With a hint of sanity!: Family Vacation 2012 Mexico

Several months ago we decided this year instead of a lot of toys for Christmas, we would take the kids on a trip. Because of Brett's work schedule in December, we opted to go in January. We booked a 7 day Mexican Riviera Cruise on Carnival.

We flew from SLC to LGB and had a few hours to kill before we could board the ship. We ate breakfast on the Queen Mary, which is a big ship/hotel/entertainment place in the harbor where our cruise ship was docked. After breakfast we took a bus to downtown to play. We found this great Dollar bookstore, full of used books, and while we were reading/browsing Derrick wet his pants. Ugh. All of our luggage was a bus ride away checked at the port, and we had planned to see a movie that was starting a few minutes later. So, we looked for a clothing store. There was NONE nearby. We tried gift shops, only T-shirts. Ugh. So, I did some quick thinking. I bribed Dillan to give Derrick his underwear (It cost me $4), and then I took off the tank top I had on under my shirt and put it on Derrick under his shirt. So, basically he had on a skirt. So cute. Of course, we could not find a bathroom to do this in, so we did the clothing swap in a photo booth! Haha We all had a good laugh. Then we sat outside the theater and played UNO until it opened. I took a nap in the dark theater, and the kids watched that new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie.

Then we went back and got on the ship! The kids were pretty excited the first night for dinner! Lexi, did not quite make it though, she konked out part way through!

She was cold so she used the napkin like a blanket and fell right to sleep!

We got all dressed up for the fancy nights! Well sort of. As dressed up as we tend to get.

Derrick loved having his Wendi along for the fun. At least he did the first few days.

Lexi mostly enjoyed just getting to spend time with her Daddy. She is such a daddy's girl!

We had more nights of sleeping on the dining room chairs.

The kids had a great time with the napkins. The various crew members made them all kinds of little animals, hats, etc. with the napkins. The kids loved it.

Along with a lot of fun in the dining room singing, swinging our napkins, and watching the wait staff do the dances, and what not. I personally just loved having everyone fed, and not having to cook or clean any of it myself! It was cute to see what the kids would order, and how different their orders were from what I expected.

We enjoyed a number of towel animals, and the kids thought they were pretty cool. Each day they would put in their requests for what towel animal they wanted to see that night. One night Dillan asked for Transformers, and Lexi for a Unicorn. haha so them. They got a polar bear eating a fish instead!

We had some great days on land. We went to Cabo and Puerto Vallarta. Our first day in Cabo we did a whale watching tour, a land tour, and played on the beach. We saw a pod of 3-4 whalaes, we weren't really sure. I will post video later. I got a couple pictures though. We saw sea lions, and birds. We enjoyed the beach a lot! So much that we opted to do that and shopping on our second day in Cabo. It was really fun. On that day, Lexi got her hair braided by a couple of women on the beach, and the boys played with this really playful dog. The pictures got all out of order so I will just caption them! Enjoy!

Fun drinks in Puerto Vallarta at the Zip Line place!

Chocolate night on board the ship! Yum.

Dillan got a frozen lemonade, it was the yummiest one!

It was Wendi's birthday while we were there, so we went Zip Lining and then had the wait staff sing to her at dinner. I think it was a pretty fun birthday!

Derrick basically sat on my lap for every meal

Derrick got sick a couple days in and was running a fever, he slept a lot for a couple days.

Zip line bandanas, unfortunately, after we got there and paid they told us Derrick couldn't go. So I stayed with Derrick and the other 4 went, while we ate, and just sat around. But we got the cool bandanas anyway.