A Lengthy Discourse of Our Adventures!

Dan and I sort of began a tradition of taking our kids on a big trip around their 8th birthday by accident. After her 2 older siblings went on trips out of the country, Callie kept asking when she got to go somewhere.  We told her, "When you turn 8!"  

So she turns 8 this year.  We went a little early, so we could go over Mardi Gras and she wouldn't have to miss any school.  Since we live right by the New Orleans port, it was comparatively cheap to take a cruise for Callie's big trip.

We went on a 5 day cruise on the Carnival Elation. No, not the Triumph, thank goodness! We left on Saturday morning and headed off into the blue blue water!

Callie was delighted to check out our tiny little stateroom.  It was actually bigger than I expected, and pretty comfortable.  Callie had a good time trying on the life jackets and was disappointed we did not have to wear one to our Muster Point.  We did the ship's drill before we left, and honestly, I was not impressed.  I did not feel confident that we would be able to safely evacuate the vessel, should that need to happen. Fortunately, it was not an issue!  

It was really fun to go on a trip with just my little girl!  She was really excited about it and ran around checking out everything.  We were on the 4th deck (floor?) and dinner was on the 9th floor.  Actually, I don't even know if that's the right deck.  Callie could navigate her way around the ship a lot better and a lot faster than I could!  It was a confusing layout and I was not fond of it.   I could find our room though!  We went with a room with portholes- cheaper than a window and better than no window/porthole.  I definitely prefer having light come in!

We spent most of Saturday learning our way around the ship and checking out what was there.  They had the coolest room with a piano bar and a nifty Statue of Liberty that Callie had no respect for at all!  We knew that the Carnival Elation was an older ship, but I thought it was nicely decorated and it didn't feel old.  Just not user-friendly.

 Did I mention that my folks came on the trip with us?!!  Way more fun with them!  

 The ship rocked and rolled a lot more than I expected.  Thankfully Callie didn't get seasick.  Sadly my mom did.  She spent most of Sunday pretty green around the gills and hiding in her room.  Callie and I got out and played a little.

 I took Callie up to the pool and she spent the time crammed in this hot tub with 10 other kids who also thought the big pool was too cold.  Callie would have stayed to swim all day!  She had a good time.

It was Sunday evening when we learned that the Carnival Triumph was dead in the water, and it was announced we were going to be stopping to drop off supplies.  We didn't get very close, since that's a bit dangerous in open waters, with the wind blowing like it was.  Our ship dropped some of its lifeboats and shuttled stuff over for a couple hours.  Then we went on our merry way and left them to suffer for the next 5 days.  

 The food was great, and I tried Alligator Fritters!  It was really good.  We did the sit down, 2 hour dinner every night and loved it.  They had a "Didja Ever" section on the menu of things you might have wanted to try.  The Alligator Fritters were on that section.  Mom tried the Escargot one night!!

One night, I tried the Frog Legs .  Tasted like really tough chicken.  Not something I'd feel inclined to eat again. But I tried it!

Callie really enjoyed hanging out with her Grandpa.  I was really happy to pass her and her boundless energy on to him!  He was a good sport and had more patience than I would have.

We had a great room steward.  She was awesome and did the cutest towel animals for us every night!  

Monday morning we docked at Progresso and  went off to see some awesome ruins.  I wanted an educational shore excursion for Callie, but I didn't want to have to sit on the bus for 2 hours each way to see one of the big ones like Talum or Chichen Itsa.  

So we went to the small ruins of Dzibilchaltun!  Only a 20 minute bus ride, and you could climb on them, AND there was a swimming hole!

 This was kind of the coolest structure.  At summer and winter solstice, the sun shines directly through that doorway!  I thought it was impressive, but Callie was grumpy that it was hot and I made her walk so far.

There were some nifty structures and I loved that we could climb them.  There was a guide, but Callie got bored standing around, so we did a lot more roaming and climbing and I missed all the fun info. 

 So I made up my own fun!

Nestled to the side of the ruins was a Cenote, or a water hole, I guess.   It was shallow enough for Callie to stand up on one side, and deep enough to dive in on the other.  Can you see Callie jumping in?!  She LOVED swimming and for her, it made the day all worth it.  I hung my toes in the water and lots of fish tried to sample them.  I kind of wish I had gone swimming, but it seemed like too much work at the time.  Sigh.  Callie had a blast and that's really who needed to have a good time then.

On Tuesday we docked in Cozumel.  Carnival is stupid and scheduled 2 boats to dock next to each other.  So our gangplank was open for 15 minutes (And they didn't announce that it even was opened) and then closed for an hour.  People were lined up down the hallways waiting to get off and I was rather cross about the poor planning.  Fortunately, our fun stuff wasn't scheduled till 1pm!  Good thing, cuz we didn't get off the ship till 11.  We did some shopping and Callie was so cute, wanting to buy so many things for all her siblings.  She really enjoyed visiting all the shops.

Tuesday was the day we did our super-fun excursion!  We went to the Dolphin Discovery and interacted with Dolphins and Manatees.  We got there early enough that Callie got to swim in the pool for an hour first.  That kid really could spend ALL day in the water! 

At 1pm we went and got instructions, then got to get in the water with the dolphins.  We got to pet them, give kisses, shake hands/fins, and hold up a hand for the dolphin to touch.  It was fun, but Callie was disappointed that we didn't get to actually swim with them.  She had to be 8 to do the more interactive stuff, which still didn't include any actual swimming.

Next it was off to the Manatees.  We got to get in with them and do the same tricks, but we spent longer in the water.  We also got to feed them lettuce (they eat 60 pounds of lettuce a day!!!) and we got to put on face masks and swim around with them.  We really enjoyed the manatees.  They were so sweet and really fun to be with.   Both activities were about an hour long, but less time in the water with the dolphins because we had to get instructions on shore first. We both preferred out Manatee experience.  They were just so awesome!

The Manatees were done a little before 3 and we had to hustle it! We were suppose to be back at the ship at 3:30!!  Yikes!  It took longer to negotiate buying pictures than it did to shower and change.  We were dashing own the dock towards the ship at 3:30, but there was a long line to get on, so we didn't miss the boat at all!

Wednesday was a sea day and I was disappointed at the lack of stuff there was for Callie to do.  We did go to the Towel Folding class and I learned how to make a towel animal!  Just like our room steward!

Fine, hers turn out way better than mine!  But it was still a lot more fun than I expected it to be. 

One of Callie's favorite things on the ship was the 24 hour ice cream access.  I think Wednesday might have been the day she had 8 cones!  She had at least 2 of them every day.  I limited myself to one ice cream cone for the entire voyage.  I wanted to save my taste buds for the good stuff! 

Here is Mom, enjoying the best part of the cruise!  Carnival's Warm Melting Chocolate.  Oh My!  So amazingly delicious, we had it every night.  Sometimes 2 of them!  It was so good, I'm sure I'll  be dreaming about it for years to come.

 Did I mention how nice it was to have my folks come with us?  It made it twice as much fun to have someone else we knew on board.  

And on Thursday it was all over.  So sad to have to get back to real life.  No more having someone cook and clean for me, and no one to turn my bed down at night and leave me chocolates!  It did take a while to disembark, especially since we were the very last group to get off the ship!  We had to be out of the room by 8:30, so we killed time playing games till 10, when it was time to go.

It was a fun trip with my girl and I really enjoyed it.  I would not go on this ship again, and given the option, I'd go with Norwegian over Carnival,  but I am definitely glad Callie and I got to go on a fun trip and spend time together!

Teaser

 I have been away on a lovely cruise for the last 5 days.  Yes, it was marvelous.  Less marvelous to come home and have to go back to being the mom and doing everything.  I will eventually get around to blogging about the trip, but for now, I'm going to leave you with pictures of the very best part!  And I'll tell you, the Manatees were way more fun than the dolphins!

PS  We were NOT on the Carnival Triumph!

Feeling Smart!

 Dan has a handful of medals from his races and they had been sitting in a drawer for far too long.  I wanted to get one of those medal holders, but at $50, I was not going to buy one!  I finally had the brilliant idea to check out regular coat hooks, and voila, I was pleased as punch to discover something suitable.  Thank you Amazon Prime for helping me to enact my plan so quickly!

This is what became of the drawer full of medals.  5 Triathlon medals from North Carolina, 1 half marathon from Dorchester, (but there should be 2, since he ran it twice), 1 5k first place medal from AR, one DC Ragnar, and one Richmond Marathon.  Yeah, just writing that made me fall in love with him all over again!

Since I have decided my method of dealing with life in Louisiana is to do as many fun races as I can, I felt that I needed my very own medal rack, so I got one for me too!

 I know, not as cool.  I have my Jazz 5k finishers medal, and 2 triathlon medals.  Then I put all my favorite Mardi Gras beads on it.

That made me feel quite smart.  I hopped back on Amazon to find a good rack for the kids to hang all their beads on.  We have a lot of beads.  Actually, saying we have a lot of beads is like saying the ocean is a lot of water.  We have been through the beads and have gotten rid of 3 bags of them.  I found a great over-the-door coat rack with good solid hooks and got 2 of them.  I told the girls to sort the beads and whatever doesn't fit on their coat racks has to go.  I thought it looked super cute and it has done a lovely job of keeping the beads off the floor.  Yay!

 Delaney and Rylee's collection!

Marian and Callie's prized beads.

And now, for the last of the Mardi Gras Parade pictures!  The base had their annual parade yesterday and it was short and sweet.  Less fun since school was in session and watching the kids is the most fun part, I think.

Yeah, it is a whole new military since they repealed DADT!

Just kidding, these are the Young Marines.

Coast Guard float.  

Rylee with her loot!  She had a good time and being cute definitely helps you get those beads!

ID Irritation

My children are required to wear an ID card.  Yes, required.  Because you know, kindergartners are too dumb to know their names, and 5th graders need responsibility.  I don't know why they need to have them, but they do. And it annoys me.

Yesterday Joshua came home and said he'd lost his during PE.  Somewhere between entering the locker room and ending up in the middle of the gym, it vanished.  In the middle of the school.  No one had turned it in by the end of the day, so he had no id, no locker key and no usb drive with his work on it.  No matter, his backpack was in his locker, so he had no books either.  Sigh.

Oddly enough, This morning, Delaney could not find her ID.  I make them hook it on their back packs when they get home, so the ID does not get lost.  I don't know what happened, but Delaney's is lost.  It is $5 to replace the card.  Awesome-sauce.

One would think that someone would have turned in Joshua's ID, since he lost it IN the school.  One would be wrong.  The school called me to make sure it was okay for them to make him another ID and charge me $5.  I asked if they were sure no one had turned it in.  No one had.

So it makes you wonder, what happened to it?  Did it get flung under the bleachers, accidentally flushed down the toilet, or heaven forbid, actually stolen?  I mean, it is an ID card for school.  A school you can walk into without having to actually show your ID card.  A school that I can't imagine any tiny 007 agent from any country wants to try to infiltrate using Joshua's ID card.  It is a small school, so I'm pretty sure other kids would notice that a tiny 007 doesn't look remotely like the picture.  Oh wait, no one actually uses the ID cards, so I better hope they notice the tiny 007 infiltrator doesn't look like my child.

How to do Mardi Gras

Last year I was too afraid to venture out to any parades.  All I knew was what I'd seen on tv and there was no way I was lifting my top for beads, nor was I allowing my children to participate in such an activity.  Imagine my surprise when I learned that is not what Mardi Gras is about!  General rule of thumb is, if it is a daytime parade, it is probably family friendly. If it is after dark, maybe not, so check with your friends.  If it is in the French Quarter, stay far far away. FYI outside the French Quarter, lifting your shirt can get you arrested.  The city wants to shed that image.  Plus, you get beads for free, no showing nothin'!

We did our second official parade yesterday and it was a lot more crazy than last Saturday.  It was a LOT bigger, and they shifted the parade route, meaning we had to walk at least a mile to get to the start.  So, right there, you know the parade was a mile long!  We dropped Joshua off and started the long hike.  I pushed a stroller filled with diaper bag, snacks, water bottles, sunscreen, hats, sunglasses and 3 chairs. I'd also packed a loot bag for each kid.

We passed some friends along the way and said hi to the missionaries. 

We decided it was too far to get all the way in front of the parade, so we picked out a good spot  almost at the front.   Rylee practiced her begging technique on the little cars that were lining up by us before things got rolling. She did score some beads and was pleased as punch.  We had dropped Joshua off at 10:30 and were in position by 11:30.

I took a picture of me just to prove I was there! 

Marian and Callie killed time by climbing the trees before the parade started. 

Callie went down to make friends with the Sheriff's mounted police.  She really really loved the horses and was thrilled any time she could pet one.   

Even better, Callie is an awesome sister and helped Rylee get to pet the horses too.  I love these kids!  The parade finally got rolling and the kids were delighted.

Rylee loved getting beads.  She thought it was the greatest thing ever. 

We cheered on the Marine Corps Band.  

The parade had a lot of starts and stops as it went along.  The parade would meander along, then halt for a few minutes.  This could be very lucrative.  If a float stopped by you, they would continue to toss out loot for a bit, which was awesome for the kids. 

Marian has good Loot-Collecting techniques, and I rarely saw her, except when she would drop off a fist full of throws into her loot bag.  She was quite pleased with those chili pepper beads she got and she's handing me a flower here.  The horseback riders usually had flowers, and the girls would run right up to them.  The riders would hand them flowers, and sometimes beads.

There are some great things to see, like the Indian horse.  He was all by himself out there, and a bit too austere for the girls to approach. 

Sadly, Delaney was not good at getting beads.  See her there, if she'd run out, that lady on the float would hand her stuff, but Delaney just hung back and then cried when she didn't get anything.   She's also a bit oblivious.  You have to watch the people throwing stuff.  If they make eye contact with you, you're golden.  If you catch them at the right point in the grab-the-beads-and-toss process, they'll toss to you.  Delaney always seemed to be at the spot when the people were reaching back for more beads.  Poor kid was so sad.  I think she also expected them to come all at once.  Nope, you catch some from each float and it all adds up.  Sometimes you don't catch anything from a float and that's okay too.

 That kid out there is Callie.  She would run right along the floats till she got something.  She's awesome.  She said she saw someone with feather boas, so she asked for one and the guy gave it to her.  She told me all about how some boy was trying to jump up and get the boa, but the guy wouldn't let him have it.  He made sure Callie got it.  That's the stuff that makes this so fun!

You do need to be seen though.  You have to get out there and wave your hands!  Being with friends helps too.  Partly because you can get a bigger spot on the road, and partly because friends are more likely to share! 

We sat with some of our friends.  One of them had brought face markers and Paul, who is in Delaney's kindergarten class, painted this butterfly on Rylees face!  How cute is that?!

It was fun to see all the bands and costumes. 

And there were some dang cool costumes! Or are they Uniforms? 

 Did I mention how Delaney tends to just stand there?  She was in tears at her lack of beads.  And then, she was in tears because she got wapped in the face with them.  So beware, beads hurt and can be flung at high velocity!

 Joshua and his band were towards the end.  We'd finally realized that the other side was being sorely underutilized, so we'd moved there.  It did mean a greater loot haul, but it meant I was on the wrong side to get a picture of my boy!  Aack!  And they had their van following them this time, rather than ahead, so I didn't realize they were coming in time. You can barely see a part of his face there.  He said they waited till 1:15 before they started marching.  The parade began at noon, so they hung out for quite a while!

Some of the floats and costumes on them were pretty cool.  Some were a little odd.  This parade was done by the Krewe of Allah, by the way. 

Delaney did finally get enough beads and stuff to make her happy.  She and Rylee scored some good stuff and they had a really good time. 

Did I mention how much Callie liked the horses?!

We had to get a picture of us in some of our beads at the end.  Yeah, we rocked it!

The parade lasted till 2:30- that's 2 and a half hours!  Then we had that long walk back, but in addition to all we hauled in, we were tired, and we had acquired 4 large bags of beads and stuff! I felt like quite the pack mule.  We made it back to the car.  But then we had to drive to the end point to get Joshua, which was dreadful with all the road closures.  It was absolute insanity.  We did make it close enough to his pick-up point and parked and walked over.  We got to see some of the parade again, but not the whole thing!  Only 30 minutes or so.  However, since it was at the end, they were tossing everything out.  Whole bags of beads came flying.  Marian was begging for stuff by a float and the guy motioned her over and handed her a fabulous ceramic mask.  The really expensive kind.  That was her favorite score.  

We finally saw Joshua.  His band director actually cut them out 1/2 mile early to avoid the worst chaos at the end.  It was 4:30 when he ended.  We nabbed Joshua, got him some food at Burger King, where I'd found a parking spot and headed home.  It was 5:30 before we arrived home!  What a day!  I was exhausted, as were the kids.  They said they had a great day.  Then they ran off to sort through all their stuff.

Other than the great mask, this giant cup is Marian's favorite throw.  I think it may be a beer stein, so I called it her giant stein, and she keeps asking me,"What's it called again?" 

As for me, I just wanted to throw all the beads on the floor and roll around in them.  So I did! 

And now a brief tutorial for my mother, who was unaware that beads came in various qualities.

Beads do indeed come in different levels of desirability. The smaller beads are common beads. The pile of beads under my head are all common, lesser beads.  The bigger the beads, the better they are.  Also, special designs are more desirable.

These are all better beads. Bracelets are extra cool, because they are less common.  Beads with extra special beads, pendants or unusual colors are better. 

These are superior beads.  The purple ones are giant beads.  I nearly got them in the face, which would have really hurt!  The multi colored large beads are good, as are the ones with the pendents.

The kids also got the flowers, lots and lots of plastic cups, doubloons (coin), stuffed animals, and random toys like Frisbees, plastic toothbrushes, balls and drink cozies.