Our Thanksgiving Vacation: Put on your Mickey Ears

We knew that with Emma in school, it would be hard to travel to the east coast for Thanksgiving, so we came up with another plan to work in some fun and relaxation.


We drove down to Long Beach, California and boarded a 7 day cruise to Mexico.

We got a deal that kids sailed for free, so we jumped on board the deal and these two were really excited.

We explored the ship and found our room

The kids program was excellent! Here is Ian exploring the Oceaneers Club where Emma had great fun this week

Ian exploring too
Every night there was a different towel animal in our room. This is a snake

This gingerbread house smelled wonderful!

Everywhere we looked, there were signs of some of Emma's favorite characters

Ian warmed up to Daisy

The shows were truly spectacular. One formal night the show was "The Golden Mickeys"

All dressed up for Formal Night

The Ship at night

A bunny!

Emma got to meet many of the princesses including Tiana

Our first port was Puerto Vallarta. We went on a Pirate Cruise!

There were pirates all over the ship!

Breakfast below decks

We landed on a beach where we played and Emma got to go on a treasure hunt

There were actually 2 pirates ships at the beach

There was a character breakfast where we got to meet lots of friends

On Thanksgiving, we were in Cabo San Lucas where we relaxed at a local resort with views of our boat

Playing in beautiful water

Mister Blue Eyes

tricks on the beach

We finally go to see Mickey!

Monkey!

We sat with a great family all week and had wonderful waiters
Overall the was a great vacation! We were able to relax and be unscheduled. We could drop Emma off at the kids club anytime and she was excited to go. There were great shows and first run movies (We got to see The Muppets premier on board). THe food was great and the staff made you feel special.

To see all the pictures, look at the slide show below:

Our Thanksgiving Vacation

For Thanksgiving this year we decided to something a little different and take a little trip with just our family of four. We had to drive down to Southern California for the bigger part of the vacation so we took our time and stopped overnight in a little town called Solvang. This is the little Denmark of the United States and you can tell by the architecture and activities.





One of the many beautiful buildings in the town

We ate lunch at The Little Mermaid Restaurant

Daddy and Ian waiting for lunch

The Christmas decorations were starting to come out

There were many fun shops to visit

and a bakery on every corner

Dancing in the streets

Emma "dances" with Ian

It was such a fun place to spend the day.

October and November School Events

It is amazing how fast the time has gone by once school has started. With Emma in Kindergarten, we have entered the world of elementary school activities. Here are a few of the events that we participated in throughout the fall.

In October, Emma (and the rest of the family) participated in her annual school walkathon. The walk, called the Cat Walk, is a fundraiser that raises money to support the school. Emma was very excited to participate. She took cookies to Daddy's work and asked for their support and on the day of the walk, she finished her lap card with an amazing 49 laps. Here are a few pictures from the day:


Emma gets her lap card punched as she goes around

It was a really warm day, but Emma was a trooper throughout

She had lots of support from the family!

We are really proud of Emma and at an assembly this week, she was awarded a medal for raising the most money for all the kindergarteners.

At the end of October, we celebrated halloween in a low key kind of way. We carved our pumpkins:



Dan got a little creative with his carving implements

Our finished product

We also attended Emma's school halloween parade:


Emma ready to parade through the school

The kindergarteners paraded through the older grades' classrooms

Emma's class all dressed up


Today, to celebrate Thanksgiving, we attended Emma's Thanksgiving feast. The children dressed up as pilgrims and Native Americans and feasted on turkey sandwiches, cornbread, fruit, and pumpkin pie.


Emma's place setting

Emma was chosen to be a pilgrim

The pilgrims and native americans eating in harmony

Ian got to join in the fun, too! He even got to watch Charlie Brown with the big kids

Emma shows off her turkey

Reading together after the feast

Emma the indian showing off her corn crop.

We are really enjoying Emma's kindergarten year and look forward to many other fun events to come!