Our Disney Cruise!

We recently returned from a fun-filled week of vacation with our family. We decided to take our kids on a Disney Cruise. We have been looking forward to it for some time now and couldn't wait to leave. We flew to Florida a day early and decided to spend the day at Walt Disney World in Animal Kingdom. The kids absolutely loved it. It rained on us that afternoon but it was still warm outside.

Posing in Animal Kingdom

McKade thought this crocodile skull was pretty cool!

Gage doing his Yeti face in front of the Everest ride. McKade and Gage loved this ride, although Gage looked a little pale from motion sickness afterwards. We had no idea Gage got motion sickness until our first airplane landing in Atlanta. Luckily we were at the back of the plane and luckily Jason was quick on the draw and caught all of the throw-up. The stewardess' were impressed. :)

This is Lacey's Yeti face. I know, she looks pretty fierce!

Jason posing with the kiddos.

Our whole family in front of the Tree of Life.

First Day on our Ship!!

Lacey couldn't wait to put on her swimming suit. This is in our stateroom. As you can tell, the kids were a little excited.

Our first port of call was Nassau, Bahamas. This is right after we debarked the ship and shows how amazing the ship was.

We visited the amazing Atlantis Resort and went to the aquarium there. It was so incredible!

The kids loved the sharks and stingrays!

This kind of shows how beautiful and amazing the resort was, plus our cute kids. :)

So this bridge is infamous for us now. This is a really neat rope bridge that goes over an open air aquarium filled with hammerhead sharks. Throughout the day I had been videoing the kids off and on and would put the camera on top of the stroller when I wasn't using it. Right before this bridge Jason took over pushing the stroller. He started going over the bumpy bridge and I'm sure you can guess what happened next. Yup! Our video camera bounced off the stroller into the tank with the sharks. It kind of put a damper on our day. The saddest part for us is that we had over a year worth of video on the camera, including Whitney's birth and her first year. Oh well. It's definitely a story we will remember and I can even chuckle about it now. :)

(this picture was obviously taken before we crossed)

Our second port of call was Disney's private island, Castaway Cay. This was my favorite day. The island was so beautiful and had so much to do. The kids played on the beach for hours and then we had a fun BBQ. After lunch, Jason took the boys snorkeling, which they loved. They got to see a barracuda and many other tropical fish.

This is us posing in front of the Flying Dutchman from Pirates of the Caribbean. It was so neat.

Jason and the kids made this sand dragon covered with seashells.

This is our whole family in the atrium of the ship.

Jas and the kids at dinner one evening. We had the best servers who made dinner so much fun.

The day we debarked the ship was so sad. We didn't want to leave. We were off the ship by 7:30 am and our plane didn't leave until 5:00 pm.

So we headed to Downtown Disney and spent the afternoon there. We ate at Rainforest Cafe, shopped, played at the lego store, got some yummy ice cream and had a great time.

I had to throw this picture in. I had been really wanting to see some wild alligators while we were driving around Florida. I was so excited when I saw this bad boy just off the side of the road. We had to stop and get pictures!

We had so much fun with our kids and the week went by way too fast. We loved the cruise and hope to go on another one some day. It was a great way to vacation with our kids. We had so much fun just spending time as a family without interruptions from the outside world.

Fall Fishing

I got to go fishing with my friend Patrick at Strawberry. We caught some beautiful fish, but it was sure a cold morning.

Funny Sleep Stuff

I went to check on the kids the other night and got a great laugh!  McKade was sleeping on the foot-end of the bed with one leg wedged behind the mattress, one elbow pointing straight up in the air, and his head twisted at a funny angle.  He must have been a cat in his previous life because this looks extremely uncomfortable, but he slept on through my laughing, the camera flash going off, and me calling for Nicole to "come check this out!"  One the note of "Funny Sleep Stuff"  Nicole: has vivid dreams/nightmares.  It is not uncommon for her to wake me up with a shrill scream about the spiders or snakes in our bedroom.  My reflex now, is to lay my arm across her chest and hold her down while I turn on a lamp.  Apparently, I can hold a perfectly normal conversation in my sleep and have absolutely no recollection of it in the morning.  Gage sleeps indian style with his legs crossed and folds in half...talk about flexibility.  Stay tuned on Whitney and Lacey...

San Francisco

In August, Jason and I were able to go on a little get away for a few days to San Francisco.  We had such a great time.  The highlight of the trip for me was going to the play Wicked which I absolutely loved!  It was amazing.  We visited Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39.  We loved being by the ocean and Jason loved the fresh seafood.  I endured lunch at the Wharf one of the days and I think I was the only person in the restaurant who ordered a hamburger.  We also rode on the historical cable cars and visited the Trolley Car Museum.  It was so amazing to see how the cable car system works and see the huge cables and wheels that pull them.  Our one disappointment was our visit to Alcatraz.  Who knew that you had to pre-book your tickets to see the historical island?  When we arrived, the next available tickets were for a week later.  We were kind of bummed but our chocolate sundaes at Ghiradelli Square helped cheer us up.

I have to throw in my 2 cents on this post.  We had a lot of fun doing all the "tourist things", but in particular I got a kick out of all the street performers.  I thought perhaps my brother-in-law, Dave, was down there doing some ballet in Union Square.  (He has been known to throw on tights and perform the nutcracker!)  The Seafood was amazing and Wicked was great!

  

Provo Half Marathon

I'm really slow posting about this, but at the beginning of August I ran the Provo Half Marathon.  Now many of you are probably thinking this must be Jason posting about this.  He's the in-shape, runner, athlete of the family.  But, oh no, this is Nicole!  I really did run a half marathon and I actually really enjoyed it.  I was able to beat my goal finish time by almost 20 mintues which I was excited about.  I had two great running buddies, Audrey and Jenn, that kept me motivated and helped me train.  My dad also ran the race and I was able to train with him a little which was fun.  Jenn is my great friend that helps me get out bed in the morning because I know she is always there waiting for me.  I have so much fun running with Audrey and Jenn and I actually looked forward to the long runs with them.  The runs would go by so fast because I had fun friends to chat with.  I really couldn't have done it without them and I'm excited to maybe try it again next year!