Cabo - Memories to last a lifetime!

Our boat stopped in Cabo for two days in a row. The weather there was fabulous! It felt so good. We didn't know what we were going to do, but we got off the boat and went to just talk to some people about different options.

We ended up taking a water taxi over to a long stretch of beach.

Had so much fun seeing so many pelicans and seals along the way.

I remember seeing online that you could go on this pirate ship on a whale watching tour.

We had a blast on the beach! It was so fun to swim, there weren't really waves and it was just perfect. Jackson didn't love it. He doesn't love the sand and doesn't love salt water so he spent most of the time standing around by our towels. But really, this day was so fun!

I love this picture of Mckinley. It was just one take and it's absolute perfection.

A guy took our family's picture and never really did get a good jumping shot ha ha but we tried.

There were people every 2 seconds walking along the beach trying to sell us stuff. Ava was so cute and would say no thanks to everyone. We did buy some donuts and they were delicious!

We ended up buying two mangos and I'm so glad we did because the kids couldn't stop talking about them. They were $5 a piece ha ha! Such a rip off.

Lincoln had brought over a snorkel mask the night before we left so we had it with us and it was so awesome! We saw some fish right there where we were swimming. I saw a puffer fish which was cool, and a school of fish that weren't very pretty but it was still cool seeing them and I was so glad we had the snorkel mask.

We decided to walk back and realized it was quite a long walk ha ha so if we do it again we'll make sure to pay for a water taxi back.

Beautiful sunset in Cabo and just such a great day.

Day 2 in Cabo we decided we wanted to swim with dolphins because someone had told Brandon the day before that we could do it for $60 a person. Well when we went to that booth where he was told that, they said they didn't know how someone gave us that price and it was going to be more like $80 a person. Anyway, long story short, we decided to do a whale watching tour instead. But we had to wait an hour for a boat. So we went to the dolphin place to hang out and wait and ended up getting this most amazing picture where the dolphin posed with the kids for a perfect shot! We were able to look in the tank and see other people swimming with the dolphins and the kids were dying to do it. We told them maybe next time!

So off on our whale watching tour we went. It started out a little rough having to wait almost 2 hours instead of 1 and then having the smallest most dinky boat come to pick us up. And then they told us they had to go get gas. Ugh, it was annoying. And Kallie was freaking out and so scared to go out in the middle of the ocean on this small boat. She cried for the entire whale watching trip.

I knew we couldn't be guaranteed to see a whale but we had seen one from the balcony of our room already so I was at least happy about that. Well, we ended up seeing a whale from afar off and that was cool. And then we are just sitting there and this whale's back comes up out of the water SOOO freaking close to our boat and then it went under and we realized it had to have gone under our boat. It was honestly a little scary but Brandon and I were both putting on our brave faces for Kallie's sake. Tyler wasn't loving it and neither was Ava at first.

Well we followed the whale that went under our boat and got a video of its tail going under. I was so happy we had seen a whale and seriously would have been satisfied with that.

But then we kept driving and Brandon said he saw a whale jump all the way out of the water a way off. I didn't see it and I thought well that won't happen again. But happen again it did, and I ended up with videos of this baby whale jumping out of the water like 4 different times. It was absolutely incredible. And some of the times it was so close to us.

And then we saw at least three big whales and they were swimming so close to us. We saw their backs come out a bunch of times, their spouts, and tails, and oh my gosh it was just incredible. Kallie was begging to go back the whole time and I just sat there with my camera videoing everything. These pictures are all screen shots from my videos.

It was so amazing to be looking at the ocean and then all of a sudden seeing this baby jump all the way out of the water. It was such an incredible experience and I feel so lucky that we got to do it.

These big whales were so majestic and it was a little scary being in our tiny boat and being so close to them but also just so incredible at the same time.

After Kallie finally couldn't handle it anymore, we headed back and got some cool pictures of the famous arch on our way back.

We had the guys drop us off at Pelican Beach. It's near Lover's Beach and they suggested that it would be better with more mild waves for the kids. We went out in the water and immediately I put on the snorkel mask and swam over by these rocks and just saw hundreds of fish. It was so amazing. They were beautiful, lots of small ones, some big. We saw a bunch of puffer fish, saw crabs climbing on the rocks, it was just magical! Tyler and Kallie put on regular goggles and swam out with me and were able to see them. Mckinley struggled with the snorkel mask but was able to see them as well, and so was Brandon. We even got Ava and Jackson out there a bit and they put their heads under and saw fish. I love snorkeling so much! It was great!!!

Seriously, this day was an absolute dream come true.

We hit up the shops before we went back and got a key chain and a hoodie for me. Brandon is so good to me! This was a day that I'm certain I will remember for the rest of my life!

 

We love Cruising!

So the weather in Long Beach was sooo windy! But at least there wasn't rain like last year. Really good thing because the line to check in was suuuuuper long. But man we were excited to get on that boat!

Finally made it on!

Exploring our boat. We went on the Carnival Panorama.

First of many ice cream cones!

Mckinley had been super excited about the skyride so we checked it out first thing and it was awesome. The line was pretty short too.

There is something so magical about being out on a giant boat in the middle of the ocean.

We ate the first night at the restaurant. It was really yummy. The Carnival melting chocolate cake is awesome, the salmon was great, Tyler and Jackson order off the kids menu and the rest of us order off the regular menu although Tyler did order grilled chicken too off the regular menu and he liked it.

It was pretty chilly to start out the cruise but we enjoyed having the hot tub all to ourselves somehow.

So fun to have two rooms with a connecting door and balconies! Ah, it was just the best.

Jackson was very excited about sleeping on the top bunk.

Breakfast the next morning. I mean, how can you not love sitting and eating food and just staring out at the ocean. Gosh, I love cruising so much.

So our first day was a day at sea. We went back to ride the sky ride again and do the ropes course. Ava and Jackson were both too short for either of those things so they putted around on the mini golf. 

Kallie was so nervous for the ropes course and the sky ride but she did the ropes course the first day and finally by the last day she rode the sky ride too.

More ice cream, always!

We love the burgers from Guy's Burger Joint on the carnival ships and we discovered that there is a BBQ restaurant of his on the Panorama so we were very excited to go grab some lunch from there. It was way good!

Our day at sea was pretty chilly but we still had a blast. We played ping pong for a bit and foosball.

Finally got a turn on this super cute life size pool table with soccer balls as the billiard balls.

Even though it was freezing we decided to go on the water slides just to do something fun. Jackson sat and played on my phone wrapped in a towel ha ha. He wouldn't have been able to go on them anyway and the splash pad was way too cold to play in.

This was the first fancy night so we got all dressed up for dinner at the restaurant again.

Our experience this time wasn't as great. You sit at a different table each night. We just didn't love the food and it was kind of slow. In fact, we ended up walking out and leaving before our dessert came because Jackson had fallen asleep and Tyler was really not wanting to be there.

 We ditched the restaurant for the next few nights and just stuck to the buffet which was better anyway because it allowed us to do more things, go to a comedian, watch an outdoor movie, etc.