Christmas Eve

After a quiet day on ship of going to the gym, playing on the water slides and sitting in the hot tub we got ready for a nice Christmas eve dinner in the formal dining room.

Justin got all done up as well as you can see....

Late that night once we had sung some Christmas carols and had a nice Christmas Eve together we were out on the deck and ran into another group of kids we've been seeing a bunch this week. There is a big group of people on the boat at a family reunion that are Mormon so we have seen them a couple times this week. We rocked the dance floor together one night and one night we all completely overwhelmed the hot tub with 22 of us in there. So it was fun to hang out with them a bit before we dock tomorrow.

Puerto Vallarta

Today we decided to do a zip line tour in the jungle. Mom was going to stay behind because she thought it was too scary - until she talked to another mom who said it wasn't that scary. Turns out she loved it! She's a secret adventurer.

It was a series of 13 different zip lines. The longest one was about a half a mile long. They were all strung across this canyon so the drop was pretty dramatic which made it more fun.

Once the guides found out that I spoke Spanish and that I am a nurse they were all asking me to do CPR on them.....shameless.....

They offered to let us go upside down if we went with one of the guides. I did it on the 1/2 mile one and it was over a river. So we started out right side up and then I let go and hung upside down. It was really fun.

The very last zip line goes right over the river. So as I got close to the end I see one of the guides an my brothers at the end of the line holding onto the line and yanking on it, which promptly put my buns right in the water......nice one boys.

We had to make it back to the start so we got to ride on mules which was really nice, a very relaxing ride through this beautiful jungle.

We had another wonderful evening on board, including an amazing sunset.

Mazatlan

So this was the beach scene in Mazatlan. There were tons of people always trying to sell us something which was a little frustrating, but it was such a nice day that we got over it pretty quick.

We spend the morning laying around and in the afternoon we rented a catamaran which was really fun!

Driving it was actually harder than I expected in a strong wind, but it was really fun to give it a try.

After that the boys and Andrea did some para sailing, which seemed pretty fun but they were charging quite a bit for a very short ride, so I opted to just watch.

We took one of these little buggies back to the boat which I think was one of mom's favorite parts about the whole day. Especially when their driver gave them a jug of water to dump on us in our cart as we passed....hehe.

Cabo San Lucas

This time around mom and dad splurged and got one room with a view. This was taken when we were still in port in LA, but once we got out to sea it was soooo nice to have a room with a view!

We got into port in Cabo San Lucas this morning and headed to go scuba diving and snorkeling.

The water here is pretty cold, but very clear and perfect for diving. Jason and Andrea have never been diving but the guides gave them a 10 minute mini course and took them down. I love Mexico sometimes:)

We saw all kinds of cool things. Puffer fishes that our guide puffed and then let us hold and another kind of puffer fish that is black with white spots and we even swam by some really huge sea lions which was a little creepy, but cool.

We had a great time in the water. After we spent a little while looking around at the market place.
It is always nice to get back on the boat and know that you don't have to think about where to find a good dinner or where you are going to stay.

That night we went to a hypnotist show. It was the first one I had ever seen, really amazing. At the end when they had woken everyone up they told three people that until the host shook their hand it would be as though their bottom was glued to the chair. So they were all woken up and everyone left except these three who were completely awake but scooting all over the stage in their chairs and trying to get the host to shake their hand.....incredible! I will have to see that again some day.

Mexican Riviera Cruise

Today we all came from various places and met in LA to go on a Christmas cruise to the Mexican Riviera.

It was the best gift in the world just to be together for some good quality family time, mixed with a little Mexican adventure as well.