Thanksgiving 2012

Before Spencer got sick, we had planned a whirlwind adventure for November.  He has about three weeks off for Thanksgiving.  The first week was the cruise, the second week was Thanksgiving in Utah, and the third was Disney World with my brother's family and my parents.  Since the cruise went well, we decided to go ahead with everything else and just kind of take it easy.  So off to Utah we went!

Most vacations to Utah include a little fishing trip.  Spencer went with his Dad, Grandpa, as well as Uncle Dan, and a few cousins.  I bowed out of this one - it was a little too cold for me, obviously. :)

Spencer is the crazy one when it comes to Black Friday.  It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without some shopping and good deals.  He even went so far as to print a map of Walmart, assign each adult in the family a department/job.  I stayed home with the babies while everyone went out on the town.  Last year it took us hours to check out of Walmart.  This year, they were literally home in 30 minutes with nearly everything that everyone wanted.  No. Exaggeration.  I guess assigning jobs really did work!

This boy loves to be outside, especially with Grandpa and the sheep!

Uncle Spence and baby Sarina.

The Hill Thanksgiving dinner always includes some games afterwards.

We sure do love all of these people!

The grandbabies 

Ensenada

The day we were in Ensenada just happened to be the same day that the Baja 1000 was beginning right  next to the port.  TONS of off-roading vehicles were lining up getting ready race.  It was so loud and there were sooo many people and vendors lining the streets.  

We walked around the vendors for a little while, then continued in a different direction to get away from all the crowds.  I have no idea who these people are, but they must be important enough to have a humongous statue of their heads in the middle of the city.

I don't think I have ever seen a flag as large as this one.

As we got closer to the port, they had some butcher shops along the road.  I would have taken this guy home for sure.

It smelt rather fishy! :/

These gentlemen were collecting money outside the not so public bathrooms.  Apparently it isn't free there.

These guys were pretty funny to watch for a little bit.

This big statue was built from bones from probably a whale or something.  I remember reading where they were from, but I honestly can't remember.  It was pretty cool though!

Spencer was such a good sport about not being able to get off the boat.  He usually slept until we got back from our adventures.

This is the only picture I have of our room.  As you can tell, my stuff pretty much dominated the vanity area.

Our cruise ship had a mini golf course and water slides on the top.  It was too cold to use the water slides (although some people were crazy and still did), but we took advantage of the mini golf course.

I'm so glad that we were able to go on the cruise.  We had a really fun and relaxing time - just what we needed.

Catalina Island

Tuesday morning we woke up in the port of Catalina Island.  We grabbed some breakfast, and Emily, Ben and I got in line to taxi to the island.  

It really was a beautiful island, a cute touristy place.  It was great weather so I ended up taking my sweater off and wrapped it around the strap of my purse.  At some point of our walk around the island, I realized I had lost my sweater!  So we retraced our steps and low and behold...

... we found it!

Because Spencer wasn't feeling well enough to come to the island, I tried to take as many pictures as I could so he would feel like he still got to experience it.  I took a picture of this little remote control boat someone was driving because let's face it - he's a total boy and loves this kind of stuff.

A lot of people on the island drive golf carts - so many people do that they even have specific parking for them.

At the end of the day Spencer and I were at the end of the boat and saw these seals swimming away from island.  When I took the picture I thought they were dolphins, but when I blew up the picture on our computer after the cruise, I realized they were seals.  Emily said she woke up to some seals that morning outside of their window.  I'm thinking they were the same ones we got a glimpse of that evening.

This building is an auditorium of some sort (and is/was a casino) but also has a museum about Marilyn Monroe.  Apparently she lived there on the island before she became famous.  In fact, they say that is where she realized she may have a career in the entertainment industry.  During World War II they closed the island to tourists and used it as a military base.  They say that Marilyn noticed the attention that she got from the military men just walking down the streets of Catalina Island.  That attention made her believe that she could also be famous outside of the island.

We spent a few hours walking around the island, bought a few snacks, and then headed back to the ship.

Cruise 2012

With Spencer in the hospital the few days before our planned and paid for cruise... we really weren't sure if we were going to actually make it on the boat.  Miraculously, he was released on Sunday night at 9 pm and we left for California at 6 am the next morning.  It seemed really crazy at the time since he still wasn't feeling well, but the doctors were fairly certain that he would only improve as the days went on, so we prayed about it - a lot - and decided to go.  Sara and Melissa watched Colby - he has the best Aunties - seriously though.

We made the six hour drive to Long Beach where some family friends took us to the port.  Day one was a little rough on Spence and he honestly thought that he should have stayed in the hospital, but as the week went on he slowly got better and was glad that he decided to come.  

Long Beach port

Emily and Ben joined us on the cruise which was a lot of fun.  Spencer decided to rest on the boat while we went to visit Catalina Island and Ensenada so it was really nice to have someone to go with

He's so handsome.

Our waitress was the best - seriously so funny.