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We decided to take advantage of the balconies across the hall from our cabins for sail away. We split our time between Jason and Melissa’s balcony and Mick and Debbie’s balcony. We wished that their cabins had been next to each other as we noticed what seemed to be removable partitions between adjacent balconies. Instead, they had two balconies between them, so we shouted past the newlyweds next door (who polluted our air with their smoking, so we’re even, right?).

At least 3 or 4 other ships were in port with us, and we watched other ships depart before it was our turn. I always wish that I could get the photos from the other passing ships when I’m on cruises. I get nice photos of their ship – you would think we could work out a swap.

We’re almost on our way!

The kids enjoyed the balcony.

They liked watching the cruise ships and the coast guard boats.

We’re moving!

Now, it’s time for a few moments at Mick and Debbie’s cabin!

Maddie was enjoying time with Grandma!

We couldn’t believe some of the huge houses that we passed on the way out of the port. Are these personal residences? They seemed huge!

This one even had a Flow Rider type surfing simulation next to the house (complete with someone showing off their surfing skills). Wow!

Goodbye Fort Lauderdale! We’re off to explore better places, see ya!

Next up…our first evening on the ship and the favorites summary from the day.

We gathered the people on our floor (everyone except my parents who were already exploring the ship) and headed to Deck 15 to see the pool and the view from the top of the ship of Fort Lauderdale.

Everyone was quite impressed about the amenities around the ship. Some of us grabbed soda packages, and others grabbed some fruity welcome beverages.

We looked down into Central Park.

It was quite windy on the upper decks, but we loved the views (of the ship features as well as the ocean and Fort Lauderdale).

It was difficult to stick together with so many people, but we did explore a little of the ship together.

We checked out some of the pool decks. We looked down onto The Boardwalk and Aqua Theatre and saw the zip line, mini golf course, and flow riders (surfing simulations) on the sports deck.

And then…we ran into my mom! And she told us that we JUST missed Dad doing the zip line! I can’t believe we missed it, and only by a few minutes. Darn! The zip line was shorter than I expected it to be. The “ride” was less than 10 seconds. My mom caught it on video, and I’ll have to put it all together when I get the cruise footage sorted. We have video of Dad, Melissa, and Jason all doing the zip line (at different times, of course).

Cullen and Maddie checked out the little kid mini golf.

It’s a very cute area right next to the regular mini golf course (which has 9 holes). The kids had fun playing around on it. We really thought we’d get back here with the kids, but we found a million other fun things to do and never got around to it.

…which is too bad, because they really did enjoy it!

And while we were playing on the sports deck, a beautiful rainbow started to form. If you’ve ever tried to take photos of a rainbow, you know that photos do not do it justice. It was just amazing.

The rainbow was just starting to form when we got this photo but was already very bright.

Our turn to be photographed under a rainbow!

The rainbow just continued to get bigger and bigger and became a complete, brilliant, double rainbow. It was just about the most amazing start to a wonderful cruise vacation. Again, the photos do not do it justice!

…and with the rainbow came the rain, so we had to cut short the kids’ fun with minigolf and head for shelter. We thought it was almost time for the muster drill, so we headed back to the room to unpack a few more things. It turned out we had a bit more time than we expected, but we were nice and unpacked beforehand.

I’m glad we decided to ditch the stroller before the muster drill. Our muster location was Studio B which was crowded (and it wouldn’t have been easy to take the stroller in the theater).

Along the way, one of the crew members put their “Assembly Station Team” vest onto Cullen (on the back, it said, “Assembly Station Team, Ask Me”). He was quite cute walking around in the vest.

By the time we arrived at Studio B, Cullen was starting to get cranky. He was tired since he hadn’t had a nap (we still didn’t have a pack-n-play in our room by this point). He did not want to be in the drill area. We temporarily made him happy by letting him play Monkey Lunchbox on the iPhone. Then, we were told that we had to put away cellphones and entertainment devices. Cullen was extremely mad about that. In retrospect, I would have let him continue to play until someone told me personally to turn it off so that he stayed happy a little longer. Everyone in the (ice) theater knew we were there! They were late getting started with the drill, and it was a miserable wait for us (and everyone else, I think!). That boy can scream.

If we had had an actual emergency, I would have been screwed as I had no idea what they told us during the drill. I think we would have all been able to pay attention much better if the one year old could have played with the iPhone!

We walked through the casino on the way back to our room, and I told Cullen all about slot machines, table games, and roulette.

Next up….sail away!

I usually like to keep my video clips under a minute, or as close as possible, but I wanted to put together several of their Christmas performances into one video. Maddie’s classroom performed a concert at school, but we were on the cruise when it happened. They had been practicing for weeks. Maddie gave us a private performance the night before the cruise.

Click on this link or visit the blog post to see the embedded video.

It’s mostly Maddie singing songs, but Cullen has a few cute moments and some singing of his own towards the end.

This post is a description of our cabins, which might be boring to the majority of you (if you even found the other trip reports interesting in the first place). I know that I have liked to read this sort of thing when getting ready for other cruises, so someone may find this useful. If you’re curious about what the staterooms on Allure of the Seas look like…continue…

We booked our cruise in April 2010 (yes, that’s 2010) for our December 2011 sailing. When we booked the cruise, Cullen was only a few months old. We had no idea if it would be feasible for the kids to sleep in the same room or what kind of space we might need for our family. We hoped to have a separate space for the adult or adults who were stuck on kid duty in the evenings while the kids snoozed and the other adults went out to have fun around the ship. We investigated the balcony cabins, thinking it would be wonderful to hang out on the balcony while kiddos were snoozing. My mom was the first to suggest getting two cabins, and I thought that was a silly idea. Then, we discovered that one balcony cabin was almost exactly the same price as two interior cabins (one with an interior window!).

We priced various options including just one Promenade stateroom versus the two connecting staterooms. We were surprised to find out that getting two cabins was only 25% more than getting just the Promenade room. It seemed more than worth it to have both the extra space and a separate space for adults to read or watch TV (or have the option to separate the kids, if necessary). We debated switching to just the promenade room as the cruise neared, but by then booking just one cabin for four people was more than what we were paying for two. We would have had to start a brand new reservation, so the old rates would not have been honored. It pays to book early. After we booked, the rates kept going up. If prices had gone down, we would have been able to take advantage of the price drop.

After having lunch at the Park Cafe, we headed to our cabins. We grabbed an elevator to Deck 7. At this point, we have no idea where we are going. The elevators were all pretty full, so we had to split into two elevators (since we each had a kid in a stroller). One of the neat things on the ship is the availability of touch screen maps.

This was taken later in the trip on the 15th deck, but you get the idea.

So, we quickly found out that one set of elevators is a bad choice for getting to our cabin. Of course, that is the set of elevators we used when trying to find our cabin for the first time. I arrived on Deck 7 and noticed the touchscreen map. I punched in our cabin number, and it located the cabin AND gave me a nice little path showing how to get there. Nice!

The hallways are long. This photo was not even taken from the extreme end.

We also later learned that the sections are color coded. We were in the red or pinkish section at about the spot indicated on this map. These lower tech maps were located throughout each deck as well. See the pink section? That’s us. We were near the middle of the ship, so we were almost at the end of the pink section. Now look towards the aft of the ship (left on this map). There you can see the two banks of elevators that are NOT connected to each other. You can see now that we got off at a very bad spot for getting to our cabin. We had to walk almost the full length of the ship and then double back to the middle of the ship on the other hallway. We didn’t make that mistake again on the ship! It really would have helped to know this ahead of time. The deck plans were all online, and we knew our cabin numbers, so theoretically we could have learned about the location before departing…somehow none of it makes much sense until I’m actually on the ship.

Finally, we arrived at our adjoining cabins. They weren’t connected when we arrived, so this was a little bit of a pain. We had to prop open both doors and kept shuttling stuff between the rooms by going out in the hallway and into the other room. We did manage to get a crew member to open the door between the rooms while we were unpacking.

I was determined on this trip to take photos of the cabins before we made it a disaster zone, so I started snapping photos while the kids were still confined to the strollers.

The first cabin we entered was 7197, the Promenade Stateroom (category PR). It was the larger of the two staterooms at 193.8 square feet, but immediately we were relieved that we had two cabins. We were happy to find that the twin beds were converted to a queen (sometimes they don’t get that quite right upon arrival).

We had a neat bench seat and a window overlooking the Promenade. Of course, I had to check out the view right away! We loved having a Promenade view. The Promenade was on the 5th deck, so we had a nice bird’s eye view of the people below. We were also able to watch one of the parades from up here later in the trip.

As usual, we were happy with the way that the space is arranged with shelves and drawers in various spots around the cabin. We were sure to look for hidden shelves on the desk (next to the mirror) and such. I remember that we discovered a set of hidden shelves on a previous cruise towards the end of the trip! We put all of the kids’ clothes and items in their room. We did the gallon sized ziploc baggie thing again this time. Every ziploc bag had an outfit for each kid, including socks and underwear. It was very convenient for putting them away in their closet, and even more convenient for selecting outfits each day. Maddie selected something different at times, but it was a good place to start.

The adjoining cabin, 7195, was a Large Interior Stateroom (Category L), and we were pleased to find that the bed was in the queen configuration as well. We planned for Maddie to sleep in that bed, and we wanted to place her in the middle of a large bed so that she had less chance of falling onto the floor. She did great on that bed! This cabin was smaller at 172.2 square feet. It’s difficult to photograph the cabins, but the photos really show the majority of the room! Cruise ship cabins are not spacious.

We were disappointed to find that we did not yet have our pack-n-play as this also meant that we weren’t going to be able to get Cullen down for a nap. Maddie and Cullen were excited to have their own room, and Cullen pretended to take a nap on the couch while Maddie covered him with her blanket. We dreamed of that actually working, but we knew that Cullen was not going to nap without a pack-n-play.

The bathrooms were identical with a small shower enclosed with two sliding circular doors that join in the middle. Showering small children on a cruise ship is an interesting process. It was definitely a one at a time type of operation. Fortunately, the sprayer is detachable. We would just put a towel on the floor to keep the kids from slipping, and it wasn’t too bad overall. The shelf space in the bathroom along the side wall and under the sink counter as well as the cabinet under the sink was more than sufficient for toiletries. We definitely did not use all of our storage, especially considering that we stored nothing in the second bathroom. We did use it a few times to hang bathing suits and other wet clothing.

Once we got most of our things unpacked, we went to see how other members of our party were settling into their cabins. Everyone else in our party was in a balcony cabin. Melissa and Jason were directly across the hall from us, so we checked out their room and balcony for a few minutes.

Their room was configured exactly like ours except where we had a Promenade window, they had a balcony. Here you can see more of how the desk and the closet fits into the scene. Jason took this photo from the balcony side of the room, facing back towards the entry and bathroom in the cabin.

And the rest of the room, with this photo showing the flat screen television and iPod dock and charging station that were in every stateroom. Everyone’s balconies had views of other ships before our departure.

As usual, the kids can’t resist flopping around in hotel (or cruise ship) beds! I think that the kids tried out each cabin bed that we visited.

Gabe’s parents were a couple doors down from Melissa and Jason. My parents were on the 8th deck, above Gabe’s parents. Melissa’s parents were down the hallway towards the back of the ship, past the elevator banks.

We were glad that Maddie made some kind of marker for everyone’s doors as this came in handy several times during our trip!

We were glad that we had friends and family willing to share their balconies!

Next up…we explore a bit more of the ship before the muster drill…

We started the day early as the kids were awake before 7am. We were excited that we could see both the sunrise on the beach and our ship from our hotel window. We couldn’t wait to get on the ship!

We were a little concerned about the weather. It looked like it was raining in the distance for much of the time that we were in the hotel room.

We had arranged for the car service to pick us up at 11:15am, so we had some time for breakfast and getting our bags together. It’s amazing how many things we can spread around a hotel room in just one night. We got everyone clean and clothed and headed down to the hotel restaurant with Nana for breakfast. Breakfast was overpriced and not very good. I was disappointed in the oatmeal, but I knew that yummy oatmeal was waiting for me on the ship! The kids weren’t on their best behavior towards the end of the meal. It’s those kind of moments that made us concerned about how things were going to go when we were on the cruise!

We took the kiddos back to the room to gather our things and wait until it was time to depart. We didn’t really have enough time to go do something, but we had far too much time to spend in a hotel room with two small kiddos. We tried to entertain them with books, iPhones, and the DS. This wouldn’t be the last time that we tried to distract restless kiddos with the iPhones! We were very happy to have them.

We met everyone in the lobby, checked out of the hotel, and called the car service. They had two regular car seats this time, and it took a few minutes to put them in.

The process of checking in at the port was pretty smooth! Porters met us at our car when we arrived and took our checked baggage. We had to go through security, much like you have to do in the airport, and then the process of getting our Seapass cards. They take everyone’s photos, make you sign a few things saying that you haven’t been sick, and collect your signed documents (assuming you did it online before arriving). The lines at 11:30am were minimal to get through security and the check in. Everyone except for Melissa’s parents were together and ready to get onto Allure of the Seas.

Our first views of the ship were the Promenade neighborhood which was probably the most decorated for the holidays. It is an impressive place. I told Maddie and Cullen that we were on a ship, and Maddie didn’t believe it. I don’t blame her. It certainly did not feel like we had stepped onto a ship. Everything is still so shiny and new, for the most part. The Promenade has shops, bars, and a Starbucks. It feels like a glitzy shopping mall instead of a cruise ship. One of our cabins overlooked this area.

A few minutes after we got onto the ship, Mick realized that he had left a bag in security. Gabe went with him to find the bag, and the rest of us went in search of food.

We had heard that Windjammer is a madhouse on the first day, so we headed to the Park Cafe in the Central Park neighborhood. Central Park is another area of the ship that does not give you a feel of being on a boat in the middle of the ocean. It’s impressive.

We learned quickly that the Park Cafe lacked seating availability, especially on a day where lots of people were trying to find food at the same time. It was a little confusing at first, since we weren’t sure which things on the ship were included with your fare or extra. Everything in the Park Cafe is included. It’s so nice to be able to walk up to a counter and say, “I’ll have this and that” and not have to worry about the cost. It’s especially nice with little kids who may or may not eat what you’ve ordered for them. We found some benches in Central Park and took turns getting food.

I ended up doing the “make your own salad” thing for the kids. I think it confused the lady fixing the salads that I didn’t want any lettuce or dressing. I just picked out a few things that I thought the kids would eat like ham, turkey, and veggies. I also got them a fruit cup. So far, our food experiences were far better than we had experienced outside of the ship! All of us were happy with our wraps and sandwiches and salads. It was a little inconvenient not to have seating, and we quickly learned about the other downside of Central Park. Central Park is on the 8th deck in the interior of the ship, but it is mostly outside (with some balcony cabins overlooking the park). It started raining while we were there, so we had to find cover. It was a little awkward with our carry on bags, two strollers, plates, bowls, and drinks! We found a covered spot to stand while finishing up our grub.

By the time that we finished our lunch, we thought that our cabins might be ready, so we headed that way.

Next up…a tour of our cabins…

Something that makes me happy: I have a lot of great friends.

Something I’m thinking: It’s a new year! I don’t make resolutions, but I still can’t help but to reflect on things at the beginning of a new year.

Something I’m creating: I just finished making our photo calendars (a little late this year). I am working on narrowing down photos from the trip and writing up trip reports (and catching up on other photo posts).

Something happening around the house: Despite having almost 40 people in the house for games night, it surprisingly doesn’t look like a disaster zone this afternoon.

Something I’m reading: I finished The Titan’s Curse and started The Battle of the Labyrinth.

Something Gabe is reading: He’s been making some progress on Hyperion.

Something I’m watching: We’re thinking about having a movie day tomorrow since Gabe has a holiday (and I have more vacation days than he does). We’re not quite sure what we’re going to see, but we’re hoping to catch two movies.

Something I’m playing: Kids of Carcassonne, Go Away Monster, Hisss, and Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed with the kids. I played Chinatown, Tobago, and No Rules Pictionary last night. I watched kiddos a lot of the time. Gabe played King of Tokyo, Galaxy Trucker, Tobago, and No Rules Pictionary. We also played Lancaster.

Something tasty: I made my Grandma’s Chicken Divan tonight. Yummy!

Something about both kiddos: The kids are getting into playing games, which makes me very happy! They are both doing very well at following rules and taking turns in Go Away Monster. Maddie is grasping most of the games that we have tried, but Go Away Monster is the only one that Cullen has been able to play so far.

Something Maddie is doing (46 months old): Maddie finally has the attention span and desire to play board games. She has been doing well with Kids of Carcassonne (though doesn’t grasp all the strategy of it yet), Five Little Monkeys (which has no strategy, just spinning and moving and following the rules), and Hisss (mostly). I was most excited about Kids of Carcassonne which is a great introduction to Euro games and is a neat little kid adaptation of Carcassonne. Maddie’s favorite show is Jake and the Neverland Pirates at the moment. She still hasn’t been exposed to much variety in terms of different shows. She’s enjoying her LeapPad. We haven’t used any of our app credits yet. She hasn’t had much interest in taking photos or videos with it. I really thought that she would like that feature, but I think maybe she doesn’t quite get it yet. She has a train game that she likes. She also has been playing Smart Girls on the DS and Siege Hero and Monkey Lunchbox on the iPhone. I’m proud of her board gaming and video gaming foundations. We’re reading her the first books in the Magic Treehouse series.

Something Cullen is doing (23 months old): Cullen has started using his imagination. I’m not sure if he did it this week or just prior, but he has taken pieces of food and said, “a dog!” or “a boat!” I am impressed that he is able to play a game of Go Away Monster. It’s a very simple game, but it has the basics of taking turns which is an essential foundation for board gaming. He can easily pattern match the shapes. Players take turns drawing tiles out of the bag and either vanquishing monsters or putting furniture in their rooms (the pattern matching). We have tried a few other games, but he’s just not ready for any of them yet! He can play Monkey Lunchbox on the iPhone without help from us, including the puzzle minigames where he has to drag puzzle pieces to create pieces of fruit. It’s amazing to me how early kids can grasp the iPhone. Some of the minigames involve him just touching the screen at random, but it’s a start. He had a few cranky days this week. I discovered that he’s FINALLY cutting the eyeteeth. It seems like it has been a really long time since his last teeth came through. At least two of them have broken through the gums. All of them are coming soon. Cullen is sweet with his new dolls. Sometimes he just gets up into the big blue chair and rocks with them. He also likes to roll around on the floor and hug them.

Something I am struggling with: We have so many options for schools now, and I’m trying to sort through some of the mess since it won’t be that long before we’ll have to decide where Maddie goes to school. Crazy!

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I keep dreaming about a Disney cruise, one of the goals I have listed. I find myself searching itineraries every few days or so. It might just have to be our next cruise vacation. Disney is this year!

Something I’m looking forward to: It’s nice when we get to January and don’t have too many plans. I try to make a point of not scheduling much past the end of the year when it’s October/November/December. I am thinking we need another games night soon, though. While we had a great time with friends on NYE, neither of us played as many games as we had hoped!

Something captured: Cullen and his “ladies”

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

We walked from our hotel to the beach, and decided to walk towards the cruise ships. Saturday’s ships were leaving the port, and we all were excited to see the Oasis of the Seas depart, since that was our sister ship. Several ships had started their journey when we made it to the beach.

We walked a little ways along the beach.

We decided that we had walked far enough, and it didn’t seem like we were going to get much closer to the ships without walking more than we wanted. We stopped at a playground on the beach, and Maddie headed for the play structure. I took Cullen to the play structure, but I decided that it would be easier to let him explore the beach. So, we headed for the water.

He was a bit fearless at first.

We took off our shoes and socks and rolled up our pants. Cullen watched the waves for a while.

Jason and Maddie had been playing on the play structure, and they joined us a few minutes later. My mom joined us at the water as well. The rest of our group took a break and sat on a wall at the edge of the sand.

This is the first of many times on this trip that Jason tried to steal our kiddos. Here we are looking like a lovely family.

The kids watched the waves, and I tried to get photos in the light of the setting sun. Cullen kept falling down and getting his jeans wet and sandy. We didn’t have the best beach attire as we didn’t change our clothes after landing in Fort Lauderdale. It wasn’t too hot as the sun was setting.

The kids didn’t cooperate with my photoshoot too much. I snapped away, anyway.

The Fort Lauderdale beach was a little gross. We saw many cigarette butts and just random trash along the beach. Yuck! Obviously, I let my kiddos walk barefoot on the beach anyway.

I had to keep an eye on Jason. He tried to steal the kids again.

We were all very sandy after our visit to the beach. It was almost impossible to clean up all the sand on their feet, hands, and legs. While we were cleaning up the sand, Oasis finally left!

We were all excited to see how BIG the ship was compared to the others that we had seen leaving the port. Wow! We couldn’t believe that we would finally be getting on the Allure and departing in less than 24 hours! We pointed out features of the ship, the most obvious being the AquaTheatre on the back.

We walked back towards our hotel in search of a place to have our dinner. We found an interesting looking place that looked like a generic cafe type place called Oasis. We were sold on the tables and benches that were actually swings! The concept turned out to be quite a bit neater than the reality. They sat us at a giant table at first, but it was too big and literally between a road and the dumpsters in the back of the restaurant. We requested a different table, and that one was a tad small for our party of 9. We managed. The table was a little far from the benches, so that was tricky with the kids.

I had a chicken quesadilla, and I thought it was decent. Apparently, Jason and Melissa had ordered the same thing and theirs barely had any chicken at all. Everyone else declared that their meal was mediocre to bad. On top of the mediocre food, it was overpriced. Strike three for meals on that day! Thank goodness the majority of the meals for the next 7 days would be on the cruise ship!

After our mediocre meal, we headed to the boat parade. Gabe’s mom headed back to the room to watch Kentucky suffer their first loss in basketball for the season. We had heard conflicting reports on the best place to stand to view the parade, and one of our recommendations was into a private, restricted area. We were denied entry, so we headed with the masses of people to the drawbridge.

It was difficult to take photos during the boat parade as we had several palm trees between us and the boats, and there were a lot of people on the bridge. Maddie could see the boats from her stroller, and we didn’t want the kids running around on the drawbridge. Cullen was a little lower in his stroller, and he couldn’t see a thing. I took him out of the stroller and held him for the majority of the time that we were watching the parade.

This was the 40th Winterfest Boat Parade (I learned that from one of the first floats). I thought that it was pretty neat. Some boats had fireworks! Other boats were blasting music and making announcements.

Cullen loved watching the “kissmiss lights!!!!” and seeing the boats and hearing them blast their boat horns. “The boat says ‘toot toot!’” We danced on the bridge to the music. He loved it…until he got a bit tired and cranky. We put him in the stroller after a little while, he fell fast asleep. Cullen did pretty well considering that he never had a chance to nap during the day, since we had checked into the room so late.

By that time, the parade had lost Maddie’s attention as well, and she was playing Monkey Lunchbox on the iPhone. The boat parade was very neat, but I must say that it moves a lot slower than a normal parade. It was difficult to see everything, and it didn’t keep the kids’ attention for too long.

The vantage point on the bridge was not far from the hotel, and we headed back at 8pm. All of us were exhausted! It seemed much, much later than 8pm. Cullen woke up briefly to get into his jammies and for a quick bedtime story. Neither kid put up much of a fight at bedtime!

Our favorites from the day:
Gabe: easy flight with the kids
Kerry: easy flight with the kids, playing on the beach, and seeing the boat parade
Maddie (according to her): seeing the boats in the parade and putting her feet in the water at the beach
Cullen (my guess): putting his feet in the water at the beach and seeing the boats with Mommy

As usual, I took a ton of notes on our cruise vacation. Thank goodness, or there’s no way that I would be able to remember the details. I like remembering the details and writing up our trip reports (and creating the photobook).

We started packing for this trip about a week before our departure. Since we were headed for warm weather, we didn’t have to worry about whether we were going to need to wear the clothes we wanted to pack. We also had to make sure we had enough clothing for the kids as they have both outgrown some of their summer clothes. Maddie seemed to enjoy putting on a fashion show, but Cullen was less than thrilled. Cullen had barely enough clothes for the trip.

We wanted to have only 3 checked bags both from a standpoint of being able to manage the kids and our luggage and to help out Jason and Melissa. We flew JetBlue, so each of us had a “free” checked bag. We shuffled around our clothes several times. I ended up going to Kohl’s late on Thursday night to buy a new suitcase. I bought a giant suitcase, but we took it back on Friday as we determined that we wouldn’t even be able to take full advantage of its size without hitting the 50 pound weight limit. We ended up taking it back and buying two 25″ suitcases which ended up getting close to the weight limit as it was. It didn’t look like *that* much when we loaded it in the car.

Melissa and Jason were on the same flight as us, so we arranged to meet them at the park and ride. Shockingly, we were on time. I was impressed that we could get everyone ready and out the door. Thank goodness that Melissa and Jason were with us as they were a huge help in getting our bags from one place to another, getting checked in, and getting the kids on the plane.

We had a little time to get breakfast and Starbucks coffee (mmmmm, Gingerbread Latte!). We grabbed a giant muffin for the kids and breakfast biscuits for everyone else. This was our first strike of the day for our meals. Of course, one shouldn’t expect all that much from airport food, so we weren’t surprised. Our plane boarded pretty much on time, and we were able to board early in the process since we had small children.

This is one of Maddie’s faces that I get when I ask Maddie to smile these days.

We were nervous about how the flight might go, especially since this was Cullen’s first flight. This was also the first time that we have flown without car seats. I was worried about whether either kid would stay seated without their car seat restraints. Cullen brushed up on the safety protocols.

Each seat back on JetBlue has a TV screen, but the kids didn’t like having on headphones for more than a second. The shows didn’t hold their attention without sound.

The seats were four across, so we took up a row. It was nice not to have anybody else next to us. Melissa and Jason were sitting in the row behind us. I was concerned that they were going to regret it, but the kids were great on the flight. Cullen got upset in the last 15 minutes. I think that his ears were hurting him, so I can’t really blame him. Gabe had been sitting next to him, and we switched for the last 10-15 minutes so that I could distract him and read him Mister Men and Little Miss stories.

Maddie and I worked on crafts for the majority of the flight. She made things for everyone to hang on their doors on the cruise ship. They turned out cute!

Cullen was distracted by dinosaur figures, complimentary iced animal crackers, the iPhone in his new Apptivity case, and books. Snack time on the plane distracted Maddie for a little while, too. She also opted for the iced animal crackers.

We were happy to land safely in Fort Lauderdale where we were greeted by the Fort Lauderdale Barbershop Harmony Chorus singing Christmas carols. I thought that the kids would get excited about hearing familiar tunes, the same tunes they have both been running around the house singing. They just stared blankly at the men. I thought it was great, and it really made me feel like Christmas was just around the corner. Considering that we have had mild temperatures at home and Fort Lauderdale was even warmer, it didn’t feel like Christmas in general.

The car service gave us a call, and we let them know that we were waiting for our luggage. We found out that Gabe’s parents had just landed as well, so we asked if they had enough space for two more. We had plenty of space in the shuttle.

Unfortunately, despite having reiterated several times on the phone that we need TWO 5-point harness regular car seats, they only had one car seat and a booster. I was a little annoyed that the driver insisted that everything will be fine because it was a short trip and he would drive carefully. They assured us that we would have two regular car seats for the rest of the legs (we had prearranged the same transportation to take us between the airport, hotel, and port so that we didn’t have to bring the bulky car seats). We put Maddie in the booster in one of the middle rows in the van. It was fine, but she’s definitely much safer in a regular car seat given her little size. I know that some of the shuttles without seat belts are more questionable than a booster that doesn’t quite fit…but when I have a choice, I choose the safest option.

We got to the hotel, the Courtyard Marriot Fort Lauderdale Beach, and everyone but us checked into their rooms. We dumped our luggage and went for a walk in search of somewhere along the beach to eat. We settled on Cafe Del Mar, an open air restaurant/bar with a beach view and a live guitar doing a crazy mix of cover songs.

The only notable thing about Cafe Del Mar was the giant margaritas which were 2-for-1. Melissa and Jason gave them a try, and Gabe and his parents shared a couple buckets of beer.

Our view wasn’t too shabby. The food was pretty bad. Strike two for our meals for the day.

While we were dining, my parents arrived at the hotel. We headed back to the hotel to see if we could check into our room, but it still wasn’t ready. We spent a few minutes in my parents’ room to give them a little more time. The kids think that playing in hotel beds is great fun. They went crazy, and we took some incredibly bad, blurry photos.

We all had nice views, though Melissa and Jason’s room was a king suite on a lower floor. From my parents’ room, they could see the intracoastal waterway where the boat parade would be held later that night. From our room, we could see the beach, cruise ships, and a little bit of the intracoastal waterway. Mick wanted a beach view.

We finally were able to check into our room. We had a nice King Suite with a pack-n-play for Cullen and a sleeper sofa for Maddie. The sleeper sofa has been working out pretty well for Maddie. I like that it is lower to the ground and fairly wide. She seems to stay in the middle pretty well.

After we checked into the hotel, we decided to head to the beach so that we could watch the cruise ships depart.

Stay tuned for the rest of Day 0…

We carved fancy pumpkins from kits again this year. Since the kids were Minnie and Mickey for Halloween, we chose to do a Mickey pumpkin and a Minnie pumpkin. Gabe carved Mickey, and I carved Minnie. We roasted the pumpkin seeds afterward (separating them is a messy business).

I didn’t hurt myself or others with the big knife.

Our pumpkins turned out pretty well. The kids were excited to see them on the porch over the next week.

Here’s how they looked in the dark!

Something that makes me happy: Christmas. Santa! Presents! Family! Friends! Food!

Something I’m thinking: Sometimes my kids are crazy nuts.

Something happening around the house: Chaos as we try to figure out where new toys should go. Some toy shuffling has been happening.

Something I’m reading: Still reading the third book of the Percy Jackson series. I’m not making fast progress. I did learn that my library books have not been deleted from the kindle since I haven’t been connected to the wifi. So, I can finish reading my books without having to worry about waiting lists and such.

Something Gabe is reading: Hyperion.

Something I’m watching: Santa brought the kids the new Winnie the Pooh movie, and we’ve already watched it a couple of times.

Something I’m playing: I played Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers and part of a game of Forbidden Island tonight.

Something tasty: Tons of chex mix, christmas cookies, and country ham.

Something about both kiddos: The kids play together fairly well these days. They also fight over little things often. Yesterday, I overheard Maddie say to Cullen, “Cullen, Let’s play a game where I run and you try to catch me. I’ll keep running and you try to catch me.” Cullen replied, “Ready. Set. Go.” They spent maybe 20 minutes running around and chasing each other. Maddie also said, “Try to catch me! That’s the name of the game!” Cullen and Maddie both decorated gingerbread houses. I got some adorable photos, but I had forgotten that I took the memory card out of the camera. Oops. Fortunately, they each decorated 2 tiny houses, so I had a second chance. They decorated sugar cookies, too. Pretty much this resulted in a bunch of iced cookies totally covered in sprinkles. Both kids got a ton of great stuff from Santa, family and friends.

Something Maddie is doing (46 months old): Maddie received a bunch of big gifts for Christmas this year. Nana and Papa got her a dollhouse, Santa brought her a LeapPad (an iPad type tablet for kids), and Kristin and Chad gave both kids an awesome kitchen. She says that her favorite gift was the firetruck, but that seems like an odd answer because it’s definitely not the gift that she’s played with the most. It’s hard to say which gift she’s played with the most, but most of her new toys have already seen a lot of play. While we’ve been home on our holiday break (all week), we have had her choose all of her clothes. It’s fun to see what she chooses each day. Usually, she picks some sort of a dress. Sometimes she puts together interesting combinations that generally work. She choose a “Peace, Love, and Rock & Roll” shirt on Saturday, and said, “look! it has a heart and a pretzel!” Ha! On Christmas, we let the kids have whatever candy or treats they wanted (within reason). Maddie figured that out after a little bit. She said to Daddy, “Daddy! Daddy! Mommy let me have a lollipop!” Daddy replied that “Wow, it is a special day!” and she said, “Yeah! You can have candy whenever you want!” Smart girl. We never even let the kids know they could have whatever they want. I guess we’re a tad limiting on a normal day! When the kids came downstairs to see what Santa brought them, Maddie was so cute, “Cullen! Cullen! Santa brought you your dolls! And a stroller!” She barely even noticed her own pile, she was so concerned about telling Cullen about his. She did the same thing last year. Sweet girl (when she wants to be). Also, when she was opening her stocking, she discovered a doll outfit and said, “Cullen should have this because his dolls don’t have many clothes.” On Christmas Eve, Maddie saw a personalized video from Santa and was in awe. She was very eager to get to bed that night as she didn’t want Santa to skip our house!

Something Cullen is doing (23 months old): Cullen finally has his own Annabelle (he calls her “My Annabelle”) and a girl doll version of Henry (the light haired girl bitty twin). He rejected almost every name that I tried to give the new doll. He tried calling her Henry. I had no interest in calling her Henrietta. I suggested at least half a dozen names, and each time he said, “I don’t like that name.” At some point, he tried calling her “Boy” and I said, “no, she’s not a boy!” He then answered, “Is not a boy” when I asked her name. I said, “you want to call the doll ‘isnottaboy?’” “Yes” (the first time he said yes). I said, “Can we call her Izzy for short?” “yeah” “So we can call her Izzy?” “Yeah, Izzy.” So, there you have it. The doll is now known as Izzy. Even better, Cullen now refers to the bitty twins as his ladies which is just about the cutest thing ever. “Where’s my ladies?” “I need to get my ladies!” Thanks to Daddy, who was holding Cullen with a doll in each arm. Daddy commented, “look at Cullen, he’s a ladies man!” LOL! That was Cullen’s big gift from Santa along with a double stroller. He also shares the kitchen with Maddie and got a strider bike from Nana and Papa. Cullen has been singing more and more words to songs. Lately, he’s been singing several Christmas songs, the dreidel song, and a few standards like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. He has been doing more counting and is starting to get one-to-one correspondence. He’s been doing great with his big boy bed transition. His bed is full of stuffed animals. We take many of them out of the bed before bedtime, but he’ll often crawl out of bed and retrieve them. He has been staying in the bed for the most part, and he’s been sleeping about the same as he was before the transition. He has fallen out of the bed a few times, but he’s pretty low to the ground. He still has his pacis when sleeping in his bed.

Something I am struggling with: Pictures! I now have close to 5,000 photos from the cruise (collected from ourselves and others). It is going to take me a while to get it down to a manageable number. It would be great to get that number down to about 10%, but I think that 20% is more realistic, at least to start.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: We’re creating memories and holiday traditions with our kids.

Something I learned: Santa probably needs to do more set up before he leaves his gifts. The LeapPad was a bit of a pain to set up on Christmas morning with an eager almost 4 year old.

Something I’m looking forward to: A few more days away from work, not that they will be relaxing days with the kiddos.

Something captured: Merry Christmas!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey