NOLA cruise ship embarkation

August 17, 2019 | Stacy

We didn’t need to set our alarms for Saturday morning, and we all enjoyed a solid night’s sleep after the overnight drive the day before. Nonetheless, we were up early-ish. We got ourselves together and packed up and headed to the kitchen area of the hotel for breakfast by 7:30 A.M.. It wasn’t awful or remarkable. I DID have the best cup of coffee I’ve had in a while!

We hoped to find some NOLA type items in the local Walmart around 9:30 A.M., but left empty handed. We also tried a drug store nearer to the city and port, but again had nothing to show for it. I figured we’d certainly find something in shopping center around the port, but as we approached the parking garage the signage was just so convincing to head into directly into the parking ramp and before we knew it we were parking the van!

This is one of the most fun ports I’ve ever arrived at. You can see the ship in the Mississippi River as you come over the bridge.

Pulling into the garage, porters come directly to your vehicle and unload your tagged luggage. For us, however, with such a large vehicle and so much luggage, our porter directed us to an emptier area of the garage and walked over to meet us there.

The older four kids took their documents and John and the little girls and I took ours and we split into our two cabin groups to navigate the boarding. My group finished a bit before theirs and we held on just past security until they caught up. We arrived to the terminal about 30 minutes before our pre-scheduled boarding; but remarkably, we were ushered right onto our lovely vessel. The gangway was the most convoluted one I’ve been on with lots of twists and turns, but that just built the enthusiasm for me.

We got on board AND…

sat?

It took me a moment or two to start collecting my brain and make some decisions about which way to go first. It was just after 11AM and our state room wouldn’t be ready until 1:30PM or so.

We headed up to the Lido deck and made our first stop at the fro-yo. There were two fro-yo stations on opposite sides of the ship and many-a-Butler visited often.

There were many dining options available in and around the buffet, and I made my first of many visits to the Blue Iguana.

We split up again to explore the ship.

We visited the Camp Ocean and got the girls their bands. We weren’t sure at that point how often they might visit, but we were glad to get band assignment taken care of.

It was finally time to find our staterooms and unpack. This is the last time their stateroom looked clean…

They were plenty big. We were on deck two, starboard, with connecting ocean view staterooms. They were perfect for our family.

I got my hacks working…

and we hung our still wet swimwear from the night before and change into our other suits.

We missed our chances to get drinks before our muster drill (the thing where they tell you what to do in an emergency) and we were all hot and cranky…

BUT

THEN

We set sail at 4:00 P.M.

Out on deck and hydration finally underway, we found some loungers and saw the Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2 come out.

So we went down to dance with them a little.

Marie and Tab tried out the one slide. It was actually very entertaining as I would find out a few days later.

They were willing to make us some non-alcoholic “mocktails” with our soda packages. Because the first 7 hours of the cruise actually take place in the Mississippi River, we had to pay taxes on all our drinks until we hit international waters. One weird thing about sailing from NOLA. It was a few cents per person.

Lots of lounging and hot tubs and a little bit of swimming and somehow it got to be dinner time.

We really do like dressing up for dinner on the cruises, but I admit I was far less creative in coordinating our clothes this time around. At least they were all clean. I think.

Table 656 was our dinner zone for the next five nights. Our head server was John Alex and he helped Stewart order meals for the following night after dinner each evening.

My blurry, but delicious strawberry soup.

Candied salmon, which was a one-bite-and-done.

Catfish – my new favorite thing.

Some very excellent tiramisu. I love tiramisu! I fully believe this was the best I’d ever had (and I’ve had some fabulous tiramisu!).

Carnival’s famous chocolate melting cake. I ordered this more nights than not. (Yes – I did have more than one dessert most nights!)

We enjoyed a gorgeous sunset as we navigated out the Mississippi River. We split up some, again, and I’m not even sure what all we did.

I believe J and K visited the Club Ocean, and I think we just lounged around.

The skies were gorgeous as we moved out to sea, but I think we were all in bed by 10/11 PM.

Travel day

August 16, 2019 | Stacy

I drove from about 9PM Thursday until 3AM Friday. Tab moved to shotgun to keep me company and Marie was awake most of the time just behind us. John slept in the back, Nigel slept in what we call the “hopper” seat, and Stewart snored away just behind me. The little girls shared the little bench.

On one hand, now that everyone is “older” there isn’t that desperate feeling to get the little ones to sleep.
On the other hand, now that everyone is bigger, it is harder for them physically to sleep.

But something about vacation makes it all tolerable – dare I say adventurous – so we made the best of it.

At 3ish, I went to the back to sleep. It was no where near as comfortable as the old van, but I did manage about 2.5 hours. John estimated he slept about 4.

The plan was to stop for breakfast around 7AM at a Cracker Barrel, as I’d learned recently they’ve upped their game with food allergies. We were inside Tennessee when that happened.

It took three tries to get that photo as I was a little addled after so little sleep.

Breakfast was okay.

Some meals were better than others. No one left hungry.

Marie had catfish. This was no where near the most exotic thing she ate on vacation. (Stay tuned!)

We can now add Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana to our list of states.

As we neared New Orleans, we took the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain. I’ve seen this giant lake on maps all my life and it was exciting to see it in real life.

Though we were tired, I pulled the mom card and had us do a tour. I could not green light the idea of just going to the hotel. I knew once there we’d just flop in front of TVs or electronics and not actually SEE any part of Louisiana.

I’d learned before our trip about how many plantations were in the region and picked one that had a long history, and was close to our hotel.

We learned that French plantations were different from Colonial plantations. Not better. Not worse. Just different.

This plantation once covered thousands of acres from the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain and was a major supplier of indigo.

It was also very warm out. I think it was 94F or so.

These trees scream Louisiana to me!

Admit it. You’re thinking Bayou, too, huh?

We all kept looking for alligators.

When we left for our hotel we criss crossed the Mississippi River. Hey friend! Remember me? I dipped my hands in in 2015 in St. Louis!

We had two rooms in a LaQuinta in Boutte, LA. John and I bunked with Johanna and Katriel. The big four had their own double room up on another floor altogether.

We dumped our stuff and went to a little place I’d found listed on TripAdvisor when I’d looked into it before leaving home. It was a diner in a strip mall. Our first impressions were that it was a little unimpressive.

Then I had the catfish.

Where has this been my whole life?

We found a few minutes to wash the 1,300 miles off our tired selves, and made our way to bed by 9PM.

Here we go again!

August 16, 2019 | Stacy

God is good.

All the time.

And as we prepared to embark on another family vacation, I was blown away with how GENEROUS God has been EVERYDAY. Family. Home. Food. Health.
And on top of that, we get to travel to new places together. I don’t deserve any of this, and yet He has allowed these opportunities.

This was our first vacation in the new van which I have named Jarvis. I was sad to leave our old van, “Trippy” behind.

Our journey began after John and Stewart got home from work and we got the car loaded. We pulled out almost on time – 5:00 PM.

John drove us out of town and the plan was he’d drive til about 9PM or so, and then I would take over as he moved to the back to sleep.

One of the first things we noticed when we bought the new van was it had a LOT more cargo space. It also, however, has slightly less leg room in the third and fourth rows. We talked about working to be patient with one another and just making it all work.

Bon Voyage!

That thing where we do a Camping Redo!

August 4, 2019 | Stacy

After the camping disappointment of June, we surveyed our calendar and found the ONE other weekend all summer we might be able to pull off a camp trip. THIS time we booked two nights at Branches of Niagara – a foo-foo camping resort with lots of bells and whistles.

John and Stewart both had the day off, so after knocking off a few appointments (and dropping the mini-van off at the garage for maintenance [sigh]) we headed out.

I do believe we were assigned one of the three nicest tent sites. (Thank you, God!) We got the tents set up rather effortlessly, however, some decidedly grouchy temperaments were emerging. We realized it was getting late so we ordered pizzas and change into our swim wear.

There are not really that many photos of the campground. A lot of this is because we were too busy. We were busy swimming, busy playing mini-golf, busy playing Scrabble, busy on the playground, busy in the kayaks, busy doing crafts, busy making fun food. All the best kinds of busy.

I think they played a dozen times.

We also had some great worship and family prayer. The weather was gorgeous. It only started to sprinkle as we were breaking camp. John actually noted the dark clouds as they were moving toward us, but we couldn’t outpack them. Smile with tongue out

Camp day two 2018

August 5, 2018 | Stacy

I didn’t sleep a wink or more last night.
It is definitely a party campground with a seasonal crowd that abides in bedraggled trailers with poorly maintained additions. The closest bathroom was way too far away, and the one with showers is so far away you have to DRIVE to it.

But – the morning air is always an awesome feeling and we were going to make the best of today.

I actually very much enjoyed sitting down to cook and cooking over the fire this way. We had pancakes and sausage.

We had a family game of Bible Outburst.

And headed for the Lockport Cave and Underground Boat Tour.

Stewart didn’t get the memo that we were all going to be repping ButlerFilms today. He’s only the director…. (we’d told him.)

We had to wait for the 12:30 P.M. tour, so we poked around a bit first.

We finally did the tour and it was decent. I don’t rate it as a Do Not Miss like last year’s tour of Fort Niagara.

I honestly don’t know what it was we were in. Some old tunnels that the factory that had been there before had used to make its fire hydrants or something.

We rode a boat underground. So that was a thing.

We went back to Tom’s Diner for lunch. We had a fabulous meal. We DO highly recommend this place!

Back to camp. It was hot. There were some table games and some lawn games and some time at the play ground.

We had another meal over the fire and more desserts.

And I wore ear plugs when I went to bed!

Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to camp we go.

August 4, 2018 | Stacy

We started the day by a family viewing of the new Christopher Robin movie at 11:35 AM. It was precious and I can’t wait to see it again.

We came home for lunch and to finish loading up the vans and off we went to a crumby little campground in Lockport. I’d waited way too long to reserve a site anywhere and was limited by who had tent sites with electric.

Live and Learn.

We set up quickly. Tabitha and Stewart are naturals.

We ate some yummy food cooked in this foil packs that Marie and I made up the day before. We would have had two cans of green beans but our stupid can opener was worthless.

I got the short chair.

There was one tent for mom, dad, and little girls. Nigel is just visiting.

And another tent for the Big Four. (Hanny was visiting.)

We had games and food and a campfire.

And headed to bed around 10:30PM.

Road Trip Catch-Up: Making tracks

June 20, 2018 | Stacy

We rose early on June 20 and started snaking our way back east and north through Southern California, Nevada, and lots and lots of Utah.

We took a quick zip through Las Vegas, with emphasis neither on the work quick, or zip. It had changed remarkably since my last visit 18 years ago, and it was every bit as congested as you can imagine. While I had thought it would be fun to show the kids the colossal hotels with vivid theming, we were all hard pressed to actually even see the monstrous hotels. Two decades ago, these resorts stood deep off the strip with lots of room take in the opulence. Now, the once-open spaces before the hotels were jam-packed with every business imaginable and entertained all the traffic that would go along with that.

We found some snacks near the north end of the old strip, filled up with gas, and moved on through the endless dessert.

You may not believe my van could actually move that quickly…

We finally arrived to the south west region of the Great Salt Lake, and found ourselves a Dickey’s BBQ Pit that had NOT run out of food.

We ate every morsel. Well, maybe not the nasty “ice cream” that they offer.

We checked into the Staybridge Suites with an indoor playground and made the most of it. The water was too cold, and the hot tub was too hot. The kids enjoyed it.

Road Trip Catch–Up: Last Day in Cali

June 19, 2018 | Stacy

June 19th, 2018
As mentioned before, our family somehow failed to see the great logic in adding a day to our 4-day Disney passes for only $10/person. (It’s still killing me two months later. Move on, Stacy; move on.)
So what exciting thing did we do instead?

If you guessed nothing, you’d be absolutely correct.
Wait – we did throw out food, pack clothes, and John took the six kids to see “The Incredibles” – which almost cost the same as adding a Disney day would have cost.
After they got home, we took one last run to Downtown Disney

I will certainly miss this California sky.

We ate lots of leftovers and headed to bed early.
All good things must come to an end.

Last Disney Day

June 18, 2018 | Stacy

Well –the title of the post gives it away, but when the day dawned, I thought it would be our second-to-last Disney day. This is not going to be an easy entry to type… but here goes.

I made a list of what we had not yet done at the two parks and it certainly seemed like we had enough room to spend two more days there.

Our morning routine was down to a science by now, and I no longer fretted about not being first in line for rope drop.

As a matter of fact, this morning they let us all in early, and had us queue up near the castle and did official rope drop from inside.

We were so well positioned we easily could have ridden Peter Pan again without a wait, except that the lead walker in our party Got Confused and –just like that- our window of opportunity shut and it remained a one-Pan-trip.

We broke into two groups, and my group hit up a number of Fantasyland rides without waits.

The girls and John ended up getting off Dumbo one ride cycle before Nan and I . And from the air I could see my family getting this cool interaction with Captain Hook. Katriel especially has a fascination with Captain Hook. Thankfully, John whipped out his phone and recorded this encounter.

We turned around to go over to Storybook Canal for another ride, when we saw this group out together. I have never experienced anything like this before. They stayed out and played for such a long time that WE ended up walking away before they did.

We rode the Casey Jr. Train (which was adorable – and LONG).

The view from the train was pretty. The park was still empty and had the fresh morning feel.

We did a few more rides in that area, and we met up again with Marie and headed over to queue for Moana. She is the only Disney princess we had never met before. There was some confusion after talking with a cast member and we were actually lined up in the wrong spot. We figured it out and headed to the proper spot, just around the corner. Three young women were already in line. They said that they had seen us where we’d been queuing and knew we’d been there before they arrived and offered us the head spots in line. Now – there were NO other people there, so it most definitely wasn’t necessary to insure that we’d meet Moana, but it was very kind. We ended up chatting with these three sisters from Northern California and before the princess ever arrived Katriel was hugging them like they were her new friends.

Moana was late. Like, by 10 minutes. She arrived in a bit of a rush, but fully in character. The girls liked her a lot.

We found the boys and headed over to DCA.

I honestly can’t say exactly what we did each bit of the day, but we chipped away at our list bit by bit. And the boys were definitely teeming with signs of having entered the “age of unbelief.”

By lunch time they were lobbying to NOT return the next day.

We rode Guardians a few more times, and John and the younger girls did Radiator Springs Racers again. We had some cool meet and greets with Marvel characters, and missed others in what would amount to my biggest regrets of the trip.

We watched the full Frozen show, which was outstanding, and the little girls enjoyed some of Bugs Land with Nan.

We did Turtle Talk with Crush, and visited Sorcerer’s Workshop.

Everyone but mom and Nan watched the first 15 minutes of The Incredibles 2 in the theater.

We had a neat (but time consuming) lunch where we ate from different restaurants on the Pacific Wharf section of the park. John spent almost an hour going back to the van to collect a wire for me to recharge my phone with.

We finally got to ride the Monsters, Inc. ride as a family.

Having gotten to see all three of the nighttime entertainment offerings, we’d decided as a family that the one we most wanted to enjoy again was Fantasmic. John had gotten us FastPasses in the morning, so we left DCA around dinner time having done a lot, but not having “done it all” and I will say there was an undercurrent of stress. Some people were in better moods than others and some people were showing more grace than others, and that’s all I’m going to say.

We went back to Disneyland for dinner and had another knock-it-out-of-the-park meal. This one was at Red Rose Taverne, and it was so good that Nigel quipped, “I’d come back here tomorrow just to eat this again.”

But – actually – this was the time of the night we had to decide if we were going to turn our four day tickets into five day tickets. The boys really didn’t want to come back, and Nan was tired. We opted not to turn them into five day tickets, and as I type this a full month later I can tell you I regret it as much now as I did a month ago. Three thousand miles away from home and we didn’t add a day. It was stupid.

We enjoyed Fantasmic one more time, as well as another ride or two.