Monkey in the Middle

We had a wonderful Halloween this year. My sister Sarah had a monkey costume that she let us borrow and it fit Phin physically but also perfectly fit his personality.  He loves to climb just like a monkey.

The Wednesday before Halloween our ward hosted a Trunk-or-Treat.  The primary had organized several games that Phin enjoyed.  The first was a ring toss onto a cat's tail.

The second was a pumpkin bean bag toss.

And after trunk-or-treating Phin got to do the tomb plinko. 

We all dressed up for the occasion.  Seth has had this costume for years and it was inspired by the movie Karate Kid...let's just say the younger generation of trunk-or-treaters were very confused.  One little girl kept asking Seth why he had clothes on under his bathrobe.

The only down side to Seth's costume is that it limits his mobility quite a bit.

On Halloween Seth's company sent everyone home at 3:00 pm...which was perfect.  We had a little time to relax before heading over to Main Street for trick-or-treating at all the businesses.  Phin started to get in the hang of trick-or-treating and did a pretty good job of selecting candy when it was offered.

The whole thing apparently wore him out.

It took him being asleep as my opportunity to get some pictures.  He didn't exactly cooperate in our shoot earlier in the week.

 Happy Halloween!

Returning to Reality

I promise this is my last cruise post.  My sister sent me some pictures in the mail of the first part of the cruise so I am backtracking to the early part of the cruise to post some of those photos.  Phin had a wonderful time playing with his cousins on the ship.  They played in several pools but their favorite area by far was the shower area. 

Phin is a climber and was not content to just splash in the pool...he wanted to climb the pool surround...the wet slippery pool surround.

When he got tired of climbing the pool surround...he climbed the deck chairs.

He was also very entertained watching his dad play basketball..and of course climbing on the stadium chairs.

The dinners were very long...Seth and I took turns between courses to take Phin out into the hall.  We let him climb the stairs up several levels and then took the elevators back to the dining room.  Here is one photo on Italian night while Seth and Phin were out roaming the halls.

We managed to make it to the show most nights.  The second night was a disaster.  We sat on the main floor and after 25 minutes of announcements Phin had definitely had enough and was kicking the chair in front of us and then chucked his bottle at the head of the poor lady sitting in front of us.  After his temper tantrum we quickly vacated our seats and ended up going up to the balcony.  For the remainder of the cruise we sat on the front row of the balcony where the kids could see the stage and also wander as they pleased.

The last night of the cruise we attempted to get a family picture...attempted being the key word. 

We did get a pretty great photo of our little family.

And a photo of the two people that made the whole trip possible.  Thank you Mom and Dad!

I love this shot of our little cabana boy.

The next morning we got up far to early to disembark.  We took public transportation back to the airport and enjoyed having the terminal pretty much to ourselves for a couple of hours.

We flew to Atlanta and then on to Salt Lake.  Phin and Andrew were quite interested in what the ground crew was doing once we landed.

We had a wonderful time on the cruise and miss...not having to cook...not having to clean...but most of all being able to spend uninterrupted time with family.

Grand Turk

Our final port of call ended up being Grand Turk.  We were scheduled to have a final port of call at Grand Cay but the weather looked rainy so we stopped a day early.  I have to say Grand Turk was probably my favorite port.  The port was very small with just enough room for two cruise ships.  We literally walked off the ship and were on the beach.  We saved a few beach chairs with the family and spent a little time in the sand before we ventured off with Jeff.

We ended up taking a cab to downtown Grand Turk...if that is what you can call it.  There were very few buildings over two stories tall.  We did find this boat wreck on our walk.

We found a pretty private beach that was gorgeous.

We ended up renting a paddle board that we split between the three adults.  I watched Jeff venture out as Phin enjoyed a nap.

Then it was my turn.  It was a little tricky to get the hang of it.

But I ended up doing a pretty good job.

Seth was pretty good as well...this is one time where I think his height may be a slight disadvantage.

We ended up riding an open-air bus back to the port where we met up with everyone else.  Phin had a blast playing in the sand with Kate.  These two became pretty great friends over the course of the cruise.

Then we decided to spend a little extra cash and ride the flow rider in Grand Turk.  Seth and I were joined by Joe and Jeff on this adventure.  A special thank you to our family for watching Phin and for taking some great photos.  For the first 45 minutes we did body boarding.  

 

 The staff actually did a pretty great job of coaching us through the whole process.  They had one guy down in the front that would tell us what to do.

It was pretty good until he decided he wanted us to keep throwing the board away and body surfing...which the guys in the group said hurt pretty bad.

I did manage to roll on the board.

After a few turns of the body surfing Seth decided he had enough and started ignoring the coaching.  He literally shook his head no at the coach and started pulling his own moves.  Seth was able to master the somersault.

For the last 45 minutes we got to try out some surfing.  Funny story...there was a pool at the front of the flow rider where our family and other cruise goers could stand with front row seats as we fell...over and over again.  One rather rotund gentleman decided it would be fun to call us out.  As he was sipping his alcoholic drink from the comfort of the pool he started yelling how many seconds it would be until we fell down.  Well I got up and he yelled out seven or eight seconds and I was determined to prove him wrong.  So I got up and started counting on my fingers with most of my family counting aloud with me.  Well thank the lucky starts I was able to stay up.  Let's just say he didn't stick around much longer.  This is probably one of my favorite memories from the cruise.  I was telling my brother Scott that since Phin was born I haven't had much of a chance to show off my adventurous side.  It felt really good to get out there and do something that was hard for me and to prove to other people that I could do it.

Seth described the flow rider as a backwards water slide with a washer at the end.  We all had some pretty rough falls.  We were pretty sore for several days after...my neck seemed to get the brunt of the pain and it was painful to even lift my head off the pillow. For your viewing pleasure here is a video of one of Seth's wipe-outs.

We were some of the last people to board the cruise ship...oh how we loved you Grand Turk.