Cruise!

Last weekend, we attended my sister-in-law's wedding...in the Bahamas! There was a lot of debate when we first found out she was planning a cruise wedding on whether or not we were going to bring all the kids with us. Well, when we had to decide this, Emmie was only about a month old...I was hormonal and not sleeping and when I was faced with the option of a) letting my husband go on a three night cruise leaving me with three children in our new house ALL BY MYSELF or b) taking all my children on a cruise and sharing one cabin, not being left in my big empty house with a squalling new born and two crazy little girls, seemed like the better plan. So, on the day after Thanksgiving, we all headed down to Port Canaveral and headed out on our first family cruise.

First picture of all five of us! Poor Nate got caught in the front pack :)

All in all, the trip was a success. All the children came back alive, Aunt Krysten successfully got married, Mommy and Daddy survived, only a little worse for the wear, but I would not...I repeat WOULD NOT recommend taking a five month old on a cruise. Ever. Em did better than expected, but, yeah, no just don't do it :)

The highlight of the cruise, for me anyways, was watching my two youngest eat their weight in food. A dinner for Ava consisted of at least two or three appetizers, two entrees, and two to three (or even four) desserts. She LOVED all the food and tried EVERYTHING, even escargot (which is snails for those of you who don't know. Snails!) and she loved all of it! Here is Lily eating her strawberry soup, her favorite thing on the cruise:

Here we are in our rather tight sleeping quarters. See the port-a-crib stashed up by the window? Niiice, right? And the girls slept up in the bunk above our bed. It was a bit scary at night with the waves rocking and the kids hanging over the edge. It is kind of a miracle that neither of them fell off...especially, Ava.

And, here is a super cute bald baby!

And, her future supermodel big sister. Where does that kid get these poses? I swear she must practice in front of a mirror or something!


The wedding took place on Paradise Island. Before the ceremony, we decided to head over to Atlantis to show the girls the aquarium with Aunt Carey, Uncle Nick, and sweet Aubrey.

Unfortunately, they blocked off all the of aquarium and you had to pay a small fortune to see it :( So, we ended up just walking around the hotel.


The girls were flower girls in the wedding. They were so cute and sweet in their little dresses. They are actually the same dresses my nieces wore in my wedding! Crazy. They were so mad I would not let them go play after they got dressed. Silly girls.




So, besides putting all kinds of pine cones and acorns and stuff in her flower basket to throw with her flowers, Ava spent the whole ceremony just playing in the sand. She filled her basket with sand, too. It was so cute. The wedding was beautiful, Aunt Krysten was gorgeous (though, I somehow managed to get not a one picture of her), the girls were awesome. Emma talked through the whole thing...at the top of her voice, luckily the surf made it too loud for anyone to hear her much.






One of the girls favorite things on the cruise was the towels animals! Our steward even made them two on the last night of the cruise.



The day after the wedding, we spent on Coco Cay. It was so nice and warm and peaceful. Em even took a nap on a towel. I know, my persnickety little baby sleeping under a tent on a towel. Who'da thunk it was possible :) Most of my pics are of Em, though, because the big girls were off playing the whole day!







So, all in all, it was a good trip. The girls thought the big boat was awesome and it was a nice time (I know I sound like I am trying to convince myself that it was fun, but really, don't bring a five month old). Not sure we will be doing it with the kids again anytime soon, but I am glad we all got to have this experience with each other!