Pine.Wood.Derby!!!

 WOO HOO!  Addison's first Pine Wood Derby! He (and Kelly) had a great time making his car and designing it...of course it had a "Y" on it, and Addison also requested the red flames!   

 Although tough to see- Addison's car is winning the race above!

 The girls made Addison this sign...about 3 minutes before we walked out the door...and we held it just long enough to take a picture :)

 Maren is Addison's biggest fan!

 Such a fun night!

Especially because Addison won 2nd place!! He was thrilled to win a trophy!!  Way to go Addison! (and Kelly!)

Cruise Day 5- Curacao

Our last port! We started the day by seeing the Hato caves...a cool little Curacao history lesson from our guide made it a great adventure! and yes there were bats!

They only allow you to take pictures in 2 places in the caves...this is one of them, with Kerissa :)

Kelly being dramatic/funny...

The famous pastel buildings in Curacao's downtown area...whenever i googled 'Curacao' this is the picture that always came up!

Down town by the floating market with the gang.

The floating market is where the boats from Venezuela come to sell their produce- we bought some Mangoes and they were the BEST I've ever had! (and I've had a lot of Mangoes!) and I bought Passion fruit- LOVE IT! and we also tried something the seller called plums, but were the size of cherries- they were good too!

They beach in Curacao was beautiful! and the snorkeling was awesome! Do you love Kelly's leg flip?

We crossed a floating bridge to get to downtown and the beach, and on our way back, they had moved the bridge to let boats pass! So, we took the ferry across the harbor...

They happy jump!

These amazing pictures were taken by Kelly Ditto! They look like postcards!

Curacao was really beautiful!

Another formal night that night, and another dress of Mary's :)  thanks Mimi!!

The best towel creation of the trip!! a monkey!!

Cruise Day 4- Aruba!

 What? I missed day 3 you say? Well, you're right- I didn't devote a blog post to day 3 because the picture below is THE ONLY picture we have of the day...It was a cruising day and so we had a lovely late-ish breakfast that consisted of a granola buffet! I was SO happy- I LOVE granola! and Kelly too!

 Anyway, then he had a super serious basketball game with some of the guys from the company- after they were done, some young twenty-something year olds challenged them to a game...they were pretty good, but Kelly and team won! I watched for all of a 1/2 hour or so before I had to go put my suit on and go lay by the pool!! It was a very relaxing sort of day.

 Aruba, on the other hand, was not what I would classify as relaxing.  We rented ATVs and explored the island!

 We convinced Uncle Mark and Aunt Marlene to come with us!  They didn't have 3 ATVs, so Mark and Marlene got this sweet Gator to cruise around in!

 And here are the Flecks...you'd think they would have learned their lesson about hanging out with us, but they are gluten for punishment! :)

 when we stopped at the Lighthouse, we bought a coconut...sucked out the 'milk' and then watched the crazy guy with a machete cut open the coconut and give us the 'meat'- so tropical.

 We had to stop every so often just to take in the spectacular waves that would crash against the rocks and spray every where!  Kim and I are getting totally soaked in this picture!

 Kelly jumping for joy...ATVs + beautiful view = happy Kelly!

 The next stop we had to make was at the rock formations!  So crazy to be driving along and all of the sudden, every where you look are towers of rocks! Big, small, intricate, basic...there were thousands and thousands of them!!

 Here I am sitting by the tower I built.

 This little chapel is SUPER old...I think it was built in 17__ ? Anyway, it was a nice little stop in the journey.

 Seriously awesome.

 Finally we found a beach, and though there was some cloud cover that afternoon, we had a great swim!

 Notice uncle Mark is the cactus!!

Ready to set sail again- another A-MAZ-ING day!!

Cruise Day 2- St. Kitts

 We knew we wanted to hike in St. Kitts...the island is one big volcano and that sounded awesome...so we got off the boat and found ourselves a guide (cause doing it that way cost 1/2 as much as doing it through the ship) Our first stop was this overlook where you can see the volcanic rock...a lot of St. Kitt's beaches have black sand because of the volcano!

 Beautiful!

 Our guide Henry...56 years old and could run up the mountain if he wanted to...he kicked all of our young butts!

 Taking a little hiking break to take pictures...good thing too, the hike was REALLY challenging- but SO cool, a true rain forest!

 Boy Band pose with the Flecks- they had only met us the night before and we convinced them to come with us hiking! We had such a good time together, we hung out in Aruba too :)

 Crazy trees! Unlike any we've ever seen before!

 This is an "after" shot, it rained pretty good when we got to the top of the mountain, so we are SOAKED! (nice that I chose a white T-shirt that day!)

 We were SO muddy! and pretty exhausted by the end, but we could still appreciate a good view!

 Nasty muddy legs...

4 Happy Hikers!

Cruise Day 1- St. Thomas

 Okay, I guess if I'm being technical, Day 1 was actually Sunday evening when we boarded the ship.  But all we did was have dinner and skype our kids, and then call it a night...so let's just pretend that it all started on Monday when we got off the ship in St Thomas! We rented a car with our friends Ryan and Ja'Nette and followed a map to all the spots we wanted to see! We found a radio station with an awesome DJ playing all the 90's hits you can think of- we sang our guts out!

 This is the view from a hill top looking at Hull Bay...

 And this is Hull Bay!!

 Heaven! that is what I was thinking!!

 Kelly soaking in the beauty of his life in front of a HUGE aloe bush (maybe? that's what it looked like)

 And thankfully he saw this little guy hanging out on the rocks just before he almost put his hand on him! He acted like he was totally used to having his picture taken!

 Next stop was Lindquist beach where I insisted that we go because it looked the prettiest on Google Earth...you think I'm kidding but I'm not.  Seriously, I think I made a good pick- it was my favorite beach of the whole trip...SO BEAUTIFUL!!

 Finding some treasures...

 Ryan and Ja'Nette snorkeling...

 I decided this must be a grandpa sea urchin because he was white-haired...

 Can you believe the color of that water??!!  It was unreal!

 We also visited Sapphire beach, but must have been too busy snorkeling because we don't have pics of that one.  We did try our Birch and Sara's underwater video camera though and it worked like a dream!  Maybe there will be some video on the blog soon huh! I can feel your excitement.

 Sunset over St. Thomas...A-MAZ-ING!

 That night was "formal night" for dinner...so we wore our best duds...okay I wore Mary's best duds...and we had a lovely dinner.

 With Bart and Melissa who are incredibly funny.

Towel creation number one...the standard swan.  Love coming back to the room to a new one of these each night!  WHAT AN INCREDIBLE FIRST DAY!!  LOVED IT!