Happy Halloween!

What a crazy week it has been! We've had....

Snow

Pumpkin carving

and Halloween parties

These are my kids, don't they look great?

All the 5th and 6th grade teachers decided to be the characters from Alice in Wonderland, It was great!

White queen, Tweedledee & Tweedledum, Mad Hatter, Alice, and the Red Queen

Day 3 - Puerta Vallarta

Our first stop was Puerta Vallarta. Boy was I excited to get off that boat! I had been pretty sea sick the first two days and finally stepping onto land was so nice!

Beautiful Puerta Vallarta (notice the pirate ship and Mexican navy)

The first thing I noticed when I got up that day was that it was so humid. So humid, in fact, that my hair curled itself into a little ringlet!

The city was beautiful, and I felt right at home when I stepped outside and saw a Wal-Mart.

Puerta Vallarta was the stop I was most excited for, because we had planned an excursion to go swimming with some dolphins. Now, we got off the boat and there was this little walk way all set up for us, guarded by scary Mexican army men with big guns (I didn't take any pictures for fear they might shoot me!).

Set up along the walkway were all these people trying to sell things. I stopped at one to look at some sunglasses because I had forgotten mine. When one of the pairs fell off the rack some lady ran over, inspected them, then told me, "It's okay. There's no scratches. You don't have to buy." GEEZ! I decided not to touch anything else. There was one little shop that I stood at for a good 30 minutes. This man, Jorge Lopez (ha), was painting these amazing pictures, with his fingers! At first I thought, "There's no way he's really doing that!" but sure enough, I sat and watched it happen, right before my eyes!

First he tapes off the tile

Paints the sky

Fills in ocean

The trees and the birds

Rips off the tape and

Voila, it is done!

I was so impressed I had to buy one for my house.

Anyway, off to the dolphin encounter we went. We rode in this boat taxi to another city across the muddy water. It was really disgusting and I was glad we hadn't planned to go swimming or snorkeling that day. Apparently it had been really rainy, and when it rains all the mud from a river above the city flows into their little bay and really makes things gross.

Nasty Ocean

Dolphin Rides

Feeding Time

Hugs

Dancing

My favorite--Dolphin Kisses!

After swimming with the dolphins we took a picture with a sea lion and went to wait so we could see it.

Precious, I know!

While waiting we saw this creature

And also mama and baby swimming around

We had a grand time with the dolphins and when we came back we had a little surprise waiting on our bed for us....

A turtle!

That night at dinner they invited a real live mariachi band to come play, it was pretty sweet!

Days 1-3: Long Beach --> Middle of no where

Last week we set sail for the Mexican Rivera. We had to wake up really early to get to the airport on time and then we flew to LAX. The shuttle we took to the cruise terminal was pretty scary. It was shaking and sounded like it could fall apart at any minute while driving down the freeway. The guy driving was CRAZY...taking corners sharp and cutting it close when changing lanes. I just closed my eyes, held on tight, and pretended like i was on a ride at disneyland. Once we got to the terminal, we had a few hours to kill so we walked over to the queen mary and took the self-guided tour.

Me laying on one of the beds that the military men had to sleep on during WW2.

The creepiest part of the tour was when we went in to see the last intact propeller. You had to walk into this room and there was a giant tank of water. I hate deep water, and being in that room made my legs achy and my hands shake. I quickly took some pictures and got out of there!

Explanation of the last intact propeller

(To view the last propeller intact aboard the Queen Mary, you actually walk through the hull into a unique dark-ended chamber containing approximately 200,000 gallons of water. Still attached to its large drive shaft, the manganese bronze propellor, one of four, weighs 35 tons and measures 18 feet from tip to tip.)

Lots bigger than it looks in the picture. We threw in a penny and it took at least 15 seconds to hit the bottom of the tank.

Cool shot of the outside of the ship from inside the propeller box

Our boat was docked right next to the Queen Mary, so i was able to get a really good picture of it before we took off.

The Carnival Splendor

Once on board we went to our room and unpacked everything. Of course, I had to try on the life jacket.

Curtis entertained himself by making fun of the art (it was really ugly!)

I sat outside and watched the people come onto the boat and watched all the food and luggage get loaded onto the ship.

Finally we set sail!

The first two days were "Fun" days at sea. I don't really see much fun in cruising around in the middle of the ocean for two days, but we were able to keep ourselves entertained. We saw a man from the Philippines carve a giant block of ice into an indian, had a fancy dinner, took lots of pictures, and saw a beautiful sunset!

The finished product!

Apparently ice carving is a profession a lot of Philippine people go into because they are often taught wood carving which is very similar and easily transferred over to ice carving.

Ready for our fancy dinner. Curtis can never smile normal...

At dinner

Watching the sunset

The most awesome part about these first few days was when we saw dolphins. We'd be watching off the side of the ship and all of a sudden there were these little black dolphins jumping through the wake that the ship was making. It was so cool to see them out in the wild!

The worst part about the first few days was getting used to the constant rocking of the ship and the weather. When we woke up the first "fun" day at sea, it was FREEZING and stayed freezing cold all day long! The second day was a bit better but not by much. This ruined all plans and preconceived ideas about what my cruise would be like. Instead of laying out and enjoying the sun all day, we sat in the buffet and played card games (which was still very fun, just not what I was expecting).