Our Disney Wonder Cruise

I can now say I am believer in Cruises as a form of vacation. This was a first for us, and I have to say it was a fantastic way to explore areas I've never been to and it was the perfect way to relax out in the open seas.

The kids and I had a magical time on our Disney Cruise last week. It couldn't have gone much better than it did (except for the obvious fact of Kevin not being able to come which still saddens me), but I discovered first-hand that cruising is a great activity for all ages and hopefully I can figure out a way to get Kevin on one before too much more time passes by.

Here's a few of the highlights we had on our latest adventure.

We flew in the night before the cruise and stayed at one of the Disney Resorts which picked us up and transported us all to Port Canaveral the following morning. Our plane was delayed out of Detroit, and we didn't actually get to our hotel room until around 1:30 a.m., but we all managed to be up by 7:00 a.m. for breakfast, a quick tour of the grounds, and an exciting bus ride to the terminal.

Pulling up to Port on Disney's Magical Express Bus.
You can see the ship out the window which brought on a lot of happy excitement!

Kyler, Jordan, and I had a lot of fun making magnets on our home computer for our stateroom doors. This was the boys door...Stateroom 2640.
Caleb and I stayed in the adjoining Stateroom #2638.

Inside our Stateroom.
We didn't pay for a veranda room, but we were upgraded to ocean-view rooms which came with these huge 4 foot porthole windows to gaze out of.

Our first meal on the ship.
We were anxious for the boat to sail.

The "Celebration Away" Party on deck 9 and 10 of the ship. Disney throws a great party to rev. up the excitement before pulling out to sea.

The boys each got a small goody-bag from me with bubbles, sunglasses, and a pin to celebrate the day.

We're officially off and sailing!

The views were amazing.

We saw a lot of characters along the way including Donald, Daisy, Pluto, Goofy, Lilo, Stitch, Chip & Dale, Peter Pan, Cinderella, Belle, Ariel, Captain Hook, Jack Sparrow, and of course Mickey and Minnie.

Meeting Captain Hook.

Kyler and Caleb in the Mickey Mouse kid Pool.
The Wonder also has a family pool and an adults-only pool area on the ship.

We had fun snapping pictures with all the Characters and getting their autographs for our keepsake book we made at home.

Kyler and I got off the ship for a super quick stroll in Nassau, Bahamas while Caleb and Jordan were being entertained at the Kids Clubs on the Ship.

Pirate Night is a night where all the passengers and characters dress up for the "Pirates IN the Caribbean" party. It's a huge celebration with music, dancing, Character appearances, and topped off with the only fireworks allowed at sea.

Caleb partying as a Pirate for about 15 minutes before he completely zonked out!

Pirate Night is a favorite for all passengers on board a Disney Ship.
We brought along our own Peter Pan to help keep all of us in line!

I'm still scratching my head at how Caleb can sleep through some of the noisiest experiences on the ship. This is smack in the middle of our Pirate Party. We were sitting next to the loud speakers and there were fireworks going off right above our heads. I don't have a picture of Caleb falling asleep during our mandatory emergency drill, but somehow he managed to sleep sitting up in a chair with his bulky life-vest on. That was a chore for me to carry him back to our room afterwards!

We met friends all along the way.

The Disney Wonder

What's a trip to Castaway Cay without Captain Jack?

The Ship "Flying Dutchman" from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies is docked at Disney's Private Island, Castaway Cay.

Of Course seeing Mickey is always a highlight when you're doing anything associated with Disney.
The beaches were in perfect form

And the food was plentiful!

This is the Mickey Pool found on deck 9 of the ship. We loved how it changed color during the evening hours.

A new playlist courtesy of Kyler

To help keep our family pumped about our upcoming Disney Cruise and trip to WDW, Kyler compiled my newest playlist. I edited it down to a more manageable number, but I must admit listening to the music certainly excites me. We're all anxiously counting down the days until Sept. 23rd when we get ready to set sail with Captain Mickey! A BIG thanks to my favorite 11 year old kiddo for keeping us all excited and psyched about our upcoming trip, even if I don't know much about the newest Disney break-out stars like Demi, Selena, Jo-Bro's or Miss Montana (i.e. Miley) I'll still be thrilled to see all of their impersonators and I might even find myself singing along to a little Highschool Musical.

A July heatwave in Utah. It all turned out great!

Sloths, giraffes, tigers and bears. Sharks, and eels, and mantas were there. Saturn and Mars, the list just goes on. A movie about BUGS, and how they abound. Of course there was food, and plenty of it. How could there not be ~ when talking about this family? We had buffets, and picnics, Lion House pie, an even a BBQ cooked by a great guy. The gardens at Thanksgiving Point were a definite treat, but something even more spectacular was a ride to the top of Snowbird's high peak. Up at the top, overlooking the valley, we even found snow in this 100 degree haven. What would our trip be without family reunions, and trying to get pictures to capture the moment. And of course, a true highlight was touring the new Mt. Oquirrh temple....a house dedicated to the Lord here on the earth. It was a blessing to see and a very holy place to be. A week went by quickly, but we managed to do tons. Thanks to our families for helping this dream become another reality.

My family at the Mt. Oquirrh Temple

This is a spectacular place to be and see!
It was a true blessing to be able to tour the inside of this temple before it was dedicated.

Uncle Brooks with his baby, Bailey!

Mireesa and I were finally able to get together and hang out for a while. It's been way to long since we were able to catch up in person.

Another treat was having a family picnic with Kevin's side on Sunday.

Our kids loved catching up with all the cousins they hadn't seen in a while.

We had a nice visit at Kevin's mom's house before going over to the picnic.

Family Picture time....1st up are Allyn and Jillee

Kyler & Hannah

Hailey, Jordan & Dave

My sister Kelcee and brother Brooks.

The Ehrhart siblings.
Travis, Jillee, Brooks, Tami, & Kelcee

The Ehrhart/ Scott grandkids

My Aunt Nancy flew out from Florida. It's been years since I've seen her, and my kids adored her.

Kyler at one of the beautiful pools.

The Scott boys walking the gardens.

Gramma and Caleb

Jordan found all the good smelling plants and herbs and made sure my Aunt Nancy got a good whiff of all of them.

Thanksgiving Point Gardens.
This is a gorgeous place to visit if you've never been here.

Uncle Brooks got in on the action of helping create a dinosaur mountain.

We seem to hit the Museum of Ancient Life almost every time we go back to Utah. It's one of Caleb's favorites.

Mom with a few of her grandkids.

The top of Snowbird.
In a couple months this will be a skiers paradise.

My incredible parents....Thanks for another wonderful trip full of so many memories!

Here's proof of the snow we found. Even in the July heatwave, there were small patches left on the mountain.

Jordan loved the rope towers taking you from level 2 to level 3 of the Museum.

Building and constructing towers and houses at one of the museums newer exhibits.

Navy Pier's Children's Museum had a water room, that was of course a highlight for my boys.

We finished off our trip at Navy Pier in Chicago. It was a great week, and another fantastic trip.

July 4th is a homerun!

Happy 4th of July!

For the Fourth of July we went to a Whitecaps Baseball Game. I couldn't think of anything more all-American then baseball, stadium food, and fireworks to cap off a winning night. The boys had a blast, and I got some good reading time in between the innings (oh, all right....let's be honest here....reading time happened during the innings,too!)

Kevin officially wins the Husband of the Year award since Kevin made me run back into the house and bring along my latest Jodi Picoult read. He knows me well enough that after 3 or 4 innings I'm ready for a change of scenery. This was the perfect distraction for me.

Entertainment was a riot. These puffed-up, blown-up mascots, complete with wiggling tails kept coming out to dance, fight, wiggle, and groove. They changed costumes quite a few times and go the whole crowd on their feet dancing and hollering.


This is the thanks I get for purchasing baseball tickets.
I'll gladly take the credit!
Kyler was a little peeved at Jordan for only getting his mouth in the photo, but I thought little Jord did just fine.

Another Jordan photo.
I stole the camera back after this one.
I like to be behind the lens, not front and center.

A little Chicken Dance and Dinosaur Dancing is always fun at a baseball game!
Sorry to the lady behind us who kept getting memorialized in our pictures.
She'll just be an extension of my family for the moment.

A night of memories!

Great game Whitecaps.
Thanks for a great night!

On to another Note:

I'm trying to figure out why I can't seem to bring myself to plug the Canon into the computer and download pictures. It only takes seconds (literally....today I counted to 5 and voila, picture download is complete!) I tend to psych myself out with anything that has to do with electronics. If an item requires me to push more than 2 buttons or if said item actually needs to be plugged into a wall in order to work, then obviously it will be too time consuming of a task for me to do. I tell myself I can't possibly find the time to sit to add another item to that long list of to-do's, but as with most things I proved myself wrong today. Here I am less than a minute later placing a check-mark next to item #1, and miracle of miracles, item #2 is about to be stamped DONE. I've officially blogged in the month of July. I'm on a roll today! DO you think this means I can now sit back, grab an icy diet coke, and relax the rest of the day! That sounds like a reward well deserved! 2 minutes of work = hours of nothing but bliss!

Happy Summer Days, all!

Time for a new Van

I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and buy a new van. Kevin will tell you I've been wanting one for quite some time, but truth be told I liked my other van just fine. What I haven't liked are the ever mounting repair bills! First the whole air bag system went down and so we replaced that, a couple weeks later the sliding door motor took a nose dive and stopped working. I'll just say I was shocked at how much a new motor was going to cost! While fixing that the mechanics discovered a leaking water pump which needed to be replaced, and to top it all off the transmission is starting to slip. When I go to put the car in reverse there's a loud popping noise and the car stays stuck for a few seconds before starting to move. Of course there were all the normal items too like replacing tires, fixing brakes, and overall maitenance. It's all money, money, money that never seems to end so for the past couple of weeks I've researched all I could online, visited a few car dealerships, got numerous price quotes, and finally settled on a van. We've been test driving it all weekend and tonight we'll go finish up the paperwork. All I can say is this time I need to remember extended warranty! Hopefully I won't need to visit a car repair shop again for quite a long time!