The CRUISE

 For about nine months we have been looking forward to our Disney Cruise.  Every few days Josh has come to me and said, "how much longer til we go on our cruise?"  To which I told him to be patient and let him know how many months away it still was!  But our day finally arrived!  We could hardly contain our excitement as we pulled into the Los Angeles Harbor and were greeted by this boat.  The DISNEY WONDER.  It became our home for a week.  The kids LOVED it.  I would highly recommend this cruise to anyone.  We had a blast with our Chugg Family cousins.  All were in attendance except for Jason's family.  Jason is deployed and Heather is very pregnant. 

 Happy Kids at Breakfast.....

 Hanna and cousin Ellie were inseperable the entire week. 

Donuts for breakfast anyone?   How about two....or three....french toast?  Pancakes, oatmeal, eggs, cereal, Whatever your heart desires!  Jake loved to eat the donuts (see crumbs on face) and the french toast! 

 STAY CLASSY boys! 

 Austin, Andrew, and Audrey

This dining room was one of our favorites all week.  It was called the animators palette.  It was done in all black in white and had screens all around the room .  Then half way through dinner it the screens and pictures turned to color.  There were tall paint brushes as columns everywhere.  It was really a fun place to dine.  As for what was on the menu:  For the kids always pizza or mac n cheese.  I don't think Josh ever complained about food the entire week since he ate cheese pizza, mac n cheese, chicken nuggets, fries, and ice-cream all week.  Don't judge.  We were on vacation.....vacation from trying to get him to eat healthy dinners. 

 Lovely.  I think that our kids put the 'formal' in formal night. 

 We were greeted by these cute towel animals every night and 4 chocolates which Cole ate all of each night.  Every time we would walk in the room he would ask for Chocolate?  We had to explain that it only came at bedtime with the turn down service! 

Our Second day at sea we had to wake up super early for our character breakfast.  It was early, but worth it! 

 Dave and Sara and kids

 Goofy Sara

 Most of the cousins with Mickey except for Colette's family who slept in since they have done the character breakfast before. 

 We swam all afternoon and met some character friends on the deck!  oh yeah and ate pizza, hot dogs, burgers, chicken fingers, panini sandwiches, wraps fruit and ice-cream all poolside!! 

Austin, Carter, Andrew, and John

Anthony and Family come to town

Jared flew to Utah to buy a van for our upcoming move in Mid March. While he didn't purchase the van (a long story), he was able to bring Rachel and the kids back with him for a visit. They were already planning on coming to Vegas for a long weekend so it worked well to extend it through the week. Anthony flew in a few nights later and joined in the fun too. We had such a great time when they were here!!

One day we took in some sights downtown.  We parked at the MGM and walked through to see the Lions.  They were mostly sleeping and a little unexciting.  Then we walked to the M&M store.  Its so cute in there and the kids loved it!  We let each of the kids pick a bag of M&M's.  I got some for the school kids too. 

The kids got plenty of time together playing outside and rough housing together.  Sabrina and Josh are the same age and Oliver and Cole are the same.  Its a perfect match!

We swam in the hot tub

This hike is right by the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead.  Its called "Six Tunnels".  Its where I raced the weekend before.  They used the tunnels during the construction of the Dam back in the day.  I thought it was beautiful so I wanted to go back and hike it with Anthony and Rachel.  We only hiked two of the tunnels....considering the age range of our group!  We ate a picnic lunch and the kids climbed around the tunnels and rocks. 

Anthony and Oliver... I love this picture.  Anthony and Rachel are the best parents.  I totally admire them. 

Cole and Oliver doing what they do best.  Yelling and making the other one cry.  Cole can be a bit of a bully and sweet Oliver gets his feelings hurt. 

Jake was the best helper on this hike.  He helped with the little boys and pushed the stroller, and ran errands for Aunt Rachel.  He even let Sabrina have the first pick of his wild flower bouquet....and watched as she took his favorite orange ones.  He is such a sweet kid. 

To finish this night, we headed over the the Hoover Dam to take pictures and then turned around and headed over the new bridge.  I have had serious anxiety over this bridge.  It is massive and watching it be constructed was crazy.  It is so high up there!  To see it is amazing.  Anthony is a engineer.  He was super impressed at the engineering feat of this bridge.  This picture doesn't do it justice because it was getting so dark...so I will include a day time one.  The funny part is that when we actually drove over it....you can't even really tell you are on it.  They have built up the walls next to it really high so its hard to see anything but cement.  Thankfully because I was driving and a little nervous!  

It happened to be almost Anthony's birthday when they were here.  So I coordinated with Rachel to make it a memorable one.  I helped them get tickets for Beatles LOVE downtown and watched their kids so they could go.  Then we got them a dinner reservation at Max Brenner.  Its this new restaraunt here in town that is known for chocolate and interesting food.  They dust your fries with cocoa and add hints of chocolate in everything like the BBQ sauce and Ranch dip.  It turned out to be a really fun night for them.  I was glad they were here to have babysitters so they could really enjoy the evening. 

On Sunday we had a nice dinner and this dessert to celebrate Anthony's birthday AGAIN!  Love you guys!! Thanks for coming.