This was a seriously last minute planned trip--we decided the beginning of June that we really needed to get out this summer. We only have 2 more summers with all our kids at home so we need to make some more awesome memories.
We flew into Orlando the day before our cruise departed. We had a sweet ride waiting for us--check out our cool rental van:) This 12 passenger van was $70 cheaper than any SUV or minivan--go figure. We spent one night in a hotel and kept this baby parked at the cruise terminal waiting for us to get back (way cheaper to rent your own car than to use the cruise bus service--we thought about hanging out at the airport looking for people who needed a ride to the cruise port to make some money on our cool rental--ha ha not really but we did joke about it:)
Our kids (almost) each had a row to themselves:)
Chris is up on all the "cool" things to do while in FL and apparently all the "cool" people go to Ron Jon's Surf shop in Cocoa Beach. While here, we all got Ron Jon's hats to prevent sunburning that we knew would come our way:)
On the Boat:
We were on the Carnival Victory for 4 days/3 nights. I like these shorter cruises--less time to over-eat:) As always, tons of fun stuff happening on the boat. We spent most our time by the pool. The kids always had fun things going on. Carlie, Ethan, and Max were off on their own with their own friends each day as they were allowed to sign themselves in and out of their groups--but we made them meet up with us for meals every day (so we would know that they hadn't fallen overboard or anything:)
Ethan teaching Tatum how to play Chess
Swim, swim, SWIM!!!
A cruise isn't a cruise without TOWEL ANIMALS!!!
The dining experience was always top notch every night! I love that my kids get the chance to sit down to "fancy" dinners and eat things they normally wouldn't. Of course they have normal foods like fried chicken and steak but we also tried things like escargot, alligator, and duck:) Every night the dining staff had some kind of show planned. They always look for volunteers to get up and dance with them and Max, OF COURSE, joined them every night:)
Here was our "farewell song" on our last night:
SOOO fun every night! And our waitress was AMAZING!!! She knew each of my kids names after hearing them only one time. And she was also so willing to help them make decisions on food choices and was just so sweet making sure we had everything we needed.
We love Leesom!
Every night they played a movie on the big screen out on the deck by the pool. So you could sit in a chair, swim, eat, AND watch a movie. I was trying to catch the perfectness of this night but you just can't do that with an iPhone camera! This is a shot of "Star Wars--The Force Awakens" playing on the big screen with the most perfect weather and moon in the sky. LOVED spending our evenings by the pool (eating pizza/popcorn/and ice-cream of course:)
The Bahamas!!! (Nassau)
This was a first for all of us. I've always wanted to go on a cruise to the "Bahamas!" It just sounds cool right?! Well...it was AWESOME! I thought Hawaii had the best beaches and ocean, but I stand corrected. The island of Nassau has the MOST beautiful white sand beaches and the warmest/most crystal blue water I have ever been in. Seriously beautiful! Us Arizonians had a little tough time adjusting to this new kind of heat/humidity but as long as we stayed wet, we were good:)
We walked across a large bridge that took us right to the resort "Atlantis." WOW! Someday we may need to stay there ourselves but for this day, we went and enjoyed the views and the beaches by this resort.
Turtles in the resort pond
Sharks in the ponds too!
The warmest and most crystal blue water I've ever been in!
Max and I enjoyed our white sandy toes!
The Capital Building
Oh NO!!! Captain Hook got Peter Pan:)
We were unsure of why these 2 figures would be by each other??? A knight in armor and Buddha???
Lots of Pirate history here:)
We walked all over the small island and then took a taxi back to our boat. I would seriously love to come back and stay on this island for several days. There is a lot of interesting history here--it was a pirate haven for years. Absolutely beautiful and breath-taking. LOVED the Bahamas!
So I only "thought" I got out of camping this year when I was released from my calling in YWs--NOPE! My good friend, Danika, talked us in to going camping with her family--which truth be told, this is the ONLY way I would have gone camping, with other friends to suffer alongside me.
We picked a campground about 3 hours away and it turned out to be a REALLY great weekend to get out of the valley as our temperatures were 110+ degrees for a week and a half. The weather was PERFECT where we went and we sure had a great time.
The Whole Gang
I think my dog, Rocco, found a new love--the outdoors! He was seriously cracking us up the whole time. Check him out:
We spent 3 days and 2 nights eating lots of yummy food, hanging out, LOTS of dog-walking, and driving around enjoying the cooler weather and being outside! We even got some light rain--which was great for us! We spent a good portion of our 2nd day there searching for crawdads. It took us 3 different lakes but by golly, we finally found some by the end of the day.
The boys were the only ones brave enough to touch these ugly things:) Mission accomplished!
So even though camping is NOT my first choice of vacationing.....I have to admit it was pretty darn fun! A BIG thanks to the Parks for getting us out camping this summer!
We were ALL pretty excited to have Carlie turn 16--only because we desperately need another driver in our house! Her long awaited birthday finally came! Lots of different happenings all surrounded her birthday so here they are in the order it all happened:
First! She bought her first car--yes SHE did! She's been saving up her money for over a year now and has worked hard teaching piano/playing for shows/babysitting etc. She bought a 2009 Toyota Corolla STICK SHIFT car on May 31st--so she had 21 days to learn to drive this before her test!!! YIKES! But she took on the challenge and I am proud to say, (after a few tears and cuss words) SHE CAN DRIVE A STICK!!!
We had her actual party the weekend before her birthday. We really didn't have a free weekend this month so we squeezed it in on a Saturday night. We had 25-30 teenagers in our backyard from 6-10 pm. We fed them and had lots of fun stuff set up for them outside--music, tetherball, ping pong, beachballs everywhere, and of course swimming:) Amazingly, no teenager was hurt during this event and everyone had a great time:)
Some of my most favorite of Carlie's friends: (don't tell the others:) Tayte, Kayleah, Thommy, & Lois
I waited too long to take a good group pic:/
The night before her birthday, we had a "surprise" visitor on our front porch. Buddy the Elf sure gave my husband a good scare on Sunday night. He had received a text that someone left him a loaf of zucchini bread on our porch swing. He wasn't properly dressed but didn't want to leave the bread out over night. He opened the front door, screamed like a girl, and then demanded that I come downstairs to see what was on our front porch!:) HILARIOUS!!! This is the birthday tradition that our Appleby ward does for each Young Women's birthday. LOVE Buddy!
On her actual birthday, her good friend Lois shows up with a Jamba Juice and a sweet/fun activity for Carlie. She put up a "16" on our garage door and in each of the envelopes she wrote a favorite memory she had with Carlie. LOVE LOIS! She is always so thoughtful:)
So all in all, Carlie had a great birthday. The next day--June 21st--Carlie went to take her driving test!!! And it was a great day because she passed it ON HER FIRST TIME! So she is now a stick-shift driving girl so yeah...she pretty much ROCKS! Happy 16th Birthday Carlie Mae!!!
This past weekend, our orthodontist--Dr. Blacker--had a pool party for all of his patients and their families at Hamilton pool. It was 115 degrees on Saturday and I really didn't want to go out into the heat but I am SOOO glad we did! We invited a few of my kid's friends to come with us. All together, we had 9 people.
So as we entered the pool, everyone got a raffle ticket. The kids all threw their raffles tickets to me and headed off for free pizza, snow cones, and of course SWIMMING! I've never been to a party like this before so I walked over to the raffle table to see what I was supposed to do with all these tickets. They had about 5 different items that you could put your tickets into--Diamond Back tickets, one night with "The Game Truck," Invisalign braces, a basket full of different gift cards, and a couple other things. Well, Carlie was with me and we decided that the only prize we would care to win would be the gift card basket. So we stuck all of our tickets in that one. There was seriously about 200 people at this event so I really thought nothing more of it.
Raffle time came and we were loading up to go home. But we stopped to listen to the one drawing and BY GOLLY! One of our tickets WON!!! (We think it was Tatum's ticket but we're not totally sure:) WOO-HOO! We won a basket with $500 worth of gift cards! It was an AWESOME night! (Considering her braces are costing us just under $5,000, $500 doesn't quite cover it but I'll take it anyways!)
We have gift cards to restaurants, stores, Amazon, a Shell gas card, etc! Like I said, I'm really glad I drug us out tonight:) Such a cool night!
So we just went to the mall yesterday to spend some of our fun cards--Carlie's birthday shopping...DONE! Thanks Dr. Blacker:)
Since Carlie had more shopping to do than Max, Tatum, and I did, we had time to entertain ourselves. I've seen these animal ride-ons at the mall but never actually inquired about renting one. Well, it was only $6 for a ten minute ride (for 2 kids) so WHY NOT?!
We spent a couple of hours at the mall, and WHO would we bump into? DR. BLACKER himself! So we were able to thank him in person for our little shopping excursion:)
My oldest 2 kids and I have been volunteering at a pet shelter this year and have absolutely LOVED doing it. We mostly help out with the dogs at this shelter--getting them out for walks and playtime. We have been called on a few times to foster babies! First we were asked to foster 3 chihuahua pups. We only had these cuties for 2 weeks: (We went with ancestor names for this litter)
Nettie Mae--her eye was successfully fixed in surgery and Nettie looks absolutely perfect now:)
Polly Anna
Jane Ann
We were then asked to foster these 3 little kitties:) These poor little things were found orphaned in a shoe box at a Circle K. They were only 4 weeks old and infested with fleas:( So I took them praying that they would take right to solid food so I wouldn't have to bottle feed--which they did:) And after 8 straight days of bathing and picking fleas off with tweezers, these little cuties were as healthy as could be! We have now had them for 4 weeks and they will go back to the shelter in 2 days to be fixed and then adopted-this is going to be a SAD day at the Meeker home. We sure have loved these little cuties:) (Harry Potter was our inspiration for this litter:)
Rocco LOVES this little guy--"Draco"
Ginny
Molly
My husband has not been 100% on board with all the extra animals but has been a pretty good sport about it all:) My kids (and piano students) have absolutely LOVED having the babies here:)
So another back-to-back play for this family:) I still wasn't over the exhaustion from Peter Pan but somehow managed to put myself back together for another go around:)
This was a super fun play with a TON of costumes! Max was in the ensemble this time--his main character was "Chris Cyermouth" who is a vagrant. So Max was a homeless (and he acted drunk:) vagrant, a news reporter, and a shark:) He had a great time and made a ton of new friends like always--I can hardly keep up with his group chats:)
Here are some pics:
I don't know this kid but he's wearing a lobster hat that I made for this show:)
Tatum had an AMAZING softball game yesterday--Saturday, April 9th--and I just wanted to make sure it was documented!
She's in her 4th season of softball and is one of the strongest players on her team this season. She and Chloe V. are ruling both the field and in batting. Tatum's usual position is 1st base.
Amazing Inning #1:
Tatum was playing 2nd base this particular inning. A ball was hit in her direction, she easily scooped it up and made a perfect throw to the 1st baseman which resulted in the 1st out for the other team. Next hitter up hits a pop fly, Tatum moves closer towards first base and catches the ball. At this point most girls are just soo excited to have actually caught a ball that they forget to see what else is happening on the field...not TJ. She calmly sees the runner at third heading home--I, a spectator, did not even see the girl running! But Tatum sees it and makes another perfect throw all the way from 1st base to 3rd base resulting in the 2nd and 3rd outs!!! So Tatum had her hand in ALL 3 outs this inning.
Amazing Inning #2:
Tatum was first base this inning. Once again, another pop-fly hit in her direction. She easily makes the catch and once again remains calm and notices her runner headed towards 2nd. Tatum calmly takes a step back to tag her base to get the pop-fly runner out! ANOTHER DOUBLE OUT by my Tatum Jane! (A hitter had already struck out this inning so Tatum made the last 2 needed outs:)
Her Hits:
This girl could seriously do no wrong today. EVERY TIME she was up to bat, she hit it clear into the outfield! EVERY TIME! In her age of softball, they are only allowed to take 2 bases so she made a double every time.
Her team crushed the other team beating them 17-1 so obviously lots of good plays were made by all of the girls! I honestly do NOT care if they win or loose. I just pray EVERY time that Tatum will just make plays that she can be proud of and learn/grow from. I could not be more proud of this little athlete of mine!!! She may be our only one!!! GO HUSKIES!!!
Her team color is Silver this season!!! I need to get an updated pic:)
This is the Meeker family residing in beautiful, sunny Chandler, AZ. Chris and I have 4 beautiful kids: Carlie (23), Ethan (21), Maxwell (18), and Tatum (16). Thanks for stopping by:)
