Cruisin With the McInnes Clan

About a year ago we all talked about going on a cruise with my whole family.  I sent a few group emails hoping at least a few families would be able to make it and TA-DA the entire group...(minus my nephew Buster because he is on a mission) came!  It was a fun bunch of CHAOS!  My kids LOVED it.  They kept telling us that this cruise was way more fun than the last time.  (Maybe because this time they didn't get sick...and they had cousins to play with 24/7)

Last minute we found a good deal on flights and decided to fly.  It worked out great...let's be honest none of us do well on long drives.

 Connor supplied ALL of the kids with these awesome sunglasses.  They all wore them!

 The kids ordered escargot...I think Jaron liked it!

 The first stop was Catalina...it was rainy and cold, but we still managed to have fun!

 The kids decided to go in the water with shoes and socks on...about 20 minutes later they were crying and freezing...needless to say we took them back to the cruise ship and our time at Catalina was short lived.

 Ensenada was our 2nd stop.  It was perfect weather.  We did a little bit of shopping and headed back to the ship for some sun time.

 The boys all wanted to buy matching sweatshirts...and continued to wear them the rest of the cruise...even when it was too warm to wear them.

 The ship had waterslides on the back, but the water was freezing and so they didn't spend very much time back there.

 

We all stayed in the same room...yep it was crowded, but my kids all end up in the same bed at home so they didn't seem to notice.

 I played "A Minute to Win It" game...and WON.  OK OK OK so I was the only competitor...but who cares I won a trophy!

 Waiting for the whole group so we can head to dinner.

 Alyssa and Kate said they would "babysit" Jennifer's kids while we went to a comedy show.  I told them just to listen if they heard crying from our room.  They took their jobs very seriously and sat outside the room and put a glass cup to the door to listen in on the sleeping kids.  They did that for an entire hour.  Crazy girls, we told them to watch a movie.

 

Before we left for the cruise we had the kids do chores to earn a build-a-bear day.  They loved it and the boys all picked the same thing.  A monkey with scuba-gear.

 

And that's me...building away!

 A little breakfast on the deck.

 The towel animals!

 

 

And the trip wouldn't be complete if we didn't get a taxi to take us to Chick-fil-a.

I think everyone had a good time.  I know we did!

There's Just No Getting Out of It.

My kids go off track at the end of this week.  So you'd think I'd get out of doing Valentines with my kids.  But they are having a Valentines party on Friday....that being said, I had to do the dang Valentines!  Lucky for me Grandma Cyndy invited the kids over last weekend to make Valentine boxes...so I got out of that one.  (Thank you Cyndy)

The kids are so excited about their Valentines this year.  These are the prints, before adding the candy to them.

 

Once again I can't get this pic to rotate.

 On a side note, the boys played with their friend Talon yesterday.  Apparently he is a big Boston Red Sox fan and his room was all decorated that way.  So that meant they had to make their room a Boston Red Sox room too.  They crack me up.  They are still trying to brainstorm ideas to decorate.

Note to the Tooth Fairy.

Boston lost another tooth (on bottom this time)...which could be a good thing if I saw even a sign of his front tooth coming in.  I'm starting to get worried.  He wrote a note to the Tooth Fairy.  I love that he thinks that he can earn money for the cruise by simply pulling out a tooth.

(Translation: Give me the dollar?  I need it for the cruise.)

Also Gentry took the kid to Walmart to get a birthday present for the neighbor.  Boston found glasses, and thought he "needed" them.  He's been wearing them ever since he bought them.

Now you get a good look at the new glasses AND the missing front tooth/teeth.

This is this, and that is that....

So I didn't know what to title this post because I figured I was going to post a couple of things lately.

My friend Angie was getting rid of her entertainment center.   I kept saying I didn't need anything until I went over to her house to see her new TV and I looked at it.  I LOVED it because it has lots of places to stick all of our crap.  So being the nice friend I am I "took it off her hands".

It was super heavy so we needed my brother to help Gentry, Greg, Angie and I.  Long story short, Matt was short on time and he needed to leave, so we just put it in our garage.  The next day was Saturday and I decided to clean the basement so we could bring down the entertainment center.  As I was cleaning I was getting super frustrated because every inch of the walls downstairs had a ding or dent in it.  I decided to touch up the paint, but when I opened the paint it was thick and pasty...which left me with two options.  Re-paint with another color, or hate the way my basement looks.  So I went with option #1.  I made the executive decision to and picked another color.  By the time Gentry got home from work I was almost 1/2 done.  He luckily got to join me....and he hated every minute of it.  Which led to our next option....keep painting or put up bead board on the bottom 1/2 of the walls.  We chose option #2.  Which led to waiting until 6:00 Monday morning to buy all of the stuff so we could get started.  So we got to Lowe's right after it opened and got our stuff...loaded it downstairs and got to work.  We spent the next few mornings and evenings...and little time in between downstairs.  (I was exhausted and so was Gentry.)  But by Wednesday night it was basically done.  (I still have touch up, but thinking about it makes me too tired right now.)  Wednesday night Matt and another friend Brett came over to help load the entertainment center downstairs.  It was a heavy son of a gun!  But we did it.  We ended up leaving on Thursday to spend the weekend with some good friends in Midway...which is part of my next story.  So we finished putting everything together by Sunday night.  TA DA!!!  I always think these ideas sound fun, until I'm about 1/2 way through and am too tired to finish.  But I'm so glad we did it!

Now Gentry says we need a new TV.

Now on to the weekend in Midway....

We left Thursday night.  Gentry was supposed to take Trax home from work and meet us at a restaurant by the mall.  He called me when he was supposed to be at the place where I was picking him up and said that a man was hit by the Trax train and the train wasn't leaving anytime soon.  So I ended up driving to Salt Lake to pick him up.  (Kind of a bad start to the weekend.)  I won't mention the fact that Brock came home from school with Pink Eye.  Ugh.  Luckily Alyssa had just had it a few weeks ago and we still had the medicine....and luckily Kristin isn't as big of a germ freak as me and still wanted us to come. 

We went shopping on Friday at the outlets.  The only thing better than shopping, is shopping and getting a good deal!  Which is exactly what we did.

I won't mention that this pic was taken after we went to the bathroom...but it's the only one from our shopping trip...

They have a really good Mexican restaurant by their place in Midway.  There's a slight chance we went there two nights in a row.  Hey if it's that good, then why not?!?  The kids were happy to stay home and play so it was a little date night for us too!

I love kids artwork.  Brock drew this and I found it while I was cleaning.  I decided to take a pic of it.  He's been obsessed with wanting to learn how to skate board down the stairs.

 

For some reason it won't let me turn the picture.    I loved it. 

Good Job Alyssa!

Alyssa entered the Reflections contest this year.  She won at the school level and got to continue on to compete with 3 schools.  We went tonight to see if she got to continue to region.  I didn't think she won because no one had called me so I didn't make a big deal out of it.  I told Gentry he probably didn't need to come home early from work because he had a customer and I didn't want him to rush home to find out she didn't win anyway.  Well as I was recording the slideshow to show Gentry I noticed her name was not on the honorable mentions....hmmm that's weird.  Then they showed her as a winner moving on to Regional level!  I couldn't believe it!  We were so excited and proud of her!!!

On a side note, Boston has been trying to pull his tooth all night.  He's dying to have something cool to share...and he finally got it out!  Good job Boston!

Let's Go Jazz!

Brock decided to play Junior Jazz this year.  He got two tickets to see a Jazz game, so the plan was for Brock and Gentry to go see the game and I would stay home with Alyssa and Boston.  Boston threw a fit, and he was crying because he wanted to go.  So Gentry called our friend Ryan and bought another ticket for Boston.  He was so glad he could go.  They had a blast and I couldn't believe they all stayed awake.  Boston was almost asleep when they were heading home.

It was the first home game for the Jazz.  They did face painting and handed out magnets of their schedule...(which my kids thought was so cool...they each had to have their own schedule.)

Boston woke up with pink eye the next morning and I was sure it was because of the face paint.  

(I know my germ-aphobia is a problem, but where else could he have gotten it?)

I'm not even sure if the Jazz won, but they had a super fun time with Dad!