Hi!! This past weekend, we went to the Bay Area. First stop was Hayden’s birthday party – HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY HAYDEN!

 

Then for dinner, my sisters took me out for sushi. Thank you! It was a nice and simple weekend. (The calm before the storm? )

 

Later in the week, we got some fun packages. I’m doing a holiday gift exchange with my online mom friends. Zachary got a bunch of stuff from his Amazon wish list – a classic book titled ‘Ping’, foam cars/roads for the bath, and the game Cariboo. Not only that, we received a thank you card from Will, which included ABC stickers. Zachary loves all his new presents! Notice the “NNNOOO” on his hand. How fitting for a 2-year-old!

Ah, two weekend of pictures to catch up on! Well, last weekend was simple… I planned a dinner party on Saturday, but had to cancel it last minute because Zachary got sick. He recovered quickly, and we were able to go to a dinner party on Sunday evening. And of course, he was fine at school. (How is it that Zachary has gotten the stomach bug 5x since starting daycare … and every single time he gets sick is at home?) The dinner was catered by Taj India, which is now my favorite Indian restaurant – right up there with the one I went to in college! I also got together for lunch, one afternoon, with my friend Dana.

 

 

This weekend was pretty busy – in a good/fun way! Friday evening, we had Alex’s family over for dinner – just grilled lemon pepper chicken and vegetables. (Can’t expect much from a work night.) As usual, the boys played nicely together.

Saturday morning,  Kathy, Sherry, and I put together entrees at DreamDinners. It was pretty easy and fun! There are a few other places in the area that center around the same concept – so maybe once we’re done with this batch of dinners (72 meals), I’ll look into more introductory specials.

 

A few hours after I got back (and filled the freezer!), two families from my online mom’s group came over for a get-together at my house. One family is from Seattle and stopped by on the way to southern California. The other family is from the Bay Area. It was baby Will’s first birthday, so we got him balloons and a cake … and a few people from our group sent cards/gifts over too. One of the moms sent over a check so that we could “buy strawberry daiquiris on her”! The great part of this was that the lunch and cake I provided was so good – and I didn’t even have to make it myself. My friend Lori is thinking about starting a catering/personal chef business, and I was her first customer! She brought over (all freshly homemade): tzatziki, hummus, tabouleh, the makings for a Greek pita (grilled lamb/beef , spicy onions, tahini sauce), and a lemon cake. It was all so delicious – I highly recommend her!

 

  

That evening, we had  two couples over for dinner – I made soy sauce grilled chicken over fried rice. We had some good/funny conversations, and Dana/Dave stayed to play Carcasonne with us!

Sunday, we met up with Dana at the One Root Festival in old Roseville. We walked around the park, watched Hawaiian dancing, listened to stories, ate vendor/fair snacks, and played with Zachary on the playground. Right after we got back, we took Zachary to a park picnic set up by my friend Bhavana. There were a few families there – all with boys Zachary’s age; he had so much fun! (Well, until he was the 5th kid on a 4-kid slide. HUGE pout … which was quickly resolved by going down the slide with mom and dad! )

We’re back from our 4-day Disney Cruise!

We left last weekend, after having dinner (spring rolls) at Megan and Ki’s … very yummy.

 

In summary, the cruise was fun … but the first two days were very rough. We should have flown to Florida a day or two earlier to adjust/rest from the travel. And while Zachary had fun, I think 5-6 year olds would get the most out of the experience. (By all means, it’s worth going with a 2-year-old if you can afford it – both finacially and energywise –  but if you can only go once, I’d vote for going when they are 5-6 years old. There are more activities/excursions for this age group … and they’re still young enough to believe in fairytales and magic.) Okay, without further ado, here’s our travel log…

Day 1: We took a red-eye (flight left at midnight) thinking Zachary would sleep through the entire flight. This was our biggest mistake. He slept through the first leg only. The second leg, on the decent, he started grabbing at his ears and screaming (along with another baby.) It was horrible because everyone else on the plane was trying to sleep. When we arrived at the port, we were all cranky. And Zachary decides he does NOT want to get on the boat. He wants to ride in the transfer bus.  So admist all the excitement from other happy kids, we are wrangling a tired 2-yr-old.

It gets better though. The room was a lot bigger than what I remember from Princess and Royal Caribbean. Plus, the bathroom had a tub. The sail away party was great – live music, lots of energy, characters dancing. Zachary loved it. He was jumping around, all sweaty (Florida is HUMID!). I loved how all the characters and crew were so attentive to the children – they really tired to make it “magical” for them

 

 

Day 2: Zachary wakes up and says “barf” – so we grab a towel … and Zachary throws up. I run to the concierge to get seasickness medication. The adult medication is free, but they charge $2.75 for the children’s Dramamine.  I bought it, and from then on, every 6-8 hours, we’re giving Zachary medication. It worked though – no more vomiting! The first dose, we gave him the maximum since he was already sick. It made him super tired and cranky. He wanted to stay in and sleep – but we were in the Bahamas and already booked an excursion to the Atlantis hotel. Once he got there, he was happy. He loves fish, so he counted fish the entire tour. It was nice, but not as nice as I expected from the Atlantis website.  Afterwards, we walked around the city … it was mostly souvenir shops and people asking you if you want to braid your hair. Not that much to see, and we didn’t want to wander too far from the port.

 

Day 3: We docked on Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island. There were stands with fresh fruit and BBQ foods for us on the island. We dropped Zachary off at the babysitting room (Flounder’s Reef) and went on our excursion to play with manta rays! It was fun – I got to feed them a few times. The snorkeling wasn’t good though – but I’ve been spoiled since I’ve snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef, Bora Bora, and Hawaii. After 4 hours, we went back to the ship and picked up Zachary for lunch. After lunch, we hit the beach. It was very nice; calm blue waters. Lots of shells for Zachary to collect and line up. Then it starts raining and the ship blasts 3 times, which they told us meant get back ASAP. It was crazy! It went from sunny to heavy rain and wind in a matter of seconds! James carried Zachary, and we ran back to the ship. Zachary was screaming because the rain was pelting down so hard, like hail - we had to wrap him up in a towel. And it was about a 1 mile run. By the time we got to the ship, the water was up to my ankles. We got hit by a spawn of Hurricane Earnesto! It was surreal how quickly it happened, the sunny sky just turned dark in a matter of seconds!

 

 

At night, there was a Pirates in the Caribbean party – live music, characters, and FIREWORKS! Zachary loved it! It was so fun seeing the energy from all the kids. (In the below picture, Zachary is actually ‘raising the roof’… the characters were teaching dance moves.)

 

Day 4: Day at Sea. Relaxing. We watched Cars (the movie)… it was a little long and Zachary started getting antsy at the end. He preferred the live performances. Every evening, there were live performances, and they were very good! Not cheesy, like most cruise shows. In one show, Peter Pan said,”If you believe, you can FLY!” and the whole auditorium lit up with little stars … and Zachary starts flapping his arms.   We also swam in the pool and played in the Oceaneer Club/Lab quite a bit during our cruise.

Day 5: We flew back … 2:30pm flight. Zachary napped the first leg. 2nd leg, he watched 2 DVDs and read books. He was so easy; had we known we would not have chosen to fly the red-eye on the way there!

We got back on Thursday evening, right before a 3-day weekend. The 3-day weekend was pretty low key. We met up with the twins in Sacramento for a Gold Rush fair on Sunday. That evening, we had dinner at Sam/Melissa’s … fish and flank steak tacos! The boys played together fabulously - they’re finally old enough to interact more. They love copying each other. Now if only Zachary would copy Alex’s pronunciations … that kid is articulate!

  

 

On Labor Day, we took Zachary to the water park to play with the twins again. But no pictures, I forgot my camera. Now it’s time to sleep … and go back to work in the morning. Wahhhh….