Celebrity Cruise

After one year of being parents, Andrew and I were invited to go on a kid-free vacation with a few of the other couples in our Bible study. We decided to go for it and Nana and Pop even offered to come to our house to watch Ben and Barney for the week so that assured us that our little guy would be in good hands in the comfort of his own home.

So, last week we set sail on a Celebrity cruise with two other couples - Chad and Aimee Saunders and Randy and Julie Delp. Our cruise sailed out of Fort Lauderdale on March 4th and we all headed down the day before so that we wouldn't be rushed the next day. We returned on Sunday, March 11th after having been away for eight nights. All of us have one young child so we were all in the same boat (ha! no pun intended!). We missed our babies dearly but were glad for our time away together - it felt so refreshing to sleep later, do whatever we want and not have to worry about changing poopy diapers for a week!

We sailed on the Celebrity Millennium on an Eastern Caribbean itinerary that stopped in the Dominican Republic; Puerto Rico; St. Thomas/St. John, U.S.V.I.; and Bahamas. What a fabulous trip! The cruise itself exceeded our expectations - the food was excellent, the shows and lounges great, the amenities relaxing and the best part was that we got a deal for a balcony cabin at the same price as an inside room so we had our first balcony stateroom and LOVED it. We spent lots of time in the hot tubs, the heated saltwater Thalassotherapy pool, the Persian Gardens spa area with its heated stone seats and different steam rooms, went to the speciality Olympic restaurant which offered white glove service, and enjoyed four of the nightly shows. Of course we were completely gluttonous with all of the wonderful food, but who can resist? :)

Here we are in the waiting room before boarding the ship.

Here's Andrew napping on the balcony, lulled to sleep by the waves.

Some photos of our cruise ship.

Our favorite hangout on the ship, the adult-only Aqua Spa area. Below are photos of the lounge area and the heated saltwater Thalassotherapy Pool.

We had two formal nights, two informal/semi-formal nights and three casual nights onboard. Here we are our first formal night. Andrew rented a tux for the week so he looked especially debonair :).

Cool Guy look.

Our first port stop was in the Domincan Republic. We took a ship excursion to an all-inclusive resort for the day called the Coral Canoa Beach Resort. It was wonderful with the largest pool I had ever seen in my life. Actually it was two enormous free-form pools connected by a bridge but it appears to be one giant pool. We also had access to a beach at the resort so we spent some time there first.

A fun photo of the guys on board the ship after we returned from the DR and were enjoying a late "lunch" on the back veranda. We had late seating for dinner and we didn't eat until close to 9PM every night so late lunches seemed to work well to hold us over! We feel there's no other way to do a cruise than to take the late seating, though, since it gave us much more time in the sun during the day without having to worry about heading back to our rooms to start getting ready for dinner.

Our next stop was San Juan, Puerto Rico. Andrew and Randy golfed for the day so Chad and the gals spent our time walking through Old San Juan.

El Morro.

We were in St. Thomas/St. John, U.S.V.I. for the day on Thursday and this was our favorite stop hands down. It is absolutely breathtaking with the clearest water and smoothest sand we had ever seen. We all took a ship excursion to St. John for the day which included a ferry ride over from St. Thomas, some time on the beautiful Trunk Bay beach and snorkeling. Trunk Bay is among the top ten beaches in the world (as you can understand why from our postcard-like photos). The snorkeling was excellent; they have an underwater swimming trail to follow that explains some of the wildlife we were seeing.

St. Thomas, U.S.V.I.

Trunk Bay from an overlook as we were approaching.

Our ship from the Charlotte Amalie port in St. Thomas. We had to anchor in the water and be tendered to land because a few other cruise ships had beat us to the open dock spaces since they had earlier arrival times than our ship.

Friday night was our second formal night so here are all three couples dressed in our best threads.

The whole gang at dinner our last formal night.

And here we are with our waiter and assistant waitress - Engin from Turkey and Myra from Peru. They were the best wait staff on the whole ship (and we know we were their favorite table!). The best part is that we found out a few days into the cruise that they are engaged!

As if dinner in the dining room isn't enough to eat, our last formal night was also the Midnight Buffet Gala. They have a regular midnight buffet every night just in case anyone is on the verge of going hungry on an all-you-can-eat cruise, but the Gala is extremely fancy, with ice sculptures, chocolate carvings, animals made out of fruits and vegetables, etc.

Our last port stop was Nassau, Bahamas. We really weren't too impressed with Nassau since it's pretty run-down, but luckily Andrew and I decided to take a taxi to the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island to look around and this made our trip worthwhile!

The Atlantis reminds us of a Las Vegas-style hotel since it's enormous, very elegant and has just about everything you could imagine to do within its walls. We only had a few hours on the Bahamas so we didn't pay admission into the hotel but we were able to walk around and get a feel of the place. There are shops, restaurants, the biggest indoor aquarium in the world, water slides, a beautiful pool area, and much more. It is someplace we'd love to bring Ben to visit in the next few years.

Atlantis from afar.

Andrew and I under the official Bahamas welcome banner.

Andrew standing next to the metal anchors that the ship was tied to on dock (yes, I'm sure there's an official name for this, but it beats me!). He was really impressed with the docking process every time our ship came in to port. I can't imagine trying to parallel park a cruise ship, that's for sure!

Finally, our last evening on board we all went to the Platinum Martini Bar after dinner. Here are the girls with our martini samplers...six mini martinis (5 of which were very weak and fruity since I don't think any of us could have handled all six otherwise!).

Ben's Vacation Too...

While we were away on our cruise, worrying that Ben would miss us so much that he wouldn't be able to eat or sleep and that he would mope around all week waiting for us to come back home, he apparently had other thoughts! He had a great time with Nana and Pop all week and from the looks of the photos and the report that we got upon returning home, he didn't seem to even notice we were gone!

Ben was great for Nana and Pop all week and everyone had a good time "on vacation." Both Ben and Barney were a bit spoiled all week long so they didn't even mind us going away. Of course being the sensitive guy that he is, Ben came to pick us up at the airport and was holding my hand and touching my face the whole ride home. I guess he missed us after all, even if he didn't show it last week.

Playing the piano with Nana.

Hanging out with Pop.

Smile! Nana's helping him stand and try to walk.

Finally, helping Nana wrap some of his birthday gifts that he personally picked out at Toys R Us!

One Year Photos

Yesterday I took Benjamin for his one year photos at The Picture People and voila, here are the results. Of course I came home quite a bit poorer with a giant sized, fully framed sepia print of the crawling one....among other things :) Of course babies never seem to smile at the studio as much as they do at home but even the content shots The Picture People got came out really sweet.

Caught

Uh-oh, now how am I ever going to get myself out of this one?

On the Move

Excuse me, Barney, I'm coming through!

Weekend in New York

A few of my girlfriends and I spent the weekend in New York City the beginning of this month without husbands and without children. It was such a nice break from reality! We spent our time shopping, walking and eating and had a blast. Unfortunately, I didn't take many photos but here are a few of the best ones.

A good photo of the four of us after dinner at one of my family's favorite restaurants in the city, Becco. Top to bottom - Julia, Heather, me and Julie.

Julie and Julia both have daughters with birthdays approaching so when we passed the Friends 2B Made store they couldn't resist "building" a doll for their little girls. This is the same idea as the Build-a-Bears but instead you choose a doll and then dress her, do her hair, etc. Here they are styling the hair on the dollies they bought for their girls (and having fun, too!).

11 Months Old

Wow, can you believe that Ben is almost 11-1/2 months old already? I can hardly imagine that our baby will be turning one in a few short weeks!

Benjamin has been as active as ever this month, trying all sorts of new things out. He is crawling and cruising around our entire house (sometimes faster than we can run!) and is exploring just about everything. He's such a curious little guy and is literally getting into everything that we don't steer him away from. Just this past weekend I reorganized our kitchen so that he has his own cabinet of Tupperware and unbreakables to get into. The best part about all of his accomplishments lately, though, is that he looks so pleased with himself when he figures something out or when we clap for him after doing something new (he always joins in!).

Playing Peek-a-boo with Mommy in his room.

Hanging out with Barney in his undies. Good thing Barney's such an easygoing fellow since Ben hangs all over him and steals his toys (right out of his mouth sometimes!) all day long.

Giving Barney his doggie toys. Ben hands them to Barney when we ask him to now, but always tries to take them right back! Barney loves this little game of Tug-o-war, though, and hides his toys all over the house so Ben can go and find them.

Ben has been copying just about every sound we make lately and I think they are starting to really resonate with him. He now says "Mmmm" with a big smile whenever he is eating something he likes, "Ewww" when he is trying to eat one of Barney's toys or go near his bowls(and knows what I am thinking!) and even "Moooo" when he sees a cow and "Whooo Whoo" when he sees an owl. So funny! Here, he is saying "Ewww" as he tries to eat Barney's latex sneaker and I reprimand him.

...and here he is laughing at me (don't you see the smirk?) as he is just about to continue eating it anyways!
Another thing that Ben has been having fun with lately is anything involving a ball. He loves to play catch, to throw Barney's toys for him and have the dog fetch them, and also to play with the "baby basketball" set that he got for Christmas from Aunt Michelle and Uncle Kurt. Below he is watching me as I sqeak one of the "basketballs" and then in the next photo he is offering me a ball to put in the basket after he already put two in.

Finally, just two funny photos that I had to include on this post. I have wrapped Ben's birthday presents and have them waiting for him in a pile in the guest room. I mean, how often is he really in the guest room anyways, right?

Well....this morning he was crawling around the house in a frenzy when he bolted into the guest room and all of a sudden spotted this pile of gifts!! Some of the more awkwardly shaped ones we are not going to wrap so those were just sitting on top of the heap. And what does Ben do when he sees this unexpected surprise? Why he goes over to them and starts pulling the unwrapped trucks off of the pile and playing with them, of course! Guess I'll have to find a better hiding place next year :).

On a closing note, just some exciting news lately - Ben will have his first cousin in early July. Our sister and brother-in-law Michelle and Kurt will be having a baby girl and we are all so excited for them!

Another different and exciting thing is that I have started a part-time job working for my friend's Internet marketing company in a product fulfillment role. It's a perfect opportunity for me since it is about 20 hours per week and the work can be done entirely out of my house, whenever I can get to it throughout the day. I had been feeling a bit wistful about not working since I was getting sort of bored during the day at times, but I knew I did not want to go back to work anyplace since I love being a stay-at-home mom. So, when this position fell into my lap I jumped on it right away and now I feel like I have the best of both worlds - being at home with my son and having an intellectual outlet to keep me occupied and my brain in-tune with the working world.

Playgroup Photos

We have been in a playgroup with some of the moms we met through Gymboree for close to ten months. Now that all of the kids have turned or will soon turn one, we decided it would be fun to bring them all for a professional playgroup photo. So, on Tuesday we took the Picture People by storm, bombarding them with six babies, six moms and lots of Goldfish and renditions of "Old McDonald Had a Farm" in an attempt to amuse the kids. The result? Well, the photos with the moms came out fairly well...as good as you can get while trying to pose six babies at once!

However, we weren't so lucky when the moms tried to walk away and leave the kids for a photo alone. Poor Ben was getting over Roseola and although his rash is faint (and unnoticeable here), he wasn't in the best of moods to say the least. Even the others seemed to be traumatized by this experience, the poor little things! So, we decided to call it a day with our "Mommy and Me" photo and plan to take the babies back in a few months when hopefully we will have more luck!

(l-r) Shayna, Ben, Olivia, Caroline, Teddy and Julia, the "Gymboree Gang."