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It’s time to wrap up Day 2, finally! After we dressed in our formal clothes, we went to find the Madagascar photo opportunity. This was one of the designated professional photographer character meet and greets. They will not allow you to use your own camera for these, and this photographer did a great job to take a ton of photos of Maddie interacting with King Julian.

We had a tough time narrowing it down! We especially had a rough time choosing between Maddie kissing Julian and Maddie dancing with Julian. After a vote of our friends, family, and the ship’s photographers…we went with the kissing photo. She really had a great time interacting with King Julian.

Cullen wanted absolutely nothing to do with King Julian, but somehow we managed to get our best family portrait on the trip. Of course, that’s not saying much.

We then headed to our show reservations, Ice Games in Studio B (which doubles as an Ice Skating rink). After our last experience in Studio B with the muster drill, we didn’t have high hopes of being able to see the whole show. We weren’t able to get advanced reservations. Between meeting King Julian and the ice show, we realized we left the camera in the room. Gabe and Maddie ran back to get the camera, and Cullen and I headed to wait for them outside of Studio B. I really thought we weren’t going to be able to get into the show because we were pushing it very close! Gabe ended up getting there just in the nick of time, and we entered the theater at the last minute. We were thrilled to get in without reservations.

Cullen wasn’t happy before the show started, but fortunately we didn’t have to wait very long. Once the show started, both kids were entranced. This was Cullen’s first experience with any type of show or movie, and he did wonderfully! He seemed to love it.

The ship really started rocking quite a bit during the show. I was impressed that the skaters were able to keep their balance and perform all kinds of tricks. The show had a monopoly theme with the characters moving to different spaces on the board representing venues around the ship. It felt a little like an advertisement for some of the extras on the ship, but I thought it was pretty neat, too. We loved this show, and we were really glad that we were able to see it.

Cullen just stared at the skaters for at least 20 or 30 minutes. During that time, I looked over at Maddie, and she was looking at the floor, like she was sad about something. I went to ask her what was wrong and realized she was falling asleep! We couldn’t believe with all the music and flashing lights that she was able to fall asleep, especially considering that she rarely naps when she is with us. I guess that there was something about the comfortable seats, rocking of the ship, and the darkened room. She snoozed in my lap for the rest of the show. Cullen was a little restless towards the end of the 45 minute show, but he made it through and did great.

We headed to dinner and attempted to get a formal portrait of our family, but none of them turned out too well. Others had better luck with their portraits.

My parents had several nice formal portraits.

Melissa had many fancy dresses for the cruise. They took the opportunity of formal night to get their photo with the car. I’m not actually sure if this portrait was taken on the first or second formal night.

We made it to the dining room, and tonight our tables were joined together. It was nice to have all 10 of us together and not worry about splitting into two tables.

Cullen was restless through the meal and didn’t have much of an appetite. He played a lot of Monkey Lunchbox on the iPhone with his Apptivity case. We were thankful for the iPhones once again. He was starting to get really good at the minigames on Monkey Lunchbox. By this point, he could do almost all of them by himself.

We took the kids back to the room and realized that we had accidentally left our “do not disturb” sign on the door. We were able to easily find the stateroom attendant so that he could freshen our towels and clean the bathroom. I read stories to Maddie, and Gabe put Cullen to bed in the other room.

Gabe headed out to the casino for a couple hours with his parents and Jason. He came back in time for me to head to see Chicago with my parents and Jason and Melissa. Gabe played video poker with his mom, and they started out badly but ended up even. That’s a win in our book!

I thought Chicago was great, but I was very tired as it didn’t end until about midnight. The version on the ship was an abbreviated version of the Broadway show at about an hour and a half. It was the first time that I had seen any version of Chicago, so I am not sure how it compares to the original show or movie. I thought it was great, but wow, I was tired!

Whew, we had an incredibly long day. We weren’t terribly excited about Nassau as a port, but we still had a wonderful day.

Our favorites from Day 2:
Kerry: Ice Games
Maddie (according to her): the carousel
Gabe: Ice Games and playing poker with his mom
Cullen (my best guess): either Ice Games or playing Monkey Lunchbox on the iPhone

Something I’m hoping: Well, when I first started writing this, I said that I hoped that Gabe and Cullen were better soon and didn’t spread their germs to me. Unfortunately, they did spread their germs to me, but after 24 hours of the stomach bug I felt a lot better. We are crossing our fingers that Maddie stays healthy.

Something happening around the house: We were supposed to have been out of town of this weekend, but we had to cancel our trip to Atlanta since the boys were sick on the way down. Our house might have been tidy, but instead it’s the usual disaster zone.

Something I’m reading: I finished the 4th Percy Jackson book, and I started and finished The Kitchen House for book club. I enjoyed it and look forward to discussing it at book club! I started the 5th (and final) Percy Jackson book.

Something Gabe is reading: He finished The Lightning Thief in the Percy Jackson series and started on the 2nd book. Unfortunately, the Percy Jackson series is no longer “always available” on the kindle at the library. Darn! It was so convenient. Oh well, we have the 2nd book in paperback, and we put Gabe on the waiting list for the 3rd.

Something I’m watching: We sorta watched Red, but it didn’t keep my attention too much. I took Maddie to see Puss in Boots at our dinner theater on Sunday afternoon. She really loved it! Mostly, we wanted to get out of the germ infested house with Gabe and Cullen and their bugs.

Something I’m playing: Go Away Monster and Kids of Carcassonne. I played a few minutes of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Something I’m creating: I have been creating more blog posts than anyone wants to read. I don’t have any lined up, so I’m going to have to work on those this week, I suppose. If I get the motivation… I am finally getting around to our Christmas thank you notes.

Something about both kiddos: The kids are very cute together this week. Sometimes, they can play together so well. Of course, they have their share of fights (and things can escalate so fast with siblings!).

Something Maddie is doing (46 months old): We went to her first movie at our dinner theater, as I mentioned. She also had her first in a series of ballet classes. Work is offering another set of convenient classes after work on Thursdays, so we’re giving those another try. She participated very well in her first session. She listened to the instructor and followed all of the instructions. This is quite a change from her first class last time. It helps that some of her friends are in the class!

Something Cullen is doing (23 months old): I took a cute video last week of Cullen singing almost all of the words to “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.” He’s quite the cutie! He’s had a stomach bug for most of the past week and a bit of a cold, too. Poor little guy. He’s also still working on those eye teeth. He has been in the booster instead of his high chair at the dinner table, and he’s done with high chairs at restaurants. He kicked the table last week and toppled his chair backward. It’s one of those things that happened in slow motion for me, but I couldn’t stop it from happening. Yikes! The top of his chair (and his head) landed on the carpet, which I think helped. Fortunately, he was fine, but it was scary for a moment! He has had some bad nights in the past week between teething and being sick and has done some waking in the middle of the night to fuss a bit and then goes back to sleep. He’s still using the paci at night.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I might book not just one but two Disney trips…one for me and a girlfriend (without kids!) and another with the family in October. Woohoo! I can’t believe that I’m planning to go to Disney without the kiddos, but I’m looking forward to doing some of the adult and less little-kid-friendly things.

Something I learned: Gabe and I are getting more educated about fructose malabsorption (something he was diagnosed with a while back but we haven’t been diligent about).

Something I’m looking forward to: We have dinner and games with friends, a balance bike date, and another ballet class, assuming that we are all healthy enough by then. Cullen’s birthday is Sunday. I can’t believe that he’s going to be 2! We are going to find some special ways to celebrate on Sunday, and the kids are having a small joint party this year in a few weeks.

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

I’m woefully behind on the blog, due to an awesome 5-year anniversary photobook that I made for Gabe for Christmas. I included photos from our wedding day to our 5th anniversary. I think it turned out great, but it took a lot of work (including two vacation days to get it done in time). I didn’t have time to sort through any photos since then between that and then the cruise and then Christmas. Whew!

So, I wasn’t able to give Coquette Brasserie a proper review, considering it has now been two months since our meal. I’ll see what I can remember.

We made reservations at the last minute since our original plans fell through. A friend had recommended it, and French cuisine always sounds like a fancy place worthy of an anniversary dinner. Our criteria for anniversary dinners is that it has to be fairly fancy (somewhere that we wouldn’t want to take the kids is best) and somewhere neither of us have been (preferably, though in later years we may change our minds).

When making the reservations, I just happened to mention that it was our anniversary. I remembered that when we ate at Second Empire, they made us a custom menu, and other places have recognized our anniversary.

We arrived a little early, and they were not very busy and seated us right away. We were a little disappointed as many of the tables are quite close together. It’s not a great place if you want a private meal. We were seated right next some other people who finished up not long after we arrived. We had two small tables on either side of us. The hostess tried to seat other people next to us, but everyone requested a different table, fortunately. I wish we had thought to do that! We were happy that nobody wanted to sit close to us.

I’m glad we mentioned our anniversary, because they brought us complimentary champagne to celebrate soon after we were seated.

I wanted a glass of wine, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted. The waiter brought me 3 different samples (at least a third of a glass each) to try before I ordered a full glass. One of the wines I hated, but I ended up liking the one I ordered, especially with my entree. I wish I had written it down so I could remember what it was! We were impressed with the service and their attention to our special day.

We had a cheese plate, and I think we’ve both decided that while we love cheese, we’re not sure we love ALL cheeses (especially most blue cheese type cheeses). At least one of the cheeses was yummy. I had the Onion Soup Gratinee and Beef Bourguignon. Gabe had a special soup (we can’t remember exactly what it was, but it wasn’t a regular menu item) and one of the fish dishes (probably salmon). I think everything was good, but nothing has compared to our experience at Mo’s Diner. I’m pretty sure we had dessert, too. It was a nice experience, and I would recommend it for a special occasion.

In late October, we went to Sofie’s birthday party at Marbles. We had not been to Marbles since Maddie was little, so we were excited to explore the museum a bit after celebrating Sofie’s birthday.

The birthday girl!

Yay! Cupcakes!

Icing is yummy.

Everyone has a different method.

Clare’s method was a messy one.

Cullen tried to steal Sofie’s presents.

He looks like such a big boy here. He was trying out cars on the ramp.

Daddy helped the kids build a house out of giant blocks.

Cullen took a doggie for a walk. It was quite a drag for the dog.

Considering that I’m usually the one hanging out with Cullen while Gabe is with Maddie, we almost always end up with more photos of Cullen. This second child should have no complaints about their photo coverage! Cullen loved playing with the farm animal figures.

We had a fun morning!

Maddie’s 2nd bike day was held in early October (yes, you’re going to be seeing some old posts as I get caught up on photos). She couldn’t decide the day before which “bike” she wanted to ride. She was trying to choose between the tricycle, balance bike, and scooter. She ended up choosing the tricycle at the last minute, and we were pretty sure it was going to be her last bike day with the trike. She is almost too big for it! She will be getting a bike with training wheels for her birthday (we thought we could skip that kind of bike with the balance bikes, but I guess we need both?).

I wasn’t happy with the photos this time (despite taking many), but here are a few from her second bike day.

She wasn’t the only kid with a trike, but most of the kids have training wheel bikes. A few kids zipped around the circle without training wheels.

She was excited that we came to watch her (and proud of herself!).

Afterward, we went to have lunch at the cafe with Keira.

She has developed this goofy, new smile.

Then, we left the girls to play together on their playground! BFFs!

In addition to my incredibly long summaries that aren’t even half finished, I now have an incredibly long highlights video of our mediocre video footage. But, you know what? All of this stuff makes me happy, and I can look back and relive it through the posts and video over and over. The quality of the video suffered with the scaled down version uploaded to YouTube. Oh, well. You get the idea.

Video moments:
0:08 – My dad ziplining
0:23 – Jason ziplining
0:33 – Melissa ziplining
0:43 – Jason on the FlowRider
0:54 – Maddie dancing in Central Park
1:05 – Cullen dancing at breakfast
1:20 – Maddie dancing crazy in the Promenade
1:28 – Flash mob clips
1:55 – 70s dance party clips
2:04 – Belly flop finale
2:07 – Bartending Demo
2:10 – Qwest clips
2:24 – Italian night
2:31 – Cullen attempts the head waiter’s “mouse” napkin trick
2:48 – Carousel clips
3:33 – Parade clips
3:45 – Character breakfast clips
4:23 – Maddie dancing with Fiona
4:45 – Fountain shows

Every time I think I need just one more post to wrap up a day, I find that I have too many stories and photos that I want to document. So, back on the ship, Cullen was napping and Gabe was reading and snoozing in the room. We snapped a few photos before leaving the Boardwalk area (after discovering the carousel was not open).

We headed to the 2pm trivia which was an interactive trivia called, “Logos and Mascots.” Melissa, Jason, Mom, Maddie, and I ran into Melissa’s parents on the way. I grabbed some cookies to distract Maddie while we played the trivia. The interactive trivia is much like NTN/bar trivia with multiple choice questions (and a speed component to the score that we didn’t learn about until halfway through the questions). The questions were far too easy, even without the multiple choice options. The remotes didn’t always work (in a session later in the work, they barely worked at all). I can’t recommend the interactive trivia based on the ones that we attended. It was annoying to learn about the “fastest fingers” tie-breaker midway through the questions. We got all of the questions correct, but we weren’t the fastest. We did end up with the coveted keychains, anyway. Maddie was proud to have her own Royal Caribbean keychain. It’s still fun to identify the logos, but the whole thing would have been more fun with an open ended question sheet.

Next on the cruise compass was an opportunity to meet the penguins at the carousel. We hoped that we would be able to ride the carousel this time as well! We were excited to see the carousel running, so we hopped on for a few rides before meeting the penguins. Maddie rode a different animal each time.

The penguins showed up while we were enjoying one of our first few rides. We went to meet them, and Maddie was adorable. She hugged each one, and the penguins had great character.

Most of the character meet and greets had short lines on the cruise, and we usually had plenty of time to get the photos that we wanted.

After we met the penguins, we got back on the carousel. She rode several times with me and then rode different times with Nana and Melissa. Maddie loved it! I swear over half of the photos from our cruise may be carousel related.

Nana and Papa decided to get their photo taken with the penguins as well. This was one of the meet and greets that stated you should bring your own camera. They had handlers who would take your photo for you. Other character opportunities were official photographer events, and they did not allow you to take your own photos.

After our fun on the Boardwalk, we headed to the 15th deck for sail away. I called Gabe in between each activity, but he seemed content to stay in the cabin with Cullen. It was interesting to look down on the other ships. We could see the pools and mini golf and people on the top deck of the Carnival ship, at least 5 decks below ours. Allure of the Seas felt huge docked next to one of Carnival’s smallest ships. The Carnival ship looked so tiny!

Our ship left first, and once again I find myself taking photos of other people’s ships and wishing I could swap photos with the people on those ships.

We saw that maybe Nassau has some beaches and nice resorts, but I don’t think I’m going to be itching to explore Nassau again, regardless.

We spotted some of the landmarks that we visited and viewed from our walking tour. I pointed them out to Maddie. She also pointed out random things that we passed like rocks and smaller boats.

Maddie always has fun hanging out with Melissa and Jason. I think she also enjoyed doing some special things while Cullen was napping.

I called Gabe again, and Cullen was still snoozing. He was making up for his lack of nap the previous two days! Gabe still claimed to be enjoying his relaxing time in the room, so Melissa, Jason and I decided to take Maddie to the play area in Adventure Ocean.

The playroom was geared more towards babies and young toddlers, but Maddie had fun playing. Only one other child was in the playroom, and that child didn’t really interact with us at all. The dad was totally disengaged from us. In fact, at one point he was just sitting there picking his nose! Wow!

I thought that being on a ship full of children would mean more interactions with other kids and parents, but we didn’t talk to ANY families on the cruise (despite there being allegedly something like 1000 kids on board). I think that perhaps we got to know other families a little better on other ships because they were so few and far between. I remember one of our cruises had less than a dozen babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. As a result, we saw the same families all over the ship and would recognize them. They stood out in the crowd. We chatted with them, played with them at playgroups, and saw them around the ship. We didn’t see any Crayola Beginnings, Bedtime Stories, or Royal Babies/Tots organized opportunities on Allure of the Seas. The ship has plenty for the children, but not the small group type that gave us the opportunity to meet other families on other ships. It’s not a complaint by any means, just an observation of the differences in approach between the ships. The ship had more entertainment for the kids but encouraged less interaction between families.

We let Maddie play a little bit, and then Maddie and I headed back to the room to get ready for formal night. We couldn’t believe that Cullen was still sleeping! Cullen woke up shortly after our arrival, and we all got our formal clothes on and headed to the Madagascar photo opportunity!

Coming soon…photo ops, ice show, dinner, and evening activities…

In late October, I took Maddie to see stage productions of Runaway Bunny and Goodnight Moon performed by the Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia. We got general admission tickets at the last minute and joined Maddie’s friend Sophie.

If you have a preschooler and get a chance to see a show by the Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia, I highly recommend it! We were familiar with both of the stories, and they kept Maddie’s attention the whole time. She did get restless towards the end (along with the rest of the young audience).

The show was done with puppets with neat black light props. I didn’t get any photos of the Runaway Bunny, but I loved how they did the puppets and the transitions for each of the scenes. Goodnight Moon made good use of the black light props. The play is definitely better than the book! I thought that the giant bunny prop was especially cool (the “quiet old lady whispering ‘hush’”).

The plays were short, perfect for attention spans of the little ones. They had a question and answer session after the plays.

And the plays were followed by cookies and juice, which was probably Maddie’s favorite part.

After Maddie’s juice and cookies, she was a little nuts. I took a bunch of photos of her dancing around on the bricks on NC State’s campus.

After the Queen’s Staircase, we headed to another highlight of the walking tour – Fort Fincastle. Fort Fincastle was also built in the late 1700s, and it offered us the best views of the ship and surrounding area. Between the Queen’s Staircase and Fort Fincastle were more vendors and “tour guides.” The area has quite a few pushy people trying to get your money.

I was walking with Grandma and Maddie when both Maddie and Grandma paused to see some straw items. Grandma couldn’t resist getting Maddie a purse with her name on it and a hat with Cullen’s name. Both items were really cute. The lady stitched the names quickly.

You can’t see the name (or “Bahamas”) in this photo, but Cullen was excited about his new hat.

We took turns going up into the fort. I love the opportunity to see the ship when in ports, but of course our view was partially blocked by the other ships. Ours is the one in the back.

It’s hard to see how much bigger it is than the other ships from here, but it especially towered over the Carnival ship next to us.

We were amused that the cannons were pointed directly at the ships.

We weren’t going to take Cullen up into the fort, but he couldn’t stand that Maddie was going with Daddy and he had to stay behind. So, I ended up going twice so that Cullen could see what everyone was doing. I carried him the whole time as I didn’t want him running around up there! You can see Maddie’s new purse in this photo (it also had “Bahamas” on one side and “Maddie” on the other).

We continued on our walking tour after the fort, and Jason tried to steal one of our kids again. We really had to keep an eye on Jason! (In reality, Jason was a huge help throughout the cruise – we just enjoyed teasing him!)

We took more photos of random buildings that were listed on the tour, even if we didn’t know the significance of the buildings. “Jason, what’s the Unwalla House?” “Well, it’s a building called the Unwalla House.” “Oh, ok. We should definitely all take photos of this.”

We headed back towards the main part of town, and it was quite crowded. We got our free charms and necklace from the two jewelry stores and hunted down some bottled water. By this point, it was harder to navigate with all the people, and all of us were pretty much done with Nassau. My parents headed off on their own. The rest of us decided we should at least walk through the straw market. We passed by this building, and I swore I could smell the building as if it had just caught on fire.

It turns out that they had just had a fire the previous week. The fire had destroyed part of the temporary straw market as well as two historic buildings. They suspect it was arson. The straw market had suffered big losses in September due to the hurricane damage, so I’m sure that this was another devastating blow to their local economy. That might explain why we didn’t see as much in the straw market area as we had expected.

We headed back to the ship. All of us were quite ready to be back on Allure!

If I am on another cruise that stops on Nassau, I think I’ll take the opportunity to enjoy a less crowded ship. I may consider going on an excursion to Atlantis, but otherwise, I’ll pass on exploring Nassau.

We went through the vendor buildings again and through customs. We went straight to have lunch at the Park Cafe in Central Park. Seating was again a little bit of a problem, but we found a spot. After our tasty lunch, we headed back to the room to get Cullen down for nap. Maddie and I went back out with Nana to ride the carousel, but it was closed again. We were starting to wonder when the carousel was ever open!

Stay tuned for the rest of our afternoon on the ship while in port in Nassau…

Better late than never, right? We spent Thanksgiving in Davidson with my parents. My sister and Chad joined us for the day.

We were excited to Skpye with my grandma for the first time. We have been telling her about it for a while, so it was neat that she had the opportunity to try it.

We had a “feast,” as the kids called it. We had all the traditional, southern options. We put a little bit of everything on their plate.

Of course, they refused to eat more than half of it.

We put napkin rings on our eyes. Or maybe that was just me while everyone else laughed at me. I love Cullen’s expression. I think he’s already embarrassed by his mother, and he’s not even 2.

He was also amused.

He wanted to try it for himself.

We enjoyed some family time. Between us, we had 5 iPhones, an iPad, and a few MacBooks. We played a lot of Words With Friends against each other.

Cullen played an iPhone, too, in his new Apptivity case. That case is great for letting toddlers play the apps. I think my favorite feature is that it blocks the home key.

We had a great day with family. After the kids went to bed, we played Wits & Wagers and laughed a lot, as usual.

Happy Thanksgiving to us!