very busy I started the month off with our first grade Christmas program. The kids did a great job!

Thanksgiving

We have had a fantastic Thanksgiving break. We spent most of Thanksgiving skiing/boarding at Brighton. It was chilly but it was still way fun. Here is the parking lot at about 2:30. It was practically empty which made for a great day.The boys after a day of boarding! Cold, happy faces.


When we got home we made dinner. We fried a turkey. It looked really good when it came out and tasted even better.
Here is our table all ready for our yummy Thanksgiving dinner. We had a quiet night with good food after a fun day on the slopes.
We decided to make a Gingerbread House from scratch again this year. It was a three day project. It started on Friday with the design and baking the gingerbread pieces. Then on Saturday we assembled the house. Kelly was in charge of designing and help constructing the house. The boys helped with their opinion of what the house should look like. Kelly ended getting his Dremmel out to cut some of the pieces.
Sunday we decorated the house. I made hard candy for the windows. For the most part the boys decided where all the rest of the candy would go. It turned out to be a very fun house!