{Wesley & Lola Turn One}

This past week we headed up to Utah to celebrate Wesley and his sweet cousin Lola Belle's first birthday.  It was a little hectic getting everything together but we pulled it off!  It was great to gather with the whole fam and celebrate the newest additions being with us for one whole year! 

Cute birthday banners for all the April birthdays - Wes, Lola & Aunt Lisa (who flew all the way from Seattle to join us for the party)

Cakes were ready to be smashed :)

Party favors for all the cousins

My handsome little one year old!  I can't believe a full year has passed since his birth - and he just keeps getting sweeter and sweeter

Sweet baby Lola is 3 weeks apart from Wesley

Getting snuggles from Aunt Lisa

The babies had fun smashing their cakes. Wes especially loved all the frosting he got to eat :)

At the party we took some family photos since we had everyone in town  - these aren't edited yet but here are a few of my favorites 

That's the whole family!  I'll do another post with some more of the Utah trip pictures / family pictures soon.  I love this crazy bunch! 

{Vacation Top 10}

Returning to reality from an amazing vacation is hard!  Recording all the wonderful moments of our trip helped ease me back into the everyday struggle that is real life.  After a day filled with chasing a mobile one year old who gets into EVERYTHING & meanwhile balancing a tantrum throwing two year old... sitting down and reliving the vacation was just about as good as going on one again :)

So in a farewell to the sun and the sea post, I decided to put my top ten favorites of our family trip 

...and now, back to real life!

{Ports of Call: Nassau, St. Thomas, & St. Maarten}

I decided to combine all three of our port stops into one post for this cruise.  We didn't spend much time in the port cities because we were pretty entranced with the ship & enjoyed it when all the passengers were out and about and we could enjoy the amenities to ourselves!  

Nassau was my favorite stop in the eastern Caribbean.  We ventured out by foot and explored some pretty cool areas right around the ship! 

Off the boat and ready to explore!  Atlantis Resort is pictured in the background.

Fun date day ahead in the Bahamas with my handsome man :)

The main drag near the ship.  Crowded, so it was nice that we had chosen to travel by foot! 

This was the Queen's Staircase site.  This little paragraph explains what the stairs are probably better than I can - 

The Queen's Staircase, commonly referred to as the 66 steps, is a major landmark that is located in the Fort Fincastle Historic Complex in Nassau. It was hewn out of solid limestone rock by slaves between 1793 and 1794 and it is said that it provided a direct route from Fort Fincastle to Nassau City. These steps were later named in honour of Queen Victoria, who reigned in Britain for 64 years from 1837 to 1901. 

Fort Fincastle

Mike striking a manly pose in front of the fort <3

Great view of all the ships that were docked in Nassau that day!

Our next stop was St. Thomas.  We took a taxi to the main shopping area and looked around there & that was basically all we did on that island.  It was amazing just to see how blue and beautiful the water was! 

Watching from our balcony as the ship docked in St. Thomas

Our day out on the town!  Time to grab all our souvenirs.

We didn't even get off the boat in St. Maarten!  We thoroughly enjoyed the emptiness of the ship and explored everywhere and ate ourselves into a food coma because there were no lines at the buffet... hahah!  Here are a few pictures as we cruised away from our last port city -

What a great opportunity we had to explore some of the beauty of the Caribbean <3

{Caribbean Escape Continues: Onboard "Allure of the Seas"}

It was fun after 7 days to switch ships to the Royal Caribbean 'Allure of the Seas' (which is AMAZING!).  The ship is massive and held over 6000 passengers ... (the previous cruise we were on had 2100 guests to give you an idea).  I didn't like how crowded the ship was, however there were SO many things to do that it really worked out quite nicely.  

This week went a lot smoother for childcare - we were able to utilize daycare during the day as well as switching off with Grandparents to give everyone a relaxing trip :)  Here are the highlights onboard Allure of the Seas - the second part of our Caribbean adventure!

I didn't realize RC was partnered up with Dreamworks so we were able to see some of our favorite characters around the ship and during a fabulous parade in the promenade area of the ship.  Calvin thought it was pretty neat to see the characters from the shows come to life! 

Madagascar penguins

King Julian

Shrek & Fiona

Calvin's personal favorite seemed to be Puss in Boots

Calvin was thrilled when Po from Kung Fu Panda stopped to give him a hug and high five :)

I ran into Alex the Lion from Madagascar - sadly I was not with Calvin at the time so I had to get this picture to show him later! 

This was Calvin and I watching the Dreamworks Parade together - my best little buddy.

The ship featured "Mamma Mia" and had a broadway cast to perform the show!  The vocals and music were wonderful and I was so impressed to see this type of show on a cruise!  Mama M and I enjoyed our girls night together watching this show. 

The Ocean Aria show was kind of Cirque type of show that featured divers performing amazing acrobatic tricks.  The pool they dove into was 17 feet deep - I couldn't believe how high they dove - you can see in the middle picture above the diver is all the way at the top of the anchor!  It was amazing to see.

The Ice Skating show was also fun to see - these skaters have won world competitions (most of them were from Russia) and did some cool tricks and the choreography was very well done too! 

Mike and I both have a mutual love for stand up comedy so we hit a few of these shows.  The comedians were great - these were probably our favorite date nights :)

Grandpa Jim discovered this cute little play area and it was just the right pace for Calvin!  He loved climbing through the tunnels and going down the slide - over and over and over - Wes also enjoyed the hang out :)

My handsome little dudes... how cute are they??  

Splash pads and pool time - Check!  These boys are little fish and love to play in the water (as long as it's not too cold!)

The carousel was also a hit - Calvin frequently asked to go ride the horsies and was super disappointed each time we had to get off! 

Finding our way around the ship = this was the Central Park area 

Grandparents were so so good to these boys on the trip!  They enjoyed every second with them and Calvin still says "Grandpa?" every time we get out the stroller in the hopes that his buddy will appear and take him on another adventure!

Mike and I reading and enjoying a peaceful view together - these were the times we used childcare or Grandparents stepped in and we were able to have some time for just us - it was SO FUN.  I love him so much .. how did I get so lucky?

I will let you surmise who was the ping-pong champion from this photo.  Muahaha!

This sign was above the jogging track - I liked the quote and tried to frequently apply it's advice at the buffet line.

A formal date night with my handsome man :) We ate some delicious food and laughed our butts off at the comedy show.  What a great night! 

<3 just us.  I am the luckiest.