Posing, fountains & bed buddies

When our vacation started Ty decided he wanted to share a bed with Matt since the beds were only a queen size we thought this was just fine because we're used to our king sized bed at home. They were so cute at night watching TV together and then falling asleep. The picture where they're facing each other, Matt has on his sleep apnea mask, scary huh? Ty became like a little child, always wanting to "have some up". He was carried so much while here AND only here. At only 4 yrs old he is really heavy. Our last night I let the kids each play with the camera and we all did crazy things. We probably took close to 50 pictures and they just got more & more silly! On the 23rd we packed our bags, had a great buffet breakfast and then went to the airport. Before leaving we remembered the new packing rule of only taking things in clear ziplock bags and liquids in 3 oz. We divided the medicines between everyone so they wouldn't get confiscated, and got ready to go through security. Brittany said how stupid she thought this rule was, "what if people were carrying explosive liquids? They should make you taste them!" We didn't think too much about this as we were taking off our shoes and putting them up on the belt to be scanned. Everyone got through just fine.....except Brittany! Would you believe they ACTUALLY made her taste her bag? Yep, the benedryl & tylenol! Oh how words can really come back and bite you! After all the preparation and $$ that went into this, it was totally worth it! The memories our family came back with are priceless. That's it! I'm done talking about our vacation!
The last thing I wanted to add was that Jillybean is having a multi-slicer giveaway. If you haven't checked out her site please do. I love getting new recipes from her!

Characters, clubs & pirates

One of the reasons we like all-inclusive vacations are the kids clubs. They're arranged by age group and open at 8:00 am to 5:00 and then 6:00 - 9:00. They all had such fun activities. Ty went on a rubber duckie hunt with Ernie, baked cookies with cookie monster & "elmocised with Elmo. The little girls were taught how to snorkel, had a dance party on top of a full sized pirate ship and many more adventures with "crayola" which was also one of the sponsors for the resort. When we picked the kids up at night we all headed to a 50's restaurant called Bobbie-D's for pizza & ice cream and then went to the X-box center where the kids would have their choice of a ton of games!

One of the fun things we did was the character breakfast. We got to eat with all of them! The kids were all happy (except for Drew who wasn't used to waking up that early, notice his lack of smiles) to be so close to them & get their picture taken with them. A clown came by before breakfast started and made a balloon sword for Ty. He was in 7th heaven until about 20 minutes later when it popped and then oh how the tears flowed ( you can also see the smile before it popped and then his sad, no smile face after it popped). Ok, so only one more day of blogging about my vacation, hang in there.

Water Sports

Everyday we headed to the beach. Most days we went snorkeling just off the shore. We learned that if you bring crackers with you the fish will eat right out of your hand. This was fine at the beginning, but imagine hundreds of fish flocking to you and bouncing off your face mask and swimming through your legs and bumping into you! I seriously had to stop hyperventilating and regroup a few times. On one outing we took a boat a few miles out and that was so fun. We say a HUGE sea turtle, a puffer fish and even a BARRACUDA! Matt took the older kids one day and signed up for wind surfing lessons. They all had a pretty easy time surfing out but once they were there it was hard to get your sail flipped around so you can head back in. The boys each had to be rescued which was a bit hard for their egos. Britt was able to get back but was on the wrong side of the pier so she just walked it back. I know that probably everyone knows that the ocean is salty but it surprised me at HOW salty it really was! I love salt but this was so strong! I am also one who likes my bath and shower water on the hot side. Just going into a regular swimming pool is hard because of the temperature, but I never had a hard time here. The water was sooo warm! I loved it!