Puerto Vallarta

Most of us ventured out for a van tour of Puerto Vallarta the next day. The major event of the outing was a zipline jungle adventure! 

The location was beautiful. It was a place we found ourselves, not an official excursion, so it wasn't crowded either. 

The zipliners! Their report was that it was full of zips. There were lots of impressively long runs over the canopy of the jungle- really a unique way to encounter the local nature with a fair sprinkling of adrenaline on top. Some of them got stuck in the middle, and the employees had to go out and rescue them. It is fun watching Elliot be included with the big folks!

Mimi and I stayed back with the little ones. We got to explore this gorgeous creek and a mysterious building next door that had parrots and coati. It felt good being in such a lush place in the dead of winter. 

Next stop: delicious tacos al pastor! Look at that hunk of meat in the background!

We ended our Puerto Vallarta day with a lackluster beach experience that apparently no one took pictures of. It was a very short, crowded beach with intense waves and a steep drop off. We splashed around to justify the fact that we had been wearing swim suits the entire day, but then a wave drenched all our bags. It started raining on us, so we headed back to the boat.

La Paz & Mazatlan

Our next stop was La Paz. The water was really cold and the snorkeling mediocre, so we mostly hung out and chatted on the beach. 

 

Blake took this majestic picture of our beach-loving father

The photographer himself, and Elliot's good side in the background

The next stop was beautiful Mazatlan! We hired a couple of trucks to give us a tour of the area. They did a great job of taking us to different parts of the city and giving us a good feel for the place.

We went along the coastline and through the old and new parts of the city. The guide driving our truck spoke only Spanish, which drove mom crazy since she couldn't ask him a bajillion questions and had to rely on Dad and Aaron's translations which were always suspiciously shorter than what the guy had originally been saying.

Apparently some corrupt mayor used a bunch of money to make a big tribute to the Beatles. It's very random because the Beatles have no connection whatsoever to Mazatlan, and most people who live there don't know anything about the band. Our tour guide says that the foreign tourists always love visiting, but no one local that he knows could name any of their songs. 

A terrifying highlight was a cliff diver who dove off of the ruins of a military outpost. As you can tell from my scream in the video, I legitimately thought he was going to die on the rocks for a second there.

We went to a delicious taco place for lunch! Isaac was pleased with their life sized Santa that was still up a few weeks post-Christmas. 

His interest in playing with Santa was much higher than his interest in eating tacos. The rest of us had our priorities straight. Although, the medium spice salsa almost killed mom off, so maybe she should have been hanging out with Santa instead of braving the tacos too!

The last stop of the Mazatlan tour was a lovely beach. The water was still a little chilly, but definitely warmer than La Paz. 

Builders gonna build

Isaac was quite enamored with the stick he found.

This little cartoon guy named Gloffy that my dear siblings invented was a running joke throughout the cruise. Naturally he made an appearance as a sand drawing. 

Cabo Whale Tour

Our favorite tour that we went on was a whale boat tour with Mimi! We reserved a boat tour in advance, only to find out the morning of that there was a limited number of tender boats to shuttle people from the cruise ship to the shore. We were slotted to leave too late to make our tour. We scrambled and had a nice customer service agent pull some strings to help us get onto an earlier tender. Even with that, we had to run to make it to the tour. We were able to call them, and fortunately they were willing to hold the boat for 10 minutes for us to arrive. It was stressful but so worth it!

 

Two of our seafarers! You can tell that we were not properly dressed for the excursion. The morning was an absolute scramble.

Look at this visually appealing triangular rock!

Mimi knew a secret...

This is the classic Cabo photo spot. Naturally it was super crowded. Good thing it wasn't our destination...

Our guide took the boat to full throttle out into the open water for about 15 minutes. I thought that we would spend a lot of time floating around looking for the whales, but they took us to the exact spot where a pod of 4 humpback whales was hanging out! We had an amazing tour guide who is working on her PhD in Marine Biology. She kept the whale facts coming, and we didn't go longer than 5 minutes without a whale sighting. 

The excitement level was SO HIGH when this whale started slapping the water with its tail! I'm so glad we caught part of this on video. The whale slapped his tail 10 times in a row! Incredible.

The whales were popping up all around us while we chilled on the surface. They come to Cabo to breed during the winter and migrate to colder areas during the summer. They store up a lot of food in the artic in preparation for mating season, so here they aren't diving as deep and long hunting for food. It made for some awesome whale watching!

Big fans of whales over here!

Carnival Panorama

We went straight from the Science Center to the cruise harbor! There were some delays getting on the boat because of wind making the gangplanks sway. Luckily, Grumpa had packed his pockets with wooden tops he made. They were a huge hit in the waiting area! The kids took them home and still bring them out every now and then. 

 

Everyone wanted a turn on Breezy's sweet wheels

The boat was great! The kids loved the giant toys and putt putt course on the top deck, even if it was always super windy. All of the kids enjoyed going to the kids camp most days. There was a schedule of events and we let them pick what they wanted to go to. 

The only downside was that sometimes Isaac had to take turns with the soccer pool balls. It was a challenge keeping him from inserting himself in everyone else's games. 

Elliot and Aaron braved the sky ride! It was a dangling bike track that went all the way around the boat. Elliot got stuck partway through, and one of the workers had to ride out and push him the rest of the way. He was weirdly embarrassed about it and denied it ever happened. There was also a ropes course that Max and I joined them on. 

Mimi and Grumpa's room had a balcony

Just look at how happy these two windswept Kimberlys are! These two are such kindred spirits. 

This moment was fantasized about for months in advance.

The food is always a major highlight of the cruise, and this year it did not disappoint!

The desert options at dinner caused the kids' heads to explode a little bit. Elliot ordered a shrimp cocktail pretty much every night and even tried frog legs!

I'm not sure what Blake is holding, but it looks fancy! I love sitting around the dinner table talking to the fam and trying all sorts of cool foods. The kids brought drawstring backpacks full of Christmas present activity books from Mimi to help them make it through the long dinners. 

Isaac was in it for the fruit platters

A great shot of Max fulfilling the tradition of seeing if he is now cultured enough to like blue cheese

Annie was a big fan of Morgan's polaroid camera

Tea party time!

Cheers!

We were on the boat for New Years! 

Modeling our complimentary New Years accessories. 

We had a good time teasing dad for being so dedicated to his New Year's hat. 

Side note- the on board entertainment was super good! Previous cruises always had music in the shows that seemed to be more from my parent's generation, but this show was throwing out song after song that I love- Coldplay, Evanescence, so many more. I fully acknowledge that this means that I am now the old one. 

Look at these fancy folks! 

On New Years Eve, we retired to our rooms to play games after the fancy dinner and show. There wasn't really much for kids at midnight, so we put them to bed a bit early. Aaron and I ventured up to the party on the deck with my parents for the countdown to midnight. 

Max and Morgan taught Isaac this "relaxing" pose and it melts my heart every time

One day Isaac woke up really early, so the two of us got to go on a sunrise walk around the deck. He's such a happy little buddy.

One very memorable event on the boat was that some of us went on the "Behind the Scenes" on-board excursion. It was FASCINATING. It was a tour that lasted several hours and took us to the kitchens, crew quarters and dining area, navigation deck, engine room, and show deck. My highlights were the discussion on the onboard desalinator and a demo from the ship's watermelon artist. He whipped out an elaborate bird carved into a watermelon in a crazy short amount of time!

LA Science Center

 A few days later, we were off to LA for the cruise! We were lucky to be able to stay with the Coes again. They live between San Diego and LA. It was great catching up with them and seeing the progress on the deluxe casita they are building in their backyard. The next day we brought them with us to see the LA Science Center before heading to the harbor. 

We met up with the Johnson crew at the science center, which is super close to Max & Morgan's apartment. It was so great to finally be able to give my mom a hug after her medical ordeal!

Grumpa was excited to stick the kids into the hurricane simulator. 

You could say it blew them away

Max was an excellent tour guide who took us through everything in the right way so that we were shocked by the awesome aquarium that was beneath the underwhelming surface exhibit that we saw first. It was huge!

The space shuttle Endeavour is there! It was so cool being so close to something that was actually in outer space. They had cool signs about how hard it was to move it through LA to get it to the museum. 

The space ship was cool, but Isaac preferred this landing under the staircase. 

Who doesn't love a good sand and water table?

Elliot was totally entranced by this spinning wheel with different colored sand. 

I'm so glad we made time for this stop. Looking back on the trip, the kids rank the science center on par with all the exotic cruise locations that we visited.