March Break - The Final Two Days at Sea

After St Maarten, we began our long journey back to Port Canaveral (wish it was longer!). Here are some of the highlights of those two days.

Leaving St Maarten. How depressing.

Lucas and I pose at dinner in our snazzy shirts. He even had matching shorts!

The next day we tried playing miniature golf with Lucas. The key word there is "tried." Although the pictures look like we had a fun time, it was a bit stressful. He didn't really want to be there, and we ended up leaving around the 8th hole when he flung his club and ball onto another green.

More face painting from Camp Carnival. This time, he got the Carnival logo. Cheap advertising for them, I guess.

One of Lucas's favorite parts of the trip was an urban dance troupe called Fun Force. We saw them perform a couple of time earlier in the cruise, and then on the next to last day, they did a thing in the auditorium where they kids from different age groups come up and learn some of their dances. Unfortunately, I didn't get any great pictures of Lucas since I was (and still am) trying to figure out the new camera. However, this one shows he was having a good time even if his head is turned. He didn't really do much of the dance, but we were very happy to see him run on stage, given his shyness issues in the past.

After the dance demonstration, the guys from Fun Force posed for pictures in the atrium. While waiting in line, Lucas and Brandon took this picture together in their matching glow-in-the-dark pirate shirts.

Lucas, Brandon, and Fun Force.

I'm not sure what Brandon thought of Lucas, but Lucas definitely considered him best friend material on the cruise. Here's one final shot of them together outside the restaurant followed by our last family photo.

Why, you might ask, did I take a picture of my food? Well, on a cruise, all the food is free so it gives you a chance to try things you might not otherwise try if you had to pay for it. For our last dinner, what of the appetizers was frog legs. Normally, I wouldn't have given these a second thought, but then I figured, what the hell. I'm glad I did since it turns out they aren't that bad. I'm not going to start ordering them instead of chicken wings in the future, but I would definitely try them again.

Some more photos from our last night at the restaurant. It's a little hard to see here, but all the waitstaff were lined up on the stairs and singing to the audience.

This was our head waiter, Antonio. You couldn't have asked for a nicer, more helpful guy. That said, he probably secretly hated us gluttonous white devils with money.

Lucas and I take one last picture in our room before debarking. It may not look like much, but we had a fun time there.

I'm just including this since it was the very last picture from the trip. This was taken during our several hour layover in Detroit. Lucas had his blue blanket as well as a buttload of Star Wars figures, and he was happy.

So that wraps up our vacation pictures. I'll probably go back to trying to catch up on older photos in the next few entries. A quick glance shows that I have some from as far back as September to post so I have my work cut out for me. Whatever the case, I hope you enjoyed this series and thanks for following our adventures!

Easter Morning 2012

Highlights from Easter morning. I'm making up for the delay in posting by putting these up literally 10 minutes after they were taken today.

In case you're wondering about the ears in this next one, Marilu had turned on the coffee bean grinder.

Of the 17 eggs the Easter Bunny left, this was the most difficult for Lucas to find. He was literally looking right at it for about 20 seconds before he clued in to our hints.

Happy Easter, everyone!

March Break - St Maarten

Our last port of call was St Maarten. I think the consensus among our group is that this was the best stop on the trip. Not only was the beach just about perfect, but it and the shopping area were very close to the cruise ship. As you'll see in the first photo below, you can actually see our ship off in the background from where the beach is. We've already discussed going back at some point, either to a resort or possibly renting a villa with some other families. 

Unfortunately, one of the downsides to being such a great stop was that we didn't think to take that many pictures. All of the highlights you'll be seeing are from the beach area.

Once again, we took a water taxi to get to where we needed to go. In this case, it was a much shorter trip. In this picture, we're at the dock right next to the beach, and as I mentioned above, you can see the cruise ships in the background.

I really wish we had a video or better picture of this. Lucas got really comfortable with the floaties in his arms, and he decided to float on his back while bending back his legs and holding his calves with his hands. I hesitate to use the word, but it was just plain adorable. There were a group of college-age kids in the water near us, and they loved it too. One of the girls actually took a picture of him as well. Actually, you can see that group in the previous photo. Kudos to Marilu for getting so many bikinis in the background. :)

The obligatory cruise ship photo. I'm only including it since this is probably the best one we took.

And that's it from St Maarten. If you're planning a trip to the Caribbean, I highly recommend stopping there. We loved it.

I've got a few more pictures yet to download from the camera from the last two days at sea. I should have those up in the next day or two.

March Break - St Thomas

Our next port of call was in the US Virgin Islands at St Thomas. We had a longer stay than in the Bahamas so it gave us a chance to visit without feeling rushed. We started off by taking a taxi to the beach at Magens Bay. This was an absolutely beautiful beach that put the one at Nassau to shame. The weather was beautiful, the water was calm; it was the perfect place to relax.

Here, the gang poses (if what Adam is doing can be called posing) on the taxi ride.

One very valuable lesson we learned on this cruise is that visiting places without using the ship-associated excursions is MUCH cheaper. I think the total cost for the three of us for the taxi ride to and from the ship was under $50 ($8 each, one way). In comparison, the excursion cost around $40/per person! This won't work in all cases, but if you're just looking for a beach, going with the locals is the way to go.

There's not much else to say about the beach itself so here are the photo highlights.

The taxi ride back had some good opportunities for pictures of the harbor and our cruise ship. Being a mediocre photographer, I didn't make the most of the opportunities, but you should at least get an idea of what it was like.

We had lunch at a restaurant that the taxi driver recommended. I can't complain since they had jerk chicken, and that's one of my favorite seasonings. We also spent a bit of time in the shopping district, but I didn't think to take a picture of anything. The highlight for me was buying a 1 liter bottle of Absolute Mango vodka for $15. We then poured it into our water bottles and smuggled it back on the ship. It was pretty good stuff, but by the end of the trip, I'd had about enough mango-flavored drinks.

Before we got back on the ship, we got Lucas to pose in front of it.

This last picture was actually taken in the morning, before we left the ship. I wanted to included it since it shows one of Lucas's favorite features of the room: the porthole. The way our room was set up, the porthole was recessed and had about 2-3 feet of ledge space. Not only did it give Lucas a place to sit and play with his action figures, but he and his buddies had a blast jumping off of it onto our bed.

Next up: the last port of call, St Maarten!

Begone, illness!

Update: Although he is still on antibiotics for pneumonia for the next 10 days, Lucas's fever is gone. He went into school a little late yesterday (so that I could give him Advil that would last the day), but today, he went in at a normal time--sans medicine--and he made it through the whole day so three cheers for this ordeal being over!

Sick Day

Today was a long day with the doctors, but it ended on a decent note. I initially brought Lucas into our family doctor at 11:30 to have her check out his fever and rash. It turns out our doctor is vacationing so we had an attractive, 20-something doctor in her place, which made the whole appointment feel a little like a Grey's Anatomy episode.

She wasn't worried about the fever since the children's Advil was keeping it under control, and she only had mild concern about the rash. However, just to be safe, she had me take him to CHEO (the children's hospital) to get some bloodwork done.

As expected when using the emergency room, the wait was the worst part of the hospital visit. Lucas and I got there at about 1:30, and then Marilu got there after work, around 3. I had to run some errands so I left at that point, but when all was said and done, they didn't get home until after 7. A very long day for all of us but particularly Lucas.

Once they actually were seen, the doctors at CHEO said that the "rash" on his neck was due to broken capillaries from when he threw up this weekend. I was particularly happy about this since it meant Lucas didn't need to get any shots. Before we went to our family doctor, I had promised Lucas that there would be no needles today, not realizing we would be at the hospital in a few short hours.

I'm not sure what happened next, but they then decided to do a chest X-ray to check for pneumonia. It turns out he does have signs of it--not a severe amount, apparently--so they gave him an antibiotic prescription, and then they came home.

As I write this at almost 10:30 PM, they have both been asleep for a couple of hours, and everything seems to be okay. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they both get plenty of rest, and I'm really hoping Lucas's fever is gone tomorrow so he can get back to work. I love the little guy, but I've been at home with him since Friday, and I'm starting to get a little stir crazy!

Speaking of crazy, here's a picture I took of Lucas while waiting in the examination room at our family doctor much earlier in the day. None of this was staged. This was all him.

I'll be sure to keep you updated with any more health news.

March Break - Sea Day

Health update: the last couple of days, Lucas has been dealing with a fairly high fever. When we give him children's Tylenol, it brings it down to under 100, sometimes even around 98. However, towards the end of the 6 hour cycle, it can get as high as 104. We're not super concerned since his fevers tend to be like this, but since it's been going on for 3 days and we just got back from a vacation, I'll probably be bringing him to the doctor tomorrow. No need to get too worried, but I'll update to let you know how it went.

Between Nassau and St Thomas, we had a couple of sea days on the cruise. During that time, we took a whopping total of 4 photos, 3 of which I present to you now.

The first one is just him and Brandon playing on the deck chairs. For what it's worth, although most people are out first thing in the morning, getting the best chairs they can get, I think I spent less than a half hour total on them during our trip. I got all the sun I wanted at the beaches, I guess.

The second and third photos are from face painting Lucas had done while at Camp Carnival (he's a bunny, if you can't tell). For the uninitiated, CC is Carnival's "daycare." It's completely free, and it gives you a place to drop off your kids from 10 AM to 10 PM. It's broken down by age so each age group has its own activities going on. Lucas probably spent an average of 3-4 hours a day there during our trip. It was particularly nice to have a couple of quiet dinners, without him and his cohorts running around the table like hooligans. We honestly weren't sure if he would take to it, but by the end, he didn't want to leave.

I know other ships, particularly the Disney cruise line, have their versions of Camp Carnival that may be bigger and better, but from what we saw of his time there, it was a great experience. We would definitely do it again.

March Break - Bahamas

Our first port of call, on the second day of our cruise, was Nassau, Bahamas. Of the three ports we visited--the other two being St. Thomas and St. Maarten--this was my least favorite for two reasons. The first was that it was a pain in the ass to get to the public beach. We had to hunt down a water taxi, ride that for 15 minutes, and then when it dropped us off, we still had to walk a good half hour before we found the beach. And I stress "found" since it's not clearly marked so we had to wander through the Atlantis resort before finally stumbling upon it. I suppose it doesn't sound like that huge a problem, but it gets exponentially annoying when you have a small kid with you.

My second qualm with Nassau was the quality of its beach. Don't get me wrong, the beach itself was nice enough, if extremely crowded. Unfortunately, the surf was crazy. So crazy that for the majority of the time, Chris (one of the other dads) and I had our back to the surf and were playing a "game" of making sure our kids didn't get swept away. Not only was the surf crashing right at the shoreline, but when it receded, it pulled hard. Hell, I was nervous about going out much past my waistline. I don't think Chris's wife Nicole realized what we were dealing with since she came over to check out the water and got completely knocked over by the first wave that hit her. No injuries other than a lost hairband, fortunately.

All that said, from what I saw of Atlantis, it looked pretty impressive. It would be worth coming back to the Bahamas if we were going to do the resort thing, but as a cruise stop? Probably not. So enough about the overview of the day, onward to the pictures!

Here's a shot of our cruise ship, the Carnival Dream, taken from the water taxi. I should point out that we did see normal taxis on our walk back from the public beach so if there is a next time, that might be the better choice, time wise.

This is the best shot I could get of Atlantis. The place is massive, and it reminded me a lot of a Las Vegas hotel.

Rough waters or not, I have to admit the water was quite spectacular looking.

Just one of the many times I probably saved Lucas's life from oncoming waves. This was a small one compared to some of the others.

Lucas takes a break. The picture Marilu took of the two of us from behind that I posted while on the cruise was taken shortly before this one as you can see I am still sitting in the background. It turned out that wasn't the smartest decision as I got sand in just about every spot on my body sand can get into. Let's just say Lucas and I were still finding sand days later.

Marilu and Nicole relax on the beach. Judging by Nicole's wet hair, this was taken after the wave had its way with her.

Lucas, Brandon, and Jayden play in the sand. Apparently, covering a wet towel completely in sand is what's fun for 4-6 year olds these days.

Back on the cruise ship, Lucas relaxes on his bed. Of the three cruises I've been on so far, this was by far the best stateroom I've been in. We didn't have a balcony, but we had plenty of room for both a large bed (queen size, I believe) and a fold out couch for Lucas. In addition, we had two bathrooms: one with a shower, toilet, and sink, and the other with a sink and a bath. It was a far cry from our last room where Marilu had to open the bathroom door just to shave her legs. I know Carnival isn't considered 5 star when it comes to cruise lines, but I was more than satisfied with this aspect of their service.

That night was the first of two "elegant" dinners, where everyone in the main dining rooms dressed up. Here's a photo of Marilu with her brother Jonathan.

Lucas and I took a serious picture for the camera...

...before devolving into our true nature.

Unfortunately, our new camera was giving us a hard time getting a picture of Lucas and his cousin Colby. They are all blurry to some extent, but this is the best of them.

This was taken a little later, after we'd somehow fixed the blurring issue. Sadly, it's not the most photogenic shot. "Wow, look at that food."

As for this video that was taken in our room before dinner, I have no idea.



That's it for the Bahamas! Next up, St. Thomas!