1. We just got back from three glorious days on the Carnival Sunshine cruise ship! It was me, Josh, the boys, my dad, and my brother and sister. Taking two toddlers on a cruise added a bit of… shall we say… mayhem? to the experience, but overall it was such a fun trip and surprisingly restful. Also can I just say that not having to prepare or clean up food for three days was UTTER BLISS. (!!!)
2. The first activity we did on the ship was Harry Potter trivia. I figured we would ace it since I just finished rereading the series, but we only got 13/20! Some of the questions were so obscure. For example: What ingredient for polyjuice potion has to be harvested during the full moon? Who was teasing Moaning Myrtle before she died? Where does Nicolas Flamel live? Tricky tricky.
3. One really sweet memory I have from the trip is drinking coffee with Kyeler. Every time I drink coffee at home he is obsessed with asking me what’s in my mug and if he can taste some. I finally decided to make him a little cup of decaf with cream and he actually seemed to like it! That boy will eat/drink just about anything. On this trip alone he ate (and enjoyed) cured salmon, frog legs, and alligator beignets! He loved eating the frog legs and then shouting, “Ribbit, ribbit!”
4. My dad wisely brought some Magnatiles and that usually kept the boys entertained while we were waiting for dinner. Also, bread. 😉
5. My favorite day was Saturday when we docked at Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas! It was gorgeous—the water was such a brilliant, glittery turquoise blue. We played in the sand, collected shells, and went to the island cookout for burgers and watermelon.
6. The boys are obsessed with basketball and we visited the court at least once a day. It was an open-air court right by the water, and on our last morning we looked out and saw dolphins swimming by!
7. One morning CJ woke up and the first thing he said was, “I like my brother.” Then Kyeler, eyes still half-closed, smiled and gave him the biggest hug.
8. Josh and I did a Thriller dance class together which was quite entertaining! I think Josh is secretly a backup dancer at heart.
9. This is the one and only food pic I took! It was from lunch one day at this place called Guy Fieri’s Burger Joint. Soooo tasty.
10. On Sunday morning Josh and I did a mini devotional with the boys and it was a riot. We thought it would make sense to talk about Noah’s ark since we were on a boat, and the boys have read about Noah so many times in their storybook Bible that we figured they would know exactly what we were talking about. Well, when I asked what Noah brought on the boat, CJ yelled, “PLAY-DOH!” Then we started talking about faith and obedience and we asked the boys what they thought “obedience” meant. They clearly had no idea (fair enough) so I pointed at my ear to hint that it could mean “listening” and Kyeler shouted, “EAR!” Bless it. I just love these kids.
11. Kyeler turned three on Monday and we celebrated his birthday pretty much constantly on the cruise! One afternoon we went up to the Lido with a small slice of cake and some candles, and after we sang happy birthday someone came over and put down about half a cake in front of him! Everyone on the cruise was so friendly and kind; that was honestly one of my favorite things about it.
12. Something I will always treasure about this trip was how much the boys were enamored with the seemingly insignificant things. Waving their napkins around at dinner yelling, “Showtime!”, eating sour gummy sharks, jumping on the bed, crunching on tiny cylinders of ice, riding the glass elevators, playing with towel animals, watching wild chickens run around Half Moon Cay, and eating watermelon to their hearts’ content. It really is the little things, isn’t it?
A Continual Feast 