As promised.

Ahhh...where to start? We got back on Sunday from a 7-day cruise with my sister, nephew Caden, parents, Matt's parents, and our kidlets. We left from Long Beach and stopped at Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo.

It was glorious and exhausting and totally worth it.

Below are pictures of our dinner table at the first formal night. We don't have any nice portrait like pictures because after sitting at the dinner table for 2 hours the 3 kids couldn't hold still for another second if I'd have bribed them with more lobster and prime rib (speaking of...Matt ordered both as well as 3 appetizers. I think it was a combination of "because he could" and "because he's skinny".). Oh and food bribes don't work on these kids. They never really got into the sport of eating on the ship like the rest of us did.

Our first stop was in Puerto Vallarta. We (Matt's parents, us, and our kids) decided we needed a warm pool and a beach stat. We quickly found a cab, 4 of us piled in the backseat (mom, stop reading), Charlie and Grandpa piled in the frontseat, and instructed the cabbie to take us to the Marriot. We paid their $20 day-fee to use their facilities and settled in.

They had an awesome pool with a swim up bar, a kiddie pool complete with a swing-set right next to it, and it was located right on the beach. Our kids had an awesome time playing in the waves and digging in the sand.

It's taking forever to load pictures so it's commentary only from here on out.

Our second stop was Mazatlan. We (this time my sister and Caden joined us) headed to Stone Island for a little more beach time. For anyone googling Stone Island Cruise Excursions here's what we did:

We walked out of the dock area through the big blue doors and went left. If you have little kids stop walking right away and hop in one of their little golf cart taxis (it will cost you about $1 per person). We didn't do this on the way there and our kids practically died of heat exhaustion. It's probably equivalent to 4 blocks but it's a hot 4 blocks.

At the end of the road walk by the Mexican police officer with the rifle and head down the dirt path. At the end of the path you'll find the "ferry". It will cost you $2 per person and it will feel like the bottom of the boat is going to give way at any second. Hang in there, it's a short ride.

Once on the island either go straight, on foot, through the woods to the beach. Or, if you're lucky, there will be a young Mexican kid (likely with no license) with a truck with benches in the back. We were lucky. Give him $5 and ask him to take you to Victors. Once you're there you're home free. The food is awesome (fresh coconut shrimp was my fave) and cheap and the beers are served by the bucket. Oh and if you order a "strawberry juice" for your child it comes in a huge margarita glass and is basically drink mix with no alcohol. It's fun.

We took over a couple of tables and just stayed there all day playing in the sand, swimming, eating and drinking.

The next day we were in Cabo San Lucas. This is the one day we left the kids on the ship (boys at Camp Carnival, Annie with Grandma Irene) and the rest of us ventured off on a snorkeling/boozing adventure. For just $35 we got to join about 25 other happy tourists on a 4 hour boat ride with some fun Mexican guys who were happy to pour tequila directly down your throat and then hand you flippers and a mask and drop you off in the sea for some snorkeling.

We snorkeled at 2 spots and at the second one before we got in the water one of the guides shouted something to the effect of 'hey Washington, don't get in the water'. We're pretty sure it was directed at Grandma Cheryl who consumed her $35 worth of alcohol very quickly. I'm struggling with the pictures on this post so see photo of Grandma in the next post ignoring the Mexicans and jumping in the water anyways.

So those were our adventure days. Below is one more picture of my little ones all dressed up.

That's about it for the trip. The kids were amazingly good on the flights and were good sports about all the walking and rig'a'marole we put them through.

Thanks again Dad for chipping in so we could all come!