Mexican Riviera Cruise

As the title of this post suggests my family and I had the opportunity to go on a 10 day Mexican Riviera cruise with 5 ports of call and 3 days at sea. It was awesome! But instead of boring you with words I’ll show you in pictures.

In order to get to San Diego, CA –where the cruise was leaving from- we determined since there were 7 of us going –my parents, sister, other sister and her husband, and Ben and I- it would be substantially cheaper if we drove down. So we rented a van and left at 2pm on Thursday February 10, 2011.
We arrived in San Diego 17 hours later to board the Carnival Spirit.

Once on the ship the first two days were spent at sea. There were plenty of activities for us to do like play mini golf...

and play cards...

play dodgeball (actually only Ben and my dad did this activity). Here my dad was the last man standing on his team. Ben and my dad were on the same team and their team ended up being cruise ship champions and they got cool medals.

We saw beautiful sunsets...

had cool towel animals in our room each night...

we dressed up...

And had fantastic service by these two men...

who fed us delicious food like this...

Then we arrived at our first port, Puerto Vallarta. We had decided to do an “Extreme Canopy Adventure” and let me tell you this was so much fun!

We zip lined (here Ben and I were racing; the guides say it was a tie but I say I won)

We also repelled down a rock wall with a waterfall...

And Maxx held up this building.

Next was Mazatlan where we did a lot of this (walking)...

but we made friends with statues...

and the locals...

and saw cool sites like this...

and this.

Then onto La Paz where we stood under this arch...

and saw this beautiful beach...

and this cool looking church.

Next was Cabo San Lucas. We took a water taxi…

to see this site...

and play on this beach.

Finally we went to Ensenada. We had to walk through this market…
to see this “natural phenomenon” (as our guide called it). It was a blowhole.

Then on Sunday February 20 we drove another 17 hours to arrive home on Monday February 21 at 3:30am. We had such a good time with family and the weather was a nice break from this cold Oregon winter.

Civil War

Recipe

Since Thanksgiving is coming up this week I thought I would post a recipe I recently found in a magazine that I really enjoyed.

Recipe for Army an Army Wife

1 1/2 cups patience
1 lb adaptability

3/4 cup tolerance

1 tsp. courage

A dash of adventure

Combine above ingredients. Add two tablespoons elbow grease.
Let sit alone for one year.

Marinate frequently with salty tears. Pour off excess fat and sprinkle ever so lightly with money. Knead dough until payday. Season with a lot of international spices. Bake 20 years or longer, until done.

Serve with pride!

Oh, and this announcement is a week late but MY HUSBAND IS HOME!!!

Gilbert House

Today I had stole this cute child and we went to the Gilbert House. Here she is trying to blow/pop a bubble.

She loved playing with the trains and watching the automated one go around and around the tracks.

Seriously, how cute is she?!?

It was a great day to go since there were hardly any other kids there. She had a great time grocery shopping. Her mom would be proud, she bought lots of fruits and veggies.

Her full cart!

Electrician

Sometimes it's the small things in life that are worth celebrating. Today for me it was successfully playing electrician. My porch light wasn't on a timer so whenever I would come home after dark my house would be black. So I went to Lowes and successfully selected all the necessary equipment to change my 3 way switch to a different switch and hook up my porch light on a timer -and I had to buy a new cover. Here is what my light switch looked like initially:

I had this out just in case -but I didn't have to use it.

And the finished product! (admittedly I didn't do this all by myself -thank you Maxx and mom).

Feeding the 5000

OK, 5000 may be a slight exaggeration but yesterday my sister and I did feed about 175 people. My cousin got married and we offered to serve the food. The wedding was at 3pm so we served snack foods instead of a full meal. This is what my kitchen counter looked like prior to the big day. We borrowed all the trays and crock pots so I had to store them all before hand.
Then on Friday we set up the church; this is what it looked like when we arrived.

After the church was set up we spent all of Friday afternoon making and preparing food. Here my mom and Brittany are chopping vegetables for the pasta salad and vegetable trays.

One tray complete, many more to go.

This was our little coffee station at the church. It may not look that impressive, but for my sister, mom and I who don't drink coffee this was a minor victory. Although we were told that for an afternoon/evening wedding you shouldn't serve caffeinated coffee (sorry to all the guests who couldn't sleep all night!)

This was the only fridge we had use of in the church. See how packed full it was? We actually had to put a table in front of the fridge to keep the door closed because it kept popping open.

A picture of the completed pasta salad.

And our meat tray.

And the cheese tray.

And the rolls.

And meatballs.

Even Maxx helped set up the tables.

Here we are waiting for the guests to arrive and happy everything is in place.

The finished product ready for guests to eat.

After everyone had eaten we also had to serve the cake. Thankfully Charissa came and helped us with the whole event. Between keeping the plates, punch bowl, coffee creamer and everything else filled, it was nice to have the extra hands.

We had just the right amount of meatballs, rolls, meat and cheese and jello salad, but made way too much pasta and potato salad. For our first (and maybe only) attempt at feeding 200ish people it went quite well.