Thanksgiving at Snowbird

      This year my family had their time share at the Snowbird Cliff Lodge for the week of Thanksgiving. We were all up there at varying times, but somehow almost all of us managed to make it up for a few days in a row together. Paul was able to work remotely the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so our little family joined my My parents and younger siblings at Snowbird on Tuesday night. We stayed up later than we should have and played some games.
       Wednesday my dad and I went snowboarding. My mom so graciously watched Jace so I could play and Paul could work. My older brother Tyson was a crazy face and drove his daughter Gloria all the way up to Snowbird from Provo, then drove all the way back for work. Then when him and his wife were done working, they drove all the way back up again. I guess their day care provider doesn't hold day care so close to the holidays and they needed someone to watch Little Gloria. Kuddos to him for doing all that driving. I would have said its not worth it and called in dead to work or something. Jace and Gloria got into lots of trouble together and also entertained each other real good while Dad and I were out hitting up the slopes.
         When we first started skiing/snowboarding it was bad. The entire mountain was like a sheet of ice. There were some spots I was terrified to even stand because it was so slick so I slid on my butt a few times. We did what we could to have fun. Then took a break for lunch. I was honestly tempted to not go back out because the snow wasn't worth it. But my dad motivated me to get out and go. I am grateful I did though because it started snowing and an hour in there was a nice layer of powder over the ice. It was still a little precarious in some spots, but the slops were so much more enjoyable. We stayed out as late as we absolutely could. When all the lifts were closed we came home.

Yay for snow! We took this in the afternoon when after it had started snowing a bit. 

You can't really see much of the a background because it all blends in with the snow, but where that rope is behind me is actually a pretty big drop off. 

My daddy is such a stud!

The real storm hit after we were finished skiing, which was nice. But this is the view from our balcony. Its pretty great, I think. 

     I was hoping to get to bed early that night because my body was exhausted from snowboarding, but somehow my husband convinced me to stay up late and play games with the family. We had fun, and I am grateful I did, but boy was I loopy by the time I went to bed.
       Thanksgiving morning we all took it kind of easy. Every one took their turns cooking their portion of our Thanksgiving feast. Paul went to play in a turkey bowl with our ward, while the rest of us just loafed around. When we stay at the time share we get free passes to the bunny hill lift. So I borrowed my sisters skis and boots and took some runs down the bunny hill with Tanner and Dad. I switched half way through the day with Kess so she could get some practice in. I enjoy skiing. but I am not as good at it as I am snowboarding, so I try to practice every chance I get.

I made some yummy cranberry relish stuff that Paul's Aunt Susan taught me how to make, and Jace and Gloria decided it so yummy and they had to eat it. They particularly liked eating the cream cheese that you eat with the dip. 

That big glob of white is a chunk of cream cheese that Jace is eating with a small little cracker stuffed on the side. We literally caught Jace and gloria with crackers and huge gobs of cream cheese. We were all laughing so much it was hard to get upset at them for making a mess of the appetizers and stealing all the cream cheese. 

These two got into so much trouble together this week. We left them to play and found them playing in the toilet. Toilet paper everywhere, wet chunks of toilet paper everywhere, water everywhere, wet babies. I wish we would have gotten some pictures. We were in such a frenzy to get it all cleaned up that we didn't catch it on film! I am sure with these two being so close in age they will get into lots of trouble together. 

      Dinner was yummy and quick, but we all enjoyed the time that we spent together eating and talking and sharing memories. In between dinner and dessert we took Jace out to the pool. The pool is out doors, but its heated so you can swim in it in the winter. We didn't stay long because Jace and I both had colds and we didn't want to make them worse with the cold.
       We had our fun pies and desserts after everyone had warmed up and showered the chlorine from the pool off. Paul and I decided that we would drive home to sleep since we lived only 20 min away. Jace would sleep better in his own bed. Paul and I would sleep better with Jace in his own bed, and all in all, it just sounded nice to be at home.

Cruisin' the Bahamas

     When Paul and I went on our trip to Orlando Florida in June we went to one of those time share dealios where you listen to their presentation about buying timeshare, then you get some free stuff. Well anyway, we ended up getting a free cruise voucher. We just had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get signed up, but hey, free cruise right? We ended up upgrading our cabin from an interior to a balcony since it would only cost us a little bit to do so, (and the voucher people told us that if we wanted to bring Jace, which we did, we would have to upgrade to at least a window room anyway).
    So we scheduled a 5 day cruise to the Bahamas. It was actually really nice to have our vacation when we did. Paul had been swamped at work for the past few weeks working 50+ hours a week. It was great to have him secluded on a boat with limited access to internet. Jace and I loved having Paul all to ourselves for the few days we did!
     We have been on 2 other cruises before this one. One was on Carnival, and the second was on Norwegian. Paul and I thought we loved our Carnival cruise. Then we cruised Norwegian and it was great, but we still had a few things we liked more about Carnival. Then We sailed Carnival again to the Bahamas and realized that Norwegian was so much better. Mostly we think it is because we were on a much smaller boat than we were the first time we cruised, and, the food options were slim pickins. Thats half the fun of the cruise, is that all you can eat buffet and stuff! But we really didn't eat much because there wasn't ever anything good to eat, (it was nice on the scale though, didn't hardly gain any cruise weight!).
     To get to our port in Florida we took a red eye flight. We thought that it would be great for Jace, since he would most likely be asleep once we got on the plane. He was asleep when we got on the plane, but it didn't last very long, and he woke up in an unfamiliar place surrounded by unfamiliar people so half way through our flight we had to figure out how to get him back to sleep. Kuddos to Paul for being so amazing! He got Jace to calm down and fall asleep. Paul didn't get any sleep on that flight, but I was able to get around 3 hours.
     Instead of rambling on an on I will use our pictures to tell the story, since they are the best part anyway.

We were all so tired from zero sleep that this is what the first few hours of our cruise looked like! I think we maybe went and got something to eat first, then came back to our room and slept. But holy cow, we napped for quite a while. Thankfully since we hadn't unpacked or anything, when Jace wasn't sleeping, he could keep himself entertained in the room without getting into too much trouble. 

Our first full day on the cruise was just a day at sea. Which was great because we were still trying to recover from our lack of sleep the previous few days. We played in the big kid pool, (which we got kicked out of because apparently your kid has to be potty trained to be in the big kid pool). Paul and I were thinking, man it would have been so awesome to be able to tell the lady that our 18 month old actually was potty trained, and then seen the look on her face! 

So since we were kicked out of the big kid pool we came back to the little kid pool. We started off here, but Jace wasn't super thrilled about how small it was. But once we came back he seemed content to just play and splash with the other kids. I think it helped that this pool was a little warmer than the big kid pool was also.

I also liked that the water was just deep enough that he could play in it, but not so deep that it was up to his eyeballs or anything.

Our awesome friends sent us on our cruise with a selfie stick. It was actually really nice to have. We were able to get a few decent pictures of us all together with more than just our faces in the back ground. This one is a shot from our balcony. I look like a goober, but Jace is tellin us how it is back in da hood. 

We were told by my aunt that once you balcony cruise, you never go back. I think she is right. It is going to be so hard to not have a balcony to sit on every night and enjoy the night air. Plus Jace loved being able to look over the edge and see everything.  

Paul has this magical touch with Jace where he can get Jace to fall asleep with him. Jace has never been a kid to just up and fall asleep, and he hardly ever falls asleep while you are holding him. But somehow Paul can do it. Which I was very grateful for on the cruise. Jace would have had a lot less naps if Paul wasn't with us!

This is one of those, "smile Jace" faces. He is just too cute sometimes.

This one Jace is in the middle of blowing kisses to someone. 

Pretty sure the towel animals were a hit with Jace. The first thing he always went for were the little black dots for eyes! Pulled them off every time. But he did love to see all the fun animals. And I know, I know he is 18 months and he has a binkey in his mouth. Ugh! The cruise threw off all of our schedules and his bink was like the only constant in his life for the week, so we let him have it WAY more than we should have, and trust me I am still trying to undo the week of unlimited binkey with him right now, but I do have to say it was worth it to have him calm and able to enjoy things rather than crying the whole time. 

....And the eyes are gone

Day 2 we arrived in Grand Turk. Originally we had no intention of going swimming here but decided that it looked so nice and perfect that we were just going to have to. I am glad we did because Jace had a great time. The water was perfect, the temperature was great!

Jace had lots of fun playing in the sand. He didn't like the texture of the dry sand on his feet at first, but he got over it after playing in the wet sand for a little bit. 

Kylee selfie. I needed some proof that it was the middle of November and I was happily dressed in a swimming suit!

I wish I didn't cut Jace's face off in this picture because he was actually looking at the camera!

It was crazy to swim in the crystal clear water and have our ship docked just a few hundred yards away. Most ports that have a place for the ship to actually dock are usually commercial areas where the water is really yucky and gross, but surprisingly the water here was perfect. I guess with the tiny population there isn't much to commercialize anyway. 

Paul and Jace playing in the sand. 

We both took turns playing with Jace and going snorkeling. I LOVE snorkeling. I could seriously do it all day long and not get bored of it. So I was so happy we had the chance to try it out here. There certainly wasn't as much to see as we saw while snorkeling in Hawaii, but there was quite a variety of colorful fish swimming in the water. We also saw a couple sunken anchors. One was massively huge and the other was smaller, and we saw an old sunken cannon. That was pretty neat. 

After a while playing in the sand lost its flavor so we had to distract Jace other ways. He has always loved throwing things in water, so we found a rock for him to play with. He would throw it into the ways and we would got find it for him. 

Jace and his awesome rock

Paul getting ready to go check out all the awesome fishies

We got some lady to take a picture of us all together. And its just so perfect that our cruise ship is in the background. 

I have seen signs like these before, but I just loved it so I had to get a picture by it. 

At this point Jace was exhausted. He didn't want to do anything so we let him push the stroller for a bit. He was quite a bit slower than we were so we didn't let him push for too long. 

I guess they see a lot of whales here during the right time of the season. Sadly we missed it by a few weeks! 

After swimming we decided to go on a little tour around the island. We originally planned to walk, but decided that it was worth the money to take the tour so we could see more and enjoy it while we were seeing it. Thankfully Jace slept for a good portion of it. 

They have lots of free donkeys here. They don't call them wild, because they were once tamed and used for manual labor, but as time went on they didn't need them anymore so they just let them roam free. They aren't wild in the slightest. They will let you pet them, and feed them, and everything. 

This is the other side of the island with the light house. They say this part of the island has great snorkeling, but it also has crazy currents and potential sharks. So... yeah, we didn't get in the water here. 

There is a hotel resort type place here called Margaritaville and they had these cute chairs to sit in. And of course Jace wanted to try them all out. 

This little guys eyes lasted maybe a little bit longer than the first guys eyes.

but not by much!

Day three we went to Half Moon Cay (they pronounce it key), I didn't know that at first! This is just a very very very very small island that is owned by the Norwegian Cruise line. Basically all you can do here is play at the beach, eat, or pay for an excursion. They looked like they had some cool snorkeling on the one side of the island, but you aren't allowed to swim there, so we didn't. 

We pulled out our selfie stick and got a fun family picture before we got too hot and tired. They had fun little trail around most of the island that we walked to get a "hike" in. It was pretty fun, but so so hot and crazy humid. 

We came across the stingray encounter and Jace had fun peeking over the edge. We didn't actually pay to get in the water with the stingrays, but it was fun to see them so close and everything. 

We literally had to pry Jace away from the bench to continue our hike around to the beach. 

The water here was so so clear. No where to snorkel on the swimming beach. The sand was literally perfect. No seaweed, no rocks, no nothing, just perfect super soft, super fine sand. It was great, but kind of sad that with water that clear there weren't even fishies to look at!

The lighting isn't great, but we wanted a fun picture with the perfect water in the back ground. 

So I must have put my phone on the selfie stick in a crazy way because it just kept taking pictures of us, (like the one above). I deleted close to 200 pictures that my phone snapped in a matter of minutes. This gem was me trying to figure out what in the heck went wrong! 

So this picture isn't perfect, but I thought it was cool because I had my phone partially in the water, (in one of those waterproof camera bag things), and anyway, the waves hit against my phone and snapped a few pictures for me. This was one of them. 

Jace had a rough day at Half Moon Cay because it was so hot and he was super tired. We tried to get him to eat and drink and he didn't want a whole lot of anything. We finally got him cooled down in the water, and got him to take a small nap. He was still a grumpy grump, but not as bad as we was before. 

Throughout the course of the day we were trying to build a sandcastle. It didn't turn out quite as we had imagined it, but it is still pretty cool if you think about it. Paul and I had to take turns working on it most of the day because Jace needed lots of attention. But we managed to get it at least somewhat looking like a castle. 

And Jace had to be in all the pictures. Silly kid.

On our way back to the boat we found this playground!!! I seriously wish we would have known about it sooner. I asked Paul to stop and let Jace play on the slide. I am glad we stopped, but we did have to drag Jace away from the playground kicking and screaming. If we weren't starving, dehydrated, and crazy tired, I would have played with him there a little bit longer. 

Tonights animal was an elephant, and I think of all the other's this guy lasted the longest. His eyes even lasted a little bit longer than most of the other towel animals. 

Day 5 was in Nassau. My amazing husband Paul set up a parasailing excursion for us to do. Parasailing has been on my bucket list for ever, and today I got to cross it off! With today being Friday the 13th I was quite relieved when we got safely back to land without any hiccups. Paul rode first and I snatched a few pictures of him. I rode second, and he took pretty close to 100 of me! Silly Paul. It was so fun though! I thought I was going to be nervous, or have a crazy adrenaline rush, but neither of them happened. I seriously loved the feeling, and am so excited to try paragliding and sky diving one day!

I think this is Paul? again? Or me? I can't tell but thats okay, I have 100 others to choose from if need be. 

The great thing about this excursion is they let us bring Jace on the boat with us for free. Yay! everything else we looked at wouldn't let us bring a little kid. It was crazy. So we are grateful these guys made it work for us. Before we took our excursion, we had time to do a little shopping. Jace picked out a maraca. And when he fell asleep on the boat, we couldn't get it out of his hands! 

Yay for us! We went parasailing. We had a blast! But Paul said the best place to parasail is in Hanauma Bay, Hawaii. He said the water is so clear and amazing that you can actually see fish and turtles swimming while you are up in the air. Maybe one day I will get the chance to parasail there. 

So Nassau has a pretty sweet straw market, and we tried to do some shopping there, but we didn't get to because we didn't have any cash. We ended up having to pay for our parasailing excursion in cash which left us with only 5 dollars left. We tried to pull money out of the ATM but Paul didn't know the pin number for his credit card, and didn't bring a debit card. So we tried to go to the bank and have them do it, and after we stood in line for 30 minutes they said all the banks servers were down so they were having technical difficulties and couldn't withdraw any money for a credit card. Well there you have it. We basically couldn't buy anything unless we could actually use our card. We found a few actual stores that took credit cards and got a few simple souvenirs. Its probably a good thing we couldn't get the dollars out because Paul wanted to get a lot more at the straw market than we actually ended up buying. So We probably saved ourselves $100. Since we couldn't do much, and Jace was crazy tired, we went back to our room and just chilled so Jace could nap.  

I think Jace was a little bummed tonight when our towel animal didn't have any eyes. 

It lasted more than 5 minutes! That is a crazy new record!

    Last day we pulled into port in the morning, and pretty much got off the boat as quick as we could. We planned an early flight and needed to get to the airport asap. 

We had so much fun together on our little cruise. Jace did have a lot of grumpy days, but he also had a lot of fun cute moments that made the hard parts worth it. I can't wait until he gets a little older and actually remembers the fun vacations we go on!!