Like promised, I’m back with our vacation highlights. It has taken me all-the-live-long-week to even get to the point that I can deal with the to-do lists and backlog of email that I left behind when we shoved off two weeks ago. Wow, it really was 2 weeks ago tonight that we left! I guess being on “island time” for the past two weeks has made the time cruise on (oh you know that pun was intended…as lame as it is!) by pretty quickly.

So, we left on the red-eye to Orlando and I was quickly reminded of the last time we took that flight and I vowed to “never take the red-eye AGAIN.”  J. usually sleeps fairly well, the girls sleep pretty well, and Mommy rarely sleeps at all. But the flight leaves at 10:30pm, and it is essentially a 5-hour flight, so even if the girls sleep from wheels up to the minute we touchdown – 5 hours of sleep a night is not good for my normal 12-hour sleepers.

So they either become uncontrollably giddy:

Or they crash:

Sometimes they do both. But we made it to the port and met Mickey – in our traveling clothes and glassy-eyed from no sleep:

And then we saw the ship:

We realized nothing really mattered, we were on vacation. It is a magnificent ship. I think it was by far the most relaxing vacation J. and I have ever taken. No email, no texts, no work, no worries. And we did everything and nothing all at once.

Thankfully I remembered to grab our swimsuits and throw them in the carry-on while we waited for our stateroom to be ready and luggage to be delivered. We tried out the pools:

And the Aquaduck:

Yes, it is a waterslide that goes all the way around the top of the ship’s deck. And yes, it is clear and at one point goes off the ship out over the sea:

It is, as Emma would say, Awwwwesome!

We found our staterooms pretty awesome, too. I am certain I have stayed in smaller hotel rooms than our cabin:

And our own little balcony got a lot of use. Most mornings you could find me, a Cove latte, and my kindle out there while the rest of the stateroom slept off their kids’ club hangovers:

I did get a glimpse into what it might be like with two teenagers in the house, every morning we didn’t have an early excursion I had to drag the girls out of bed at 10am, which around our house is LATE! But they also were going to bed extremely LATE every night as well. And the second night I was treated to this:

Addie read (and finished) an entire big, chapter book – all by herself. This is a very big deal, believe me. Oh, she CAN read, she just usually wants “you to read to me,” – thank you very much. So to see the two of them snuggled all up reading real books, well, it did this Mama’s heart proud.

The days at sea were full, but very relaxing:

Between the reading, swimming, and eating (free ice cream – all the time!), there are 10 things to choose from at any given time.

We Bippity Boppity Boutiqued:

We saw stage shows; there are first-run movies in the movie theater; Addie and I took a cooking class and learned to make apple strudel; and Daddy and Em took a towel origami class and learned to make cool towel creatures like this:

(Bear and Cat in the Hat didn’t mind being left in the cabin – they found their own fun, I think!)

The girls spent a lot of time in the Oceaneer’s Club & Lab – thousands of square feet of “kids only” fun. And while they were away, Mommy and Daddy got to play on the “adults only” side of the ship.

Spa? Yes.
Adult Pool? Yes.
Peace and quiet? Yes and Yes!

And with that, I think I’ll have to take a pause. I’ll be back tomorrow, or maybe the next day, with the Ports of Call round-up. I think I need to milk the vacation mode just a smidge longer.