Towel Buddies

If you've ever been on a cruise, you are familiar with the adorable towel creatures left on your bed each night. I've always tried to get pictures of all of them on past cruises, so this time was no exception. This time, I decided to have the kids pose with them each night. Sometimes, they weren't willing to cooperate together, so I would take them seperate. Either way, we managed to capture shots of all our towel buddies!

Sunday night: Seal Buddy

Monday night: Polar Bear Buddy (I think?)
These fun cookies were also left for them that night!

Tuesday night: Koala Bear Buddy (once again, I think?)
This little guy was up on Tyler's bunk bed posed with his favorite stuffed T-Rex.

Wednesday night: Rabbit Buddy
I just love the smudge on my camera lens that I didn't notice ahead of time. And just in case you're wondering, Allison is wearing butterfly wings that her Grandma Tholkes gave her before we got on the boat.

Thursday night: Sea Turtle Buddy
Imagine Tyler's excitement when he came into the room after dinner to find a turtle made out of towels! He just had to line up all his new turtle friends for this shot! And just so you know, all these turtles have a name too. From left to right there is Turtle Bank, Kandee Turtle, Tyler Turtle, Popsi Pickles, and the Turtle Buddy.

Allison decided to give the turtle a kiss.

Friday night: Eskimo Buddy
Tyler was in a silly mood, and Allison just finished scarfing down her chocolate mint left for her on her pillow!

Saturday night: Dog Buddy

Formal Nights

One of the fun things about a cruise is getting to dress up for formal nights. It was a bit more of a challenge this time for me since none of my formal clothes are maternity, but I made it work.
The first formal night was on the 2nd night of the cruise and started out with the Captain's Cocktail Party.

Mommy and her Little Man

Daddy and his Princess

After enjoying some music and dancing for a bit, we headed to take a quick family portrait before it was time for dinner. Here we are all shined up, looking our best...

If you happen to enlarge this picture, don't mind the food in Tyler's teeth. They literaly snapped this picture of him between bites!

We went on a cruise with Tyler when he was 18 months old, and had some portraits taken of him. So, to make it fair, we did the same for Allison on this cruise. This is one of my favorites.

The second formal night took place after our day in Vancouver, and the group picture we took captured proof of my poor swollen ankles I mentioned in my previous post. Why is it that I'm always asked to stand on the back row for photos until it truly matters??? And no, they couldn't even put me in the middle so my kids could hide them. Oh well, what do you do?

Pictured from left to right: Marc and Kandee Anderson (Billy's aunt and uncle), Bill and Betty Farish (Billy's grandparents), Mark and Mandee Farish (Billy's uncle and cousin), Charlie and Melanie Zite (long-time friends of Bill and Betty), and us. :)

This was our table for dinner in the Gold Pearl Dining Room. We got lucky enough to have the windows behind us with a nice shot of the ocean in the background!

I just couldn't resist posting this adorable picture of Allison. It was taken on the first formal night. Tyler ordered a hamburger that night and it came with a couple pickle slices. Allison loves pickles and Tyler gladly passed them her way. When they were gone she wanted more, so we asked the waiter if he could bring her a few more pickles (you can pretty much ask for and get anything you want!). He said "of course!," and came back with an entire bowl of pickle spears for her! She was in heaven!

Welcome to Vancouver, B.C. Canada

Isn't this classic?! I would say it's great blackmale to use in a few years, but he's a boy and he probably won't care. In fact, he'll probably think it's funny. What I think is so hilarious about it, is that he still managed to pose for the shot and give an adorable smile. Oh well, maybe one day I'll be successful in breaking that habit!
Our day in Vancouver was spent walking around downtown. There didn't prove to be too many things that were very picture worthy, so I don't have a whole lot to document for that day. Maybe it was because I was hot and swollen from being on my feet too long, and wasn't really in the mood to take many pictures. So here's what I have. There aren't any of Allison because she was...yep, you guessed it, asleep! By the time we would wake up and get ready each day, eat breakfast, and get off the ship, the poor little thing was ready for nap time. She really didn't miss much this day.
Here's Tyler posing with a cowboy outside a western attire and gun store.

This clock was pretty cool because it ran off of steam. (If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see some of the steam coming out of the top.) The best part was when it sounded off each hour. LOTS of steam came out with a sort of steam-train sounding whistle that played a melody.

Before heading back to the ship, Tyler posed with a moose and black bear in front of this gift shop.

After we got back on the ship, we decided to head over to the water slide since Tyler had been anticipating going down it for so long. (It was only open for a couple hours each day, so we hadn't been able to make it there on any previous day.) Once we got there and climbed to the top, we discovered that Tyler wasn't quite tall enough, and the guy in charge wasn't letting him pass on his tippy-toes. AND, it was one-person-at-a-time only, so they wouldn't even let me go down with him. Poor guy. He took it rather well though. So we decided to play at the spray park instead, and he ended up having a great time! (Please excuse Allison's falling, lop-sided pig tails. She hadn't been awake from her nap very long, and that's the result of laying on them in her stroller.)

Welcome to Victoria, B.C. Canada

In Victoria, we took a guided tour to see some of the highlights there. Our first stop was Hatley Castle. It was quite a magnificent structure and very beautiful.

Then we got to make a stop at the beach. Of course, all beaches are pretty in their own special way, but this one wasn't quite the best beach I've ever been to...

LOTS of driftwood...

SUPER cold water (notice the snow-capped mountains in the background)...

No pretty white sand...

But the kids still had a blast and enjoyed the time they had out of the van to run around for a few minutes! Tyler didn't even let the temperature of the water get in his way of getting as wet as possible!

Our last stop before heading back to the ship was at a nature park. We got to walk down a nice nature trail to a gift shop where we enjoyed an ice cream treat!

Check out this HUGE red wood tree! They were everywhere, but we thought this particular one offered a great photo opp! (Once again, Allison was sound asleep by this point of our tour, so she didn't make it in any pictures here.)

Welcome to Astoria, Oregon

Astoria was one of the filming locations for both Kindergarten Cop and Goonies. And although I didn't get to go to Cannon Beach (the beach in Goonies with all the cool rock formations) as I had hoped, I did get to experince some Goonies history! Once off the ship, we took a shuttle bus to town where we discovered the Flavel House Museum. It is a very beautiful house with a lot of history behind it. It was built in 1885 by Captain George Flavel (a Columbia river bar pilot, who was one of the areas first millionaires) and his family. In Goonies, it was featured as the museum where Mikey's father worked.

Here's the whole gang (minus Kandee, who is across the street taking the picture).

Quick family photo by a gigantic tree.

I really enjoy touring museums, especially places where people actually lived. It is just a cool feeling to me to get to stand in the same place where these people did so long ago and see some of the things they used on a daily basis. They even had the children's room set up with toys and games they would have played with back then. It was the only room in the house where you were allowed to touch anything. So, most of my time was spent here with Tyler and Allison.

Tyler took some time with Great Uncle Marc to play a little game of checkers.

In the meantime, Allison decided to read a story...

...and made sure she was still the fairest of them all.

Once our tour was complete, we headed over to the local Maritime Museum. Due to time restraints and the expense of the tickets, however, we decided against touring it. We took a few minutes to look through the gift shop and take some fun pictures.

Here's Tyler, me, and his two new turtle friends (thanks Great-Aunt Kandee) in a life raft.

Outside the museum, we found this bell. It wasn't very hard to find...you could hear all the kids ringing it for miles. Tyler had to take a turn of course!

I guess we like taking family photos by things that are gigantic. Here we are with an anchor. Notice Tyler's little turtle friend hanging above our heads? He has magnetic feet! Tyler discovered he would stick to the anchor and posed him for the picture. Allison was one pooped little girl and decided to take a quick snooze. We didn't want her left out of the picture though!

On the shuttle bus back to the ship, Tyler decided his turtles needed their very own seats.