Caribbean Cruise...Part 2

It was fabulous being on the cruise boat, but of course we wanted to get off when we could. We had a lot of fun seing the different sites. Most of the time when we got off the boat, we went to a local beach of some sort. Kylie LOVES the beach so of course that was what we voted to do. We tried to find beaches where we could snorkel as well, because Brian and I love to do that. We were lucky and went to some fabulous beaches. The first one we went to was on Grand Cayman. The beach was a bit rocky here, but still crystal clear waters and fun in the sun! We even got to take a tender boat to shore. (These are just smaller boats like a water taxi that take you to the big boat to the port at shore when the water is too shallow for the cruise boat to go to.)



My cutie parents on the boat.



Cutie Kylie getting all lathered in sun block. (She has such pale, porcelin like skin that we HAVE to lather her up every hour or so to keep her from getting fried.)



Playing in the water with Grandma.



Every so often Kylie needs a little break from the sun. :) Even after all that sun block...when we are out in the sun for a long time...we take her out of the sun. I just thought it was so funny we needed to get a pic of the set-up. :)



During our trip we went to the BEST beac I have EVER been to. Seriously...it was AMAZING! There were palm trees all over. We set up our beach chairs right under the shade of a palm tree and it was amazing!!!



I know I got some pics of us in the water, but they may be on my mom's camera. I'll have to get those and update this. :)

We took a bus about 20-30 mins to the beach, so when we were headed back to the boat...Kylie was able to have a nap. She was just precious sleeping on her Daddy's lap.The BLUEST water I have ever seen in my life was in Cozumel. OH MY GOODNESS! It looked like they just poured blue food coloring in the water. You can't even tell from the pictures, but it was AMAZING!!!We saw schools of fish just swimming in the water right off the port. (I couldn't get any pics of them, but they were all sorts of colors and I was so glad Kylie got to see them!!!)


I loved this shot. These two MASSIVE ships right next to each other. You can compare them to the people that are right beside the boats to see how massive they are.

Cutie Daddy and daughter.

When we weren't at the beaches....we weren't done with the water. :) Seriously...Kylie would be in the water ALL day every day if she could. So here are some pool pics. She loved just to have her life jacket on and swim about. It was TOO cute! Jumping to Daddy. Shortly after this...she started just jumping in by herself.

Little girl in her happy place. :)She also loved this balcony. I took this one morning. I heard her wake up, get out of bed, and open the door to the balcony. I got up and watched her and she just went over to this chair, laid down, and just stared out at the ocean. She didn't make a peep or try talking to anyone or anything. Just woke up and headed out here. She LOVED it!

Hanging with Grandma and Grandpa. And on the balcony with Daddy.

And Grandpa. Don't know where I am in all these pictures. I think I have some of our whole fam on my mom's camera, so again...I'll check and update later. :)

We found this teen room that happened to be empty. It was a "train station" theme and there was music playing. So Kylie had her own little dance party. It was too cute. :)

Our Dancing Queen! She loved this place. :)She would climb in the suitcases too and pretend to be all packed up. The green "bracelet" that she has on is one all the kids had to wear. They had to have it on the whole time as a safety percaution. It told them the "muster station" we were assigned to...where we would go as well in case she was seperated from us. To keep it from bugging her the whole time, we established it as a cool accessory. :) It was her "cruise bracelet" and she ended up loving it. :)

Hanging with Grandma

And with Daddy

The last day they had part of the crew get up on stage so we could cheer for them. They really have an amazing crew. We had SUCH a good time and really can't wait to go back!!!

Our last day, once we were off the boat and at the airport...I think we had about 8 hours to kill before our plane too off. Yeah...crazy. But as you can see...we set up camp. We had lots of stuff with us and it actually went kinda fast. Wasn't too bad at all. Good-bye cruise! Until next time! :)

Caribbean Cruise...Part 1

The end of Sept-beginning of October we were lucky enough to go on a family cruise. Brian, Kylie and I went, along with my parents. It really was SO MUCH FUN and I miss it lots. :) We left from Miami and then sailed to Cayman Islands, Isla Roatan, Belize, and Cozumel. Then of course ended back up in Miami. We were gone just over a week, it was a 7-night cruise. We flew to Miami first and had to stay there a night and wait to get on our boat the next day. Kylie is great on planes, she loves flying actually. She loves the window seat especially. :) I bought her this little toy she is playing with right before we left and it turned out to be a great investment. :) She played with this for a LONG time!!! In Miami....we had a horrible hotel experience, so we were even MORE EXCITED to get on that boat the next day! :) And while we were waiting in lines to get checked-in and ready to get on board the boat, they had this FABULOUS play area for Kylie to play in. So it was a blast from the beginning!
It was my parents first cruise...so the second we got on the boat I snapped a picture of them...
After we got on the boat, we had a little bit before we could go in our cabin. So what did we do first thing?! Ate of course! We ate SO MUCH food this trip. They have delicious food 24/7 so you have to take advantage of it, right?! :) After we ate some lunch, we went to our cabins to check things out, wait for our luggage to get there, unpack, hang out on our balcony and check out the ocean, and wait for us to sail out. Before we did sail out though, we had to go to our safety "training" they make you go to. It was SO HOT and miserable while we had to wear our life jackets. We were all packed on to one of the decks. And seriously...they PACK you in there like sardines...and you are on this crevice of the deck so there is no breeze and you have this big life jacket on and it was just not fun. Worth it...but not fun. :) (I did get a picture with my cell phone camera so I'll have to update that picture later.)

When we were in our cabin....Kylie LOVED hanging out on our balcony from the moment she saw it. That was where she preferred to be.She would just sit there and stare out at the ocean. Her mommy loved it too. :)
Hanging out on the balcony made us all want to get in the water. And although I was DYING to just dive off my balcony in to the ocean, I was pretty sure that wasn't the safest thing to do. :) So we opted for the pool instead. :) But after we went to our safety training and got unpacked and had a few hours to digest our lunch, we headed to our dinner. On a cruise you can either choose early seating for dinner (at 6:00pm) or late seating (8:00pm). Since we have Kylie...we went to early dinner. And turns out...smart move. Because the first night when we went to our table (you have the same table/waiters every night) we saw this view...Our table had a FABULOUS view...and we got to see the day turn to night each day. It was FABULOUS and amazing and I loved it! These were some of the fabulous things we got to eat...

Shrimp cocktail (Brian had this every night...our waiter even learned he liked to have two of these, so he started just automatically bringing him two of these each night)

LOBSTER! (My fave night...I LOVE lobster...it's one of my fave things!)

And this AMAZING Chocolate Melting Cake. May not look like much, but WOW! It was SO GOOD! :)

This was our table number.

Ky and Daddy hanging out during dinner.

When we get back from dinner to get refreshed before going to the shows or walking around the decks of the ship or whatever we did, we were greeted in our rooms by an animal like this... Our steward would make us one of these each night, and it was a different animal each night. Sometimes there were even cookies. We loved coming in to a clean room after dinner to get ready for our night. :)

Then we would usually go to the night's show (they had a HILARIOUS juggler one night, dancers another, a magician, comedians, etc, etc.). They had great shows.

Then we would often come back, put Kylie to bed, and hang on the balcony. It was great because our cabin was right next to my parents, so we opened up the door that separated our balcony's and just wandered to each other's rooms. Kylie would disappear from our cabin quite often to head to Grandma's and Grandpa's. She LOVED being able to be so close and go see them whenever.

I LOVED hanging out on the balcony and reading a book or just stare out at the ocean and contemplate how small we are in the scheme of things. (Seriously...staring out at the vast ocean makes you really think about all sorts of things....I LOVED it!!!)

Here is just the first portion of our cruise adventure. More will be coming soon! :)

A Girl After My Own Heart...

Kylie is growing so fast! I'm sure many parents relate to this, but she seems to grow taller every day. Since she has grown out of almost everything she owns....I did some shopping the other day. I ended up going online to get most of what I wanted, because they never have sizes you need in the stores. Anyway: since I shopped online I told Kylie that a box of clothes for her should be coming in a few days. She was SO EXCITED about it and every day she asked if the box was here. She couldn't wait. As soon as it got here....she ripped the box open and couldn't WAIT to see what was inside. She was SO EXCITED!!!! I could barely make her wait so I could take a picture before she opened the box. :)

Patiently waiting for her crazy mom to snap a picture of this event that probably doesn't need to be documented. :)
Grabbing stuff and just so excited to see what is in her box and get to the bottom.

Hugging some of her favorites. :)

It was too cute watching her. She brings so much light in to my life and I am so glad I am blessed to be her mother!

PRESCHOOL IS HERE!!!

The day has arrived. My daughter is starting her MANY years of SCHOOLING! I can't believe it. Makes me SAD!!! Seriously...WHERE DOES THE TIME GO?!?! (I'm sure I'll be saying that many times in my lifetime!) This morning started out early. At about midnight last night I was laying in bed and remembered, "SHE NEEDS A BACKPACK!!!" So got up earlier than originally planned so we had time to grab her one before school. I had to wake her up this morning too, and she did NOT want to get up. So I started telling her that we were going to get ready to go to preschool. She got a bit of a smile on her face. Then I told her that we were going to go get a backpack for her first and her smile got even bigger. It was so cute. :) Here she is on the way to school... Does this look like a face that is ready to start SCHOOL YET??!?! Then here she is at her classroom door. SUCH a big kid!!!!

Right when you first get there, they have puzzles at each seat. (There are 16 kids total in her class.) Kinda helps them have something to focus on as the parents all leave. Kylie loves puzzles so she was excited. Here she is with her teacher, Miss Ali. She's darling.

Then this is as I'm leaving I snap one last picture....and she could not have CARED LESS that I was leaving. I was able to hold my tears until I got in to my car, and then I'm not going to lie....it was TOUGH. I cried a bit the whole way home and then when I pulled in to my garage, I saw a caterpillar on the driveway. I cried more. (She LOVES to find caterpillars and she wasn't there to see it with me!!! What's a mom to do?!!) Then I walked in to an empty house and it was SO SAD and just kinda lost it a bit! I know...I know...I was being a bit dramatic. But SERIOUSLY...she has been my LIFE these past three years! It's been just her and I all day, every day! Change is hard, give me a break! :) I couldn't wait to go pick her up. And when I got there, this is what I got to see...

Seriously...HOW CUTE IS SHE?!?!? :) I wanted to peek in on her a bit before she saw me so I could see how she was doing. But she saw me the second I walked to her classroom door, and she yelled, "MOMMY!" and RAN to me! How could I resist THAT?!? That was THE BEST!!! :) Then I wanted to take her picture out in the hallway. Another mom was doing the same thing and Kylie runs over to them and says, "I want to get in too!" She wanted to get in their first day pictures. :) I think she's going to do just fine. Then I decided to take her to lunch to celebrate her first day. She picked a local burger joint here so that is where we went...

She sat in the booth across from me and just chatted away and told me stories about her first day. I asked her after she told me a few things how preschool really was and she says, "Mom, I already told you!" She is getting TOO old! But she loves it and was so excited to go back. :) I couldn't ask for more than that.

And then the whole rest of the day she wouldn't take her backpack off. She would fill it up with her fave toys of the moment and carry it around with her wherever she went. She is so cute and I'm happy today went as well as it did. GOOD LUCK KYLIE! I wish you the best year!!!

Pre-Preschool!

Kylie starts Preschool on THURSDAY!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I'm so anxious about it. I keep having weird dreams about her and I think it's because I'm so anxious about her leaving. I know, I know. She will go for four hours a week total...two hours for two days a week...it isn't a big deal. BUT STILL!!! She is my only child and I'M NOT READY!!! But I know she is. So that is why I'm trying to be a big girl and let her branch out a bit. Anyway: the reason this is being brought up now is because today we went to her Open House today. She got to meet her teacher, see the other kids in her class, and kinda check things out. I'm so glad they do this. I think this will help things. :) For both of us. :) She's so excited and can't wait to go. I think it will be so good socially for her. Anyway....I didn't get any pictures taken today of her at school, but I snapped a few of her at home.

Oh my dear, Kylie! I LOVE YOU! You are growing up SO FAST!!!!

Colorado Weekend...

This past weekend we traveled to Colorado for a fun family event. My sweet niece, Lexy, was getting baptized. This is a big day for her and it was SO GREAT to be there for her. She is SO SWEET and was SO EXCITED!!! Here is a fabulous picture of this beautiful girl...

And here are just some snapshots of the weekend. Kylie and her Grandpa Brown...

All these cutie cousins together! Crae, Camden, Kaylee, Kylie, Lexy. I am SO HAPPY that we got ALL of them together and actually ALL LOOKING at the camera! WOW! :)

Some more pics...

Kaylee is one beautiful little girl. She is a sweetie...

And of course Uncle Matty needed some play time with his nieces and nephews...

We had a great weekend and were sad to see it come to an end! Hopefully we will all be together again soon!