CRUISE! Day 5

Last day at sea. Boo hoo.

The kids came to bed so late, I didn't wake them, but I probably should have. Avery slept in until 10:30 which is practically the whole day wasted. 

After breakfast, some of us went to the climbing wall.

I had to accomplish my goal of the final and hardest route. 

Right off the bat I did it, rang that bell and felt great!

So I shifted my goal to climbing to the top of all three.

Emily, Abbey and Kailyn joined me in the goal.

Here I am on the last of the three routes and the "easiest", but we all agreed it's not that easy. Especially the part at the green stegosaurus. What's up with that part? It will get you.

But I did it! All three routes, three in a row. 

Eventually the cousins came down to see where the heck Avery was. 

I went in to see if she was alive and well, and she asked me why they were at her door so early. I said, 'what time do you think it is?'

'8:30?'

'It's 10:30!"

After many minutes of waiting, they went and did other fun things because she took too long getting ready. 

I think I spent a lot of the day at deck 12 with kids. I can't really remember. We were going to do flowrider one last time but the line was crazy. 

We ate ice cream a bunch. It was sad to think about doing all the lasts.

Brandon booked us a conference room at 2:00. It was officially for the purpose of reading the last will and testamant (because you need a reason to borrow a conference room). So when we were all gathered he read us the will he wrote from Cow #329 or some number. haha.

Then we circled up and played LCR. 

Remember last time Evan won the pot?

Well guess who won this time? AVERY.

It gets so intense at the end when people only have a few dollars. INTENSE.

Damon had the last dollar. 

He rolled his last roll. A keep or a center would win him the pot. 

He rolled an R.

The dollar went to Avery.

She rolled a keep. 

Everyone went wild.

I felt so bad for Damon. That is a painful loss. I think Avery gave him a dollar. 

After that we headed up to the Bow of the Ship (headed for a NEW land...) to get family pictures.

Evan just frowns. GRRRRRR. WHYYYYYY. 

I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD

Back at the waterslides:

Me and Andrew were standing in line to slide, and he said he wanted to go to the gaga ball tournament. 

So we ran all over deck 12 to find it. It was hidden away at Adventure Ocean. 

I sent out the text: gaga ball deck 12! and somehow all the cousins got the memo. 

Almost all of us were in the room, taking over the gaga ball situation. 

I think there were three other non-Sorensen kids there. 

Then we went and watched the Flowrider guys do cool things on their boards. 

It's so sad knowing this is the end of our beautiful trip. 

That night at dinner after we were done eating, we happened to gather a lot of us around our table. 

It was a tradition for Aaron to come sit with us while waiting for dessert, but this time Aaron plus lots more came. 

Oh yeah, see Nettie and Jamie's outfits there?

Well we all three happened to wear them UNPLANNED on the last night.

Actually what really happened was - I put it on, and since it's a deviant from my usual black leggings outfit I felt self conscious and took it off. Then when I met up with Nettie and Jamie wearing the same thing, I suddenly because a middle schooler who is only comfortable if everyone else is wearing the exact thing I am, and I went and changed back into my clown outfit. 

What do you do with the last hours of the cruise time? 

Kids hung out in one of their rooms, then were out and about until 2ish am.

Us adults gathered at deck 4 of course. 

The big girls gathered around Grandma and Grandpa to hear "words of wisdom".

Did you know that the main reason for this cruise was to celebrate their 50th anniversary? 

They are the gift that keeps on giving. 

CRUISE! Day 4

Good morning lovely breakfast. 

I miss all you can eat breakfast. The kids did pretty good at getting some obligatory protein in before eating 7 donuts.  

This day was an early morning. We wanted to be out the door by 8:30. 

Instead of being put into a group like cattle, we opted to get us some taxis to take us to Paradise Beach. 

Taxis in Mexico make me nervous because they kind of charge whatever they feel like. 

Avery put her yearbook in the window of her room so that we could see where our room was. We were on the bottom floor and so close to the ocean! It was fun to watch the water sail by so fast. The first night watching the water made me feel a bit dizzy, but by day two my brain was used to it. 

Ugg this day was so so fun.

To accomodate a zillion of us, it had everything we needed: blow up obsticals on one side of the dock, quiet empty waters on the other side, umbrellas, two rows of chairs for us all, and another Daniel there to bring us whatever food we ordered. Food and drink. The kids got so many pina coladas, so much chips and salsa. Keep it coming, Daniel. 

I think about this like 5 times a day: see there in the right side, me and Jamie and Robbie were die laughing on that blow up circle:

To get on, you either go on the easy end or you do what we did - I went under water and Jamie stood on my shoulders to get up. Then she pulled me up. Then Robbie came along and tried to get up - we gave him a hand and he said "ok sure little ladies" (something like that). Jamie tried pulling him up by his head. I died laughing. Then he took my hand and pulled be back into the water. We did this multiple times with that crowd of kids on the pyramid behind us watching the whole thing. haha so good. 

Then all the children got up on our circle, and in true Sorensen style we circled up and played 'down by the banks'. Junie was in charge of throwing people overboard when they got out. My favorite was when she pushed an unsuspecting Jamie right into the water. 

So fun. Top 5 favorite memory. 

There were so many pictures ops on this beach that I just didn't get. 

We did a lot of beach combing, lifegaurding the children on the blow up thingys, 

and then we put on the snorkel masks to see what we could see, and there were a lot of fish!

Another of my top 5 memories was me and Jim snorkeling with Avery for the first time. We would float around together and point to all the cool looking fish. You could kind of grunt words through your mask, so we "talked to each other" as we floated and found cool things. 

Then I went and fetched the adults to come snorkel!

I got majorly sunburned on my back from all the floating face down. 

There was a pool behind the beach that the kids spent some time in. 

At one point, a dog chased an iguana out of the bushes and it jumped into the pool!

haah So many people jumped out screaming. I mean there was a dragon in the pool, so yeah that would freak me OUT.

Then it climbed the tree and stayed there for a few hours. 

We got back on the ship and you better believe we went and got thirty ice cream cones each. Best ice cream ever. 

One night during dinner I said in real seriousness: I don't want to regret not eating enough of the food. haha.  I meant it. Like I hope that I didn't leave one ice cream cone un eaten. 

We stood here and watched all the people get back on the boat. 

pre dinner deck four. 

I remember we were pretty exhausted at this point from a full day at the beach, and Abbey texted out:

"No line at the FreeRider!" 

and I was like: girl, I am TIRED. 

We all planned to go to the all ages kareoke. This was a real quick pre dinner pizza party. 

Ugg I love all of these. You didn't always get to be with all the people at once. We were all scattered about with no cell phones, so you just kind of happened upon people to hang out with. Some times it was lots of us, sometimes it was one or two of us. 

At the kareoke show, the littler cousins wanted to sing a song together. Andrew and some others went up and picked a song. All of their top choices were not available, so last minute Andrew picked "California Girls".

It was a disaster. haha. They all suddenly found themselves up there singing "Sex on the beach" in front of everyone including Grandma. haha. Andrew "forgot that part was in there". 

Nettie (who had lost her voice due to a cold) screeched at me: There's your trouble.

And I said to Jamie as she walked into the lounge: There's your trouble.

and she said "I was thinking the same thing".

So I went and signed us up for a traditional singing of Dixie Chicks "There's Your Trouble".

This makes it three times we've kareoked this song together. 

When we were done Evan said "That was embarassing"

and Avery said "You hogged the mic".

Both true. My kids hate me when I act the fool. lol

It was so fun. 

But also I think it was supposed to be kids singing, not a troupe of moms.

Dinner time! 

Deck 4 time!

That night the kids went to the 70s party waiting for the balloon drop. 

I'm not sure when they came to bed. 

CRUISE! Day 3

We had a few hours before we docked at Costa Maya.

In the mornings some of us would walk briskly around deck 4 for exersize. There were stairs that led up to the heli pad and the bow of the ship. 

(one hundred percent of the time I was on the bow of this ship I would sing to myself: "the bow of a ship headed for a NEW land...in New York you can be a NEW man...In New York you can be a new man, In New York...etc etc")

This morning we sailed into a little rain storm and got drenched. 

I climbed the wall with Abbey and Kailyn. I made it to my second goal on this morning, rang the bell

on the middle route. 

Then it was time to get off the ship and go see some ruins. 

There was a lot of decision fatigue with which activity to do on our first excursion day. I feel like I have been deciding for months what we should do. We landed on going to Chocchuben Mayan Ruins. 

So the ruins were super neat, and our tour guide was charismatic and super knowledgable, 

but what can you do about the intense heat? And humidity? The kids were champs, but it was hard to be so hot. 

They teetered on pure mutiny, but then out of nowhere a monkey swung through the trees and that changed their whole vibe. 

We've never seen a monkey in the wild! 

They are the coolest animals. 

My favorite bit information from Daniel our tour guide is that the Mayan civilization got to be so big. So many citizens per capita - more that Rome - because there wasn't any disease. 

So what eventually caused them to scatter and demise is that with great population comes a need for resources. The using up of resources led to famine and from famine came the diseases. 

Before we headed back to the ship, we bought some fresh cut mango and pineapple. So good. 

Bushed!

As we got back on the boat, so hot! We needed to get into water. Me and Andrew went straight to the waterslides and there were hardly any lines! Then a bunch of us did the flow rider. 

That night at dinner they had a conga line the kids joined. 

We got split into four tables this night. The kids were not happy. 

But me Nettie and Jamie sat at a table with mom and dad. 

After dinner me and Andrew went up to floor 5 to find Abraham since Andrew ditched their appointment that day. We couldn't find him, so we went out and got our pictures taken outside the dining room, and then out came Abraham to see us! We were all so excited. haha. 

Then we took a random picture with the five of us:

And then it was on to the library and Deck 4 for our ritual evening gather.

We did a lot of discussing and deciding on what beach we should go to the next day. 

Which means Jamie's fingers were in the air all night. 

But bravo to her, because she picked the very best beach for tomorrow's excursion. 

Andrew and Wyatt played shuffleboard. That was cute.