Sam Sam

I just haven't really gotten back into writing about Disney. Sam has been pretty high maintenance as of late, and my brain is not ready to organize all the events of the Disney World days. So I am going to talk about Sam. He is awfully cute, that is for sure. But he is also a handful as of late. He has always been kind of dependent, like most babies are, but recently he has been really clingy and not sleeping very well. Like up all night, sort of not sleeping well.

With his reasons of course. About a week and half ago he cut his first tooth! Thank goodness. We thought that would help with his not-so-regular sleeping habits. And it did, for  few days, but then he got a cold. It was kind of going around the house. Poor little guy had a cough and a runny nose. It actually wiped him out a bit and he slept pretty well. But then he didn't. The last few nights have been miserable. He tosses and turns and just seems uncomfortable. He has also been awfully constipated. Like shaking and crying when he is trying to have a bowel movement. It probably didn't help the night sleeping. After two nights of no sleep we decided to take him to the doctor. And the verdict was ear infections. I was relieved. I hate not knowing how to help my children. And after sleepless nights I am pretty emotional, wondering if I have any idea what I am doing.

So here we are, hoping he will get better and consequently sleep a little better through the night. Lucy is a champ. After being up early, Sam and I went back to sleep around 7:30 am. I figured I would get Lucy up around 8, and ended up not waking up until 9 am. She was still in bed, wide awake, very chipper. I love her.

In the most recent turn of events,  Sam started to army crawl tonight. He did it during our Family Home Evening. It was impressive. I just can't imagine what he will do when he is 100%.

This just in...

Let's take a break from Disney and talk about the awesomeness that is the job Jimmy got.

On Wednesday Jimmy was called into his bosses office and they offered him a FULL TIME position!!! So he is going to start on Monday as a Human Resources Assistant at Roche Bros. And we are just over the moon. Considering he decided to not be a lawyer, and considering the job market is not wonderful. And his story is quite a miracle. He started as a bagger/cashier and worked 2ish months. He asked about job shadowing and after them telling him there wasn't really anything, they called him out of the blue and offered him an internship. And after 1 month as an internship he was offered a full-time position. Pretty awesome, right?!

So hooray for prayers and miracles!

Disney Part II

And so it continues...

We woke up at 5 am the next day. Sam decided that 5 am was his new wake-up time, at least for the trip that is. Jimmy just reminded me that Lucy was actually in the room with his parents that night. They went to watch a show and then he dropped her off.  Either way, Sam was up early and Lucy was not. After trying to nurse him back to sleep, I gave up and we decided to start the day. We got Lucy a little while later, got all dressed and then headed up for some food.

It was delightful. We sat outside and watched as the boat moving slowly along until it docked in Nassua. Jimmy raved about the Cabanas to everyone. And it was really good. I was able to get oatmeal and he could get bacon. Win-win I say. After breakfast we got ready to head to shore for the Atlantis resort tour. Somewhere in there we saw Ariel, Tiana, Belle and Snow White. It was nice, they were all in one place.

Then we were off to Nassau. It was a good trip, mostly because we saw a lot of fish, and sharks (which technically are fish). We went with Nathan the girls and Joe. Poor Heather was under the weather, so she stayed behind. The bus ride to the resort was less than uplifting. The bus driver kept telling us about all the run down places in town. It made me chuckle.

The Atlantis resort was beautiful, with some pretty amazing sculptures and a really awesome underground aquarium. Not to mention it was actually a very delightful day outside as well. Side note: I did a terrible job planning our daily wardrobes. On the days it was cold we were wearing tee-shirts and on the days it is hot I dressed Sam in his fleece jumper. I kind of did that on this particular day. I was super warm. Anyways. I will let the pictures do most of the talking for this part of the trip.

We made it back to the boat early afternoon, and took some much needed naps. Jimmy went back to shore to pick up some free jewelry that he heard about the day before. He came back with necklace.  It was pretty and simple, which describes the jewelry I wear.

And soon after this it was dinner. This night was at the Animator's palate and it was my favorite. This restaurant had screens with Nemo characters coming in and out to talk to you. It was a lot of fun to interact with the characters. Plus the food was also quite yummy. Did I mention that I ate lots of vegetarian food while I was on the cruise. I figured if I wanted to eat good vegetarian food it would be on a cruise. And it was delightful. I also tried escargot, per Jimmy's request. It was not my favorite.But I tried it.

This was night that Lucy started to react pretty extremely to pottys. Jimmy took her to the potty during this meal and she freaked out. And when I say freaked out, I mean screaming bloody murder, sounds like Jimmy was beating her, freaked out. Staff waited outside the bathroom to make sure Lucy was okay it was so bad. To be fair the toilets on the cruise were a little intimidating.

After dinner we went up to a little pirate party they had on the top deck. It was mostly music and dancing and it actually had some technical difficulties half way through. We then went back to our room and decided to watch the show on TV instead of go to the theater to see it. These are broadway style shows, but we couldn't merit staying up super late with Lucy again. The TV idea was not great. Lucy wanted to see it, but she also wanted to stand up and play and talk about. Sam slept through it, but it totally put Jimmy and I in bad moods. We sent her off to her grandparents room. She was so wound up that she played with flowers in grandma and grandpa's room and made some messes too. She didn't go to bed until 11 pm or so.

The next day we woke up early again, and went to pick up Lucy around 7 am. Her grandparents still wanted to sleep (don't blame them) and we took her to breakfast. This was the day we stopped in Castaway Cay a Disney owned island. Let me say now, this was probably the most amazing day of the cruise.

We were the first ones from our family to get off the ship. We found a nice spot sun bathe and we headed off to swim and relax. It was a beautiful day. Lucy swam and later that day I saw a turtle while Jimmy and I went snorkling. We also had a fabulous lunch, and even found fruit stands where all the had was sliced fruit. It was pretty heavenly. After lunch we found out that the strollers on the island were up for grabs, so we stuck our children in them and went for a walk. They both fell asleep. This bode well for the Disney world stuff since we decided we were going to buy strollers for those days.

Lucy was so in the spirit that she randomly started dancing to the island music. It was awesome. She always was a little more wiggly because by this time she had pretty much stopped using the potty. Jimmy tried on the island, and she freaked out once more.

When we got back to the ship we changed and headed to the main deck so that we could meet with some of the characters. I think this is when we met Aladdin and Goofy. Lucy was very talkative. She would tell them all about her day. We got some pretty awesome videos, I hope blogger will let me upload them. While Lucy met characters I worked on getting Sam to sleep. He was a lot more fun at dinner meals if he slept through part of it.

This last night we went to the Enchanted garden. It was good, like all other food. This night we thought we would bite the bullet and let Lucy stay up again. I hadn't seen any of the shows live and Lucy might not go to bed early anyways. So we say a nice little show called "Believe." Sam slept through most of it, and Lucy fell asleep on the way back. Our lovely room staff was so nice. The lady called me "miss Kirstin" every time she saw us. And they left us the most beautiful towel animals. This night was no different, but we were all so tired I hardly noticed.

The next day we got up early, went to breakfast at the restaurant we ate at the night before and then got off the ship. It was sad, but we were off for our next adventure, Disney World. I think I will end there. Disney World it an entirely different beast.

Sorry, the pictures are somewhat out of order. But at least they are there.

Oh and so I don't forget, someday soon I would like to record the moment Lucy put Daddy in timeout. It was priceless.

Disney Part I

There is no way I will do this trip justice, but I would like to try to at least give you all, and future generations a little glimpse into the excitement that is a Cooprider family vacation. It is the kind of vacation that was years in the making. I am not sure I can give an accurate timeline, though I know I will have lots of pictures along the way.

Before I commence with the documentation of Disney memories I want to remind myself that there are some pretty monumental things that have happened since we have come home. I will go into more detail later, but for now just to keep myself from forgetting here they are in no particular order: Sam's first tooth, almost job offer, and Lucy uses the potty again (this will be discussed in the post).

Ready, set go!

All of the traveling began a few days before the actual trip. We wanted to see my family a little bit before we left, especially since my brother Peder just got back from his mission. We went up for the weekend, then back to Boxborough for a pedicure and a party, then back to my parent's for the grinder party, and then drove to the airport on Christmas morning. It was freezing! I thought that our children were going to freeze from the walk from the car to the terminal. But we made it. And we managed to even get on the plane in one piece. Sam slept a good solid hour and Lucy was distracted by the window and one of Grandpa Coop's devices. It was a relatively uneventful flight. Thank goodness.

Once we made it to Orlando we headed to the hotel. One of my greatest fears for the trip was having us all sleep in the same room. Lucy is super talkative when people are around. So falling asleep with someone in the room with her did present challenges. I think we were so tired that in the end, we all went to bed pretty early. That was after our dinner at Denny's. It was magical!

The next day we woke up in preparation for our Disney cruise. Turns out Lucy didn't travel as well as we had hoped. She had puked during the night, but didn't tell us. She had a very low key breakfast, and headed to the port. Turns out that trip in the bus was also not great for her. She puked as we waited to board the ship. So we had to talk to some cruise nurse and see them later that afternoon. It was an interesting start to our trip. Turns out we were not the only ones that were going to have health related adventures on this trip.

After getting some pictures with Mickey we got on the cruise ship. They announced our family name as we entered the ship and thus began our Disney cruise adventures. The first we did was put on our swim suits. Karen told us if we wanted to the water slide it was best to do it while people were still boarding. So Jimmy and I got dressed and that was the first thing we did. We really couldn't go to our rooms until our luggage was placed there. Lucy played with her cousins and grandparents. Sam walked around with Grandpa Coop. He did that a lot!

After the slide we got some food, because there is tons of that when you go on a cruise. And I must say, even though I felt like I was going to stuff myself, I didn't. I just ate a lot of quality food. The food was definitely a highlight of the cruise for all of us.

After food we went to our room. It is amazing how much stuff they put in those rooms. I don't even know if I got a good picture of the room, but trust me we were pretty squeezed in there. And that was before the bed was pulled out and we had the pack-n-play set up. After a little unpacking we had to take Lucy to the health center, which didn't open until 4:30pm (after we left port). I walked Sam around, Jimmy took Lucy in to see the doctor. She had a mild fever so we had to keep her our of the kid's places, but all in all she was doing okay. I think after this we met Snow White with Alice and Grandma and then we had dinner.

Dinners were family gatherings with the same service team every night. The first night we were in the Royal Palace. It was fancy. Sam kind of yelled for a lot of the meal, and every time I got up I could feel the boat moving. I think I might have had a little motion sickness. Turns out, so did Ada. Poor Ada

Anyways, we had dinner and then pretty much went back to our rooms. There is so much to do on a cruise ship, especially Disney cruises. Sam and Lucy are both a little young for all the activities so we saw a lot of Disney characters and ate. Both of which were really fun. This night we basically went to bed. And everyone was tired enough that even Lucy didn't take a long time to fall asleep.

Okay, seriously that was just 2 days...and I am pooped. I think I will come back to this tomorrow. Just know, I promise to give a full accounting of the trip. To be continued...

Preview

Longest vacation EVER! But it was fun, and we did A LOT, as is usual of a Cooprider vacation. Here are some pictures, just to get you excited to hear more about it.