In times of sickness...

Sorry for the super bad photo quality. My cell phone isn't the greatest. Here's Betsey with one of her mammoth green boogers. I feel like we were all sick for a month or so with a wonderful break while we were in Florida (post coming soon). Betsey had a crazy, congested nose and an increasing cough and was just super grumpy and hard to handle. The rest of us got by!

Ruby got so bored when Alice was sick for a few days, so we went upstairs for a facial. She was thrilled!!

Part 6: Cozumel, February 19, 2011

Here are some pics to add to the Cozumel trip from my pics. Ruby loved this store, for obvious reasons!

While we waited for our ferry to get from Cozumel to Playa del Carmen, we kind of played in the water in the middle of a busy part of the city. It wasn't a nice beachy area, but we only had a few hours in Mexico and we wanted to play in the water!

It was there when I experienced the worst pain I have ever felt in my entire life. Wow. I was swimming out about shoulder depth with Ruby when I decided to put my feet on the ground and I felt the spikes of a sea urchin break off into my foot. Immediately I was in so much pain I was actually really worried about my well-being. I tried not to freak Ruby out as we quickly swam back to shore. I think I remember getting out of the water and just sitting there, holding my foot just like you can see in this picture while Matt ran all over town trying to find me a pocket knife or tweezers to remedy my situation. I think someone gave me a lot of pain killer. I know at one point I was going to hobble back to the boat to get medical attention...that is how bad it was. There was no part of me that had any interest in Mexico for about fifteen minutes. I just wanted to go have the pain go away. I remember being very, very grateful that Matt was so engaged in finding me some tools. He was back and forth from a Farmacia with various interesting things. With some blunt tweezers that Matt found, Chris pulled out some of the spurs from my toes and the ball of my foot. It hurt so, so bad. I didn't think he even got the smallest part of the spurs out because there was dark venom released into my food that made it look like there was stuff deep inside my foot. I used some Spanish skills to ask the people on the street what I should do. The general consensus was that I should soak my foot in someone's urine. Yes. That is the real advice. I knew there was a possibility that they just wanted to see a stupid tourist soak her foot in pee, but I was desperate. So Chris peed into a ziplock bag and I soaked my foot in it. Yes. I did. I'd do it again. No, it did not work. I'd do it again because I had hope that it would work, which is something. So by the end of our day in Mexico, in spite of still having dark spots on my foot, I was FINE. I could put all my weight on my foot and walk normally. I'd say that the venom was the painful part...not the spines. The venom wore off after 15-20 minutes and then, since Chris had successfully gotten the spines out, I just had residual pain that wore off as the day progressed. Ahhhhh. Urchins. NEVER go without my Chacos again...any Croc or aquasock would be no match for the urchin. Go with Tevas or Chacos or something hard core.

We got off the ferry and saw this...the most beautiful, welcoming beach ever! I would have ditched our tour plans and settled in on this beach had it not been that I was in charge of that part of the trip. I wanted that beach really, really bad and I plan to return soon...is it our 10 year anniversary this year? I didn't even have time to touch the sand, but I stopped Alice and had her pose for me in front of the beach because I was in mad love with it.

Tulum...described better in the post with Pam's pics.

We did coax our tour guide, Helaman, into ten minutes or so at the beach by the ruins in Tulum. Thank goodness...ten minutes in heaven. Ahhhh...the water was so warm and the waves were super fun to play in and I just loved jumping in the water with my girls for those 10 minutes! No urchins!

It was nighttime when we had to get back on the boat. We had some time for souvenirs and we all got back on the boat at slightly different times.

So...the bottom line of cruising for me is...I need a week or more in each port! Is there a cruise like that? I loved the all-inclusive aspect of the cruising experience and that it enables you to see several places that are far from each other in one trip...but I think I am more of a one destination kind of girl. I just came home with a list so long of things I still need to do and places I still want to see for each port.

Pam's Pics...

Pam was nice enough to give me her pictures...so every picture in this post was taken by her...enjoy! They aren't all in order...they start with out Mexico adventures and bounce around. I was trying to get it all right but blogger doesn't make it easy enough.



We docked in Cozumel and took a ferry to the mainland in Playa del Carmen. I arranged for a tour with a man my parents recommended, Helaman. Because the Book of Mormon is like the Bible of the Americas (so it is ancient writings by prophets who lived in the Americas during the sameish time period as the Bible which is a record of the people in Israel) having a tour of these ancient ruins by someone who is aware that the inhabitants of these civilizations were decedents of the people who wrote the Book of Mormon was really interesting. Many of the same glyphs and symbols aligned with description in ancient scripture.


A watchtower in the distance, behind another priest's house.  There are 4 watchtowers, and they each have a little tower (to the left here) where the rising/setting sun shines through at a specific date each year.  So cool.






Some really interesting engravings, including the Descending God (Helaman identifies as Christ).


This is a closeup of a preserved painting - you can see it in the picture above. 




Here is the whole group!




The site was about to close, but we had just a few minutes to visit this absolutely beautiful beach.


We couldn't resist swimming for the last 10 minutes. :)




So fun, and so sandy!




On the boat...this was a massive dessert buffet on day three of the cruise.

These are Pam's words...
I loved spending time on Deck 3, instead of the top deck, which was crowded and noisy.  Deck 3 was usually pretty deserted, so the kids could run around and play.  Also we saw some great stuff in the water!  We saw a pod of dolphins, jumping and playing.  We saw a sea turtle, Matt saw flying fish way out in the open water, of which I was a little skeptical (just because I was surprised they would be so far out in the open ocean), but then we all saw lots of them the next day.  No whales.

Off in the distance you can see a bit of Cuba.

There was a waterslide for the kids to enjoy...


The room stewards really worked hard to earn their tip...one such effort was these towel sculptures they would leave in the room daily.

Pierce did take this nice picture of Grandma & Grandpa eating lunch. 

Bats at Animal Kingdom...picture by Pierce...


Then we went to Dino Land USA.  It's so much fun!  Zoe loved the Triceratops ride.


Pierce, Mattie and Zoe on the beach in Key West.



Sunday, February 13th at a park by Deland, FL after we went to church in Deland.


There was an alligator across the spring - Chris wanted to get closer but I don't think he found a good way to do it.


Manatees are hard to photograph from above :) - but here one is!


The water is so clear, it's just beautiful.  There were lots of manatees.

February 13th in Orlando, after seeing the manatees.
After we checked in to the Disney hotel, we took a bus to Downtown Disney and had dinner at the T-Rex Cafe.  (Really fun, really loud.)  On our way back to the bus the kids found Buzz Lightyear.

February 14th...Valentine's Day!!
The next morning we went to Magic Kingdom!  Mattie told me later that it was her favorite park to spend time in, or maybe she just felt like there was too much fun stuff to do in just one day.  I agree!  We got to a lot of the rides, but no shows, no parade, and we were on the back side of the castle for the fireworks, so we only got to see half the show.  But it was such a fun day!  Zoe wore her Snow White dress, and was a princess all day long.  Here all the kids are in front of the castle.



Mattie, Ruby, and Pierce on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster. 

The Christison Family...

Part Five: Cruising in Key West February 18, 2011

We went on our first cruise! The only veteran cruiser were Sam and Perry. The rest of us had never been on a cruise before. We went for basically the very cheapest available cruise...$200 or so each for four nights and two ports...before all the fees. The cruising experience was a good one. No one got sea sick! We enjoyed the food...especially the chocolate melting cake which I believe at some point was ordered by every adult at the table! So good!

The kids got to sit at their own table SEPARATE from the adults. I don't even know if my kids ate one bite of food...but they didn't complain about being hungry and I never once had to nag them to eat because I didn't even see their plates! A great little vacation in and of itself! Zoe sat with them too...but this was the first night, and I think she was with us that night.

We were in the dark the first night about how much access to free food we had, so we tucked some fruit (we=Chris) in Alice's hood so that the kids would have fruit to snack on...totally unnecessary!

Alice likes yogurt. A lot. We have sometimes 100 yogurts in our fridge because she eats as many a day as she is allowed. Nothing changed on the cruise except they carried the brands with five different kinds of sugars in them.

Elevator button pushing is always a great experience.

My kids weren't taken with the Kid Zone, but they didn't have any good reason not to like it. I think they just knew that us adults were going to live it up without them and they wanted to be where we were. Here is Alice and Zoe after having their adoreable faces painted like lions.

Our cozy room. We all slept so well on the cruise...no windows=no light!! It was wonderful!

We arrived in Key West at 7AM. I think we rented bikes at 9AM or so and it was just our little family hitting Key West on bikes while the others went to the state park to do some snorkeling. I really enjoyed the bike ride, we rode to Smathers Beach, a lesser known beach and played on the beach and in the amazing water there for a few hours.

Ruby took this picture while chasing the poor mama chicken with her chicks. There were several such wild chickens around town.

We rode by Ernest Hemingway's house...

We stopped for a picture at the southernmost point in the U.S.A., we were closer in that spot to Cuba than we were to the nearest Walmart!

Our boat...The Carnival Destiny.

Ruby got some new hoop earrings as a souvenir...they were really hard to put in and won't be worn again.

Let me just say that I want to move to Key West! I loved it there...really...I need to go back!