Forgot something from Day Five

Ben was so excited to watch "60 Seconds or less" which is the way around trademarked "Minute to Win It" on the ship. We watched it anxiously. One audience member had to do the "eat the oreo" off his forehead without using his hands game. Another lady had to carry a bunch of stuff all around the theatre without dropping it. Another man had to blow up balloons and sit on them to pop them within his minute. Ben anxiously raised his hand for each stunt and didn't get chosen. Finally Eric, the assistant cruise director, said "I need a little person" and Ben's hand was going to fall off his wrist, I swear. Watch below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmP8sYpnDTQ

I LOVE how excited Addie was for him, chanting the whole time. I also love the big screen camera showing her cheering him on in the background. Just overall fun. Ben was so cute.

Day six on the cruise

Day six was in Freeport, Bahamas, which for all intents and purposes, is a waste of a port. We tried to make the best of it at the public beach.

Not quite as clean as yesterday's beach. And that was the extent of the beach- it was about 15 feet deep from water's edge to the fence.

On the cab ride back to the ship.

When we got back to the ship, we tried out the waterslide on the back of the ship. Very cool.

My new favorite picture of them.

We went back to our room to take a little nap. I woke Addie up, we showered and then got ready for the last formal night. She and I headed down to the lounge for karaoke one last time.

waiting patiently. No one was in the lounge, so we were sort of flabbergasted. I noticed Melvin, the karaoke host was chatting with a couple off the side. So Addie went over and nicely asked Melvin if karaoke was going to happen. Turns out that couple came down specifically to listen to karaoke but no one else had shown up. So Melvin gave Addie the songbook and the man from the couple offered to "warm Addie up" while she chose her song. Addie agreed, while we chatted with his wife. He started singing his song (and he clearly was a karaoke guy) and then the screen froze. While Marvin tried to fix it, the man ad-libbed some song to his wife. Addie was so impressed with his song writing skills. His wife was so nice and so happy to talk with us. Addie was her usual self and the lady was so praising of Addie. As time dwindled away, Melvin announced that he couldn't get the screen to work, but he had background music still. Addie said she was confident she could remember the words well enough, so she'd give it a try. The man was shocked, telling Addie there's no way he could even attempt to do what she was going to do. By this time, the room was filled with people bustling about what was going on.

Video will be loaded on Youtube momentarily....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA8ts5BOZkY

This is afterwards, with Addie signing her first autograph. She printed and wrote her name in cursive. The woman who was known as the Diva of Karaoke of the ship shook Addie's hand and told her she was willing to share the spotlight with Addie. Each person who talked to us afterwards was saying that they expected to see Addie's name in lights one day.

The handsome boys.

waiting for the show to start that night

At the comedy show that that night. It was funny, Ben was exhausted and falling asleep in my arms eventually. The comedian was doing a shtick about how parents used to be allowed to hit their kids (Addie wanted nothing to do with sitting there listening to this topic, which is reassuring). So Ben is laying in my arms, nodding off when the comedian says, "clap if your parents ever hit when you were little." Many people in the audience start clapping. Ben's hands start clapping! Then the comedian says, "clap your hands if your parents used to beat you til you cried." Again the audience claps and sleeping Ben's hands are clapping too! It was unreal and hysterical.

Here's a video of the waterslide on the ship. Brian and Addie and Ben must've gone up those stairs at least 30 times each!

Cruise interruption for a Ben funny

Sorry to mess up the blog flow, but this was too precious to not write down or else I'll forget it.

Benjamin went into the bathroom this evening, while I was in the living room. He started doing his "Mommy, I'm scared" calling, which I'm trying to have him get over. But he kept saying it over and over and over again. I didn't respond. Ultimately he said, "aaaaahhhhhh" and then I heard, "Mommy, when I scream like that, you're supposed to come running!" So off the couch I went to save my poor son. He was standing in the bathroom with his pants pulled up. I said, "Ben, you screamed like something was wrong." He said, "I need help with my button." I said, "You were scared because you needed help with your button?" "No, I'm also scared of Cookie Monster stealing the Cookie Jar looking through the window." (This has been a long standing fear of his, long story, it doesn't make sense, but it's very real to him). So I said, "You know, I'm going to call Autumn and ask her if she is scared of Cookie Monster stealing the Cookie Jar." He said so eloquently, "Mommy. It was just a dream. A very powerful dream." Then he proceeds to explain that Cookie Monster can only walk on soft stuff, like carpet and grass. I pointed to the tile floor and said, "well, good because that means he can't come in here." Ben said, "but he can go on the towels" as he gestured to the hand towels. Remember everyone, it was a very powerful dream!

Day Five of the cruise

This day was to Half Moon Cay, Carnival's private island. IT WAS INCREDIBLE. We would stay there for a week if we were allowed.

There's no dock at HMC, so we had to take a tender boat to HMC.

When we got to the island, this is what we saw....

That's PopPop, Brian, MomMom, the kids and Keri in the water. Just to the left of this were two waterslide that dumped the rider into the ocean. Awesome. The hut behind is a private cabana for 25 that came with a personal chef, it's own waterslide, a hot tub and other goodies. We didn't register for it. Later on Keri, Ben and Graham swam over and the people let the boys play on the waterslide.

That's our ship as we were in the water. Doesn't that look fake?

Me and the kids in the crystal clear waters.

The clouds started rolling in, but it only sprinkled rain.

This actually happened! Ben was walking backwards talking to us and I warned him to watch out behind and he literally walked into this sand hole that someone had dug. I couldn't have created the moment if I tried!

HMC was also where Addie found a real star fish, which she held as she got her hair corn-rowed.

It didn't really hurt too much until she got to the top of her scalp and then the tears flowed just a little.

The finished product with her hairstylist. There were 30 total corn rows.

I thought she looked so cute!!

Ben was equally cute at dinner.

A little blurry, but this was waiting for the dance lesson in the Taj Mahal theatre.

We didn't plan on it, but the theatre filled up with people who watched us learn the dance moves to Michael Jackson's Beat It. It was really fun. Addie was such a ham the whole time and as is typical, afterwards people were stopping me to say what a pleasure she is to watch and how I should get her involved in dance/drama/movement.

Ok so before you watch the video below, I need to explain it. Addie's favorite dessert is pumpkin pie made by Muddy. That night when it came time for dessert, the menu had "diet pumpkin pie." Addie decided she'd like to try it, knowing it wouldn't be as good as Muddy's. When the waiter came by to take our order, Addie explained that pumpkin pie is her favorite dessert and that she gets it on her birthday as her treat. The waiter asked her when her birthday is and she said "May 17th." Next thing we know....

We were all so embarrassed. Clearly in the moment, Addie couldn't turn the celebration down, because that would be awkward. So she was a good sport. By this day, the dining room knew Addie well, so all of the other guests were singing to her too. It was really funny. The rest of the night anytime someone did something she didn't like, she'd say "hey don't do that to the birthday girl!" All I can chalk it up to is that the waiters' native language is not English, so he didn't understand. Addie very clearly said when her birthday was, so who knows?!

Day Four of the Cruise

Day Four was our first day off the ship. Our first port of call was Grand Turk in Turks and Caicos. The beach was very odd. Under the water was essentially moon rocks. That's exactly what it looked and felt like (I imagine at least, since I haven't actually been to the moon). It was cratered and weird, but still cool. The sand was beautiful and the water was crystal clear.

Doesn't that look like a post card?

Addie and Ben were quite content to play in the sand. They enjoyed the ocean too though.

Even Amy came out for the trip! And then it started to rain. At first we were like "ok, no biggie." Then it started to pour and the locals were like "it'll be over in 5 minutes." An hour later, still huddled under a beach umbrella the rain finally stopped and we were able to enjoy the island more. They have a huge Margaritaville in the middle with a huge pool that was fun too. Then we headed back to the ship in time for lunch.

The view from the ship.

After lunch and while we were sailing to our next port, we participated in the Camp Carnival Family Digital Scavenger Hunt. The teams were the four of and PopPop versus Scott, Keri, Graham and MomMom. We met at Camp Carnival, were given the list of things we need to photograph and were told to be back within the hour, first team back wins.

The first thing was to go to the Lido Deck and have your parents do a "hang ten."

Then you had to get 10 people not in your party together to do a conga line, which actually was ridiculously difficult to get people to stand together for a picture! People were so resistant.

Then we had to have a picture of one of us with ice cream smashed on our face.

BUT you know us, we needed two pictures of that fun!

Then we had to pick one Carnival employee and have them be our "Employee of the Day" and pose with them.

Then we had to go to the Atrium on the bottom level and have two team members do the chicken dance. We had to video and photograph it.

We needed a picture of the whole team with a "We love Camp Carnival" sign.

We needed to start at level one and using only the stairs take a picture of the landing at each level all the way up to 11!

And we had to have a picture of each team member with a smiley face on our foreheads. We used lipstick and this poor lady in the hall had no idea why I asked her to take our picture or why we had lipstick on our foreheads!

There were some bonus things we needed to collect along the way: an umbrella, something with the Carnival logo on it, the Carnival Times of the day, an entertainment staff person's signature and two different types of coffee stirrers. We grabbed all those things along the way and rushed back to Camp Carnival....

AND WE WON! Addie and Ben each got a trophy and we got a certificate. Another family team came in second. Graham's team came in third. They all still got trophies too.

Enjoying the beautiful water on one of the decks.

At dinner that night, Susilo made Ben a hat.

The kids went to Camp Carnival's pirate night while we went to the adult comedy show.

Then we all went up to the Lido deck at 11pm for a deck dance party.

Addie and Ben danced the whole hour, collecting beads along the way (the safe way, I promise!). By the end of the night, we were sweaty messes and their pirate make-up looked more like black eyes!

That night we had to go to bed to get energy for our next day at port!

This is video of what went down during the rain delay...

Day Three of Cruise video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9ryXidlitg

Finally!! So this is how it started.... I have the beginning part of the song too, but I accidentally hit the stop button half-way through! Doh! I have to say I was a little unhappy with the physical set up for the karaoke, since the poor kid couldn't even see the screen. She was constantly up on her toes trying to see the lyrics. It was fun to watch as people walked through the lounge and then stopped to listen to her finish her songs. She actually sang four that day! She started with Tomorrow, followed by We are the Champions, followed by the video that I will load below (a soon as Youtube is done uploading it), and she closed it out with Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZJBchrKxNc

I LOVE how Addie's got her hand on his back the whole time, patting him, etc. So sweet.

little hiatus

Oh modern technology! I'm writing from my black berry on a train to a weekend mini-vacation. You know, because we needed a vacation after being back in reality for 4 days!
I will continue with the cruise posts early next week if not sooner, it just depends on internet access.
Hi to Uncle Teb who is chilling with Oliver at our house! Poor cat is probably so confused between Richard and Aunt Wendy there along with Muddy last week and now Uncle Teb!

Day Three on the cruise

This was our second full day at sea. By this time the ice cream machine had been broken for over 24 hours...

Addie and I woke up and spent some quality time on our balcony, as the sun was making its way up into the sky. Really pretty. Then we had breakfast and the kids went to Camp Carnival for some playtime.

Brian picked them up and was given Ben's hat.

Meanwhile Addie and Graham were quite content to wear their creations and were proud to show their facepaint. They had lunch and then we all went to take naps, because we had something very important to do that afternoon...see video link (will be here in a few minutes)

Once all of that excitement wore off, we found this elephant fella on our bed. (And I even took the class to learn how to make towel folded characters now!)