TOFW -Time out for Women

This past weekend I made my way to the big "D". That's short for Dallas if you don't live in Texas. My friends and I decided to have a fun trip and meet up at Gillian's. Although a couple of friends were unable to attend at the last minute the fun had to go on. We were definitely able to make time out for ourselves.

No trip would be complete without a lot of shopping and I mean A LOT of shopping. We hit all of our favorite stores Black and white store, Coach, several shoe stores and of course a outlet mall. The only thing missing was Tami and Timari. Gillian drove us across Dallas and back um several times, thank goodness for the invention of GPS.

We did a lot of eating at good restaurants. And of course a honorary trip to the cheesecake factory. And saw a movie or 2, we did a lot of laughing of course.

We also made time for the ward trick R treat where I met up with my BFF Claire. Isn't she so cute???

Campout and Hike at Guadaloupe moutains

Well Randy and the boys went on a camp out this weekend where they were told to take a lot of pictures. And this is what I got. That's right not one picture so you don't get to see all the fun they had. Brandon however did bring me home a souvenir. It was a bathroom bag. Which is basically a plastic bag the forest rangers gave them if they needed to go to the bathroom. It was still in the package thank goodness. He said I might need it If I ever make it on the amazing race. Let me say if I do I won't be going to the bathroom in a bag!!!

Our Favorite day..... Castaway Cay

Our favorite day of the cruise is when we stop at Disney's private island.. Castaway Cay. The Island is in the Bahama's somewhere. They serve a delicious BBQ lunch and have the very best chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. They have snorkeling where you can see Mickey under the sea. And a lot of other fun things you can do there. Ryan also had fun on the private teen beach which actually isn't so private. We also saw Casper the Ghost on the island. I hope to post a picture of her later! Disney has the Flying Dutchman from Pirates of the Carribbean docked here also. This was once again the best day of the week!!!

A night out at Palos!

Palos is a special restaurant on the ship that you have to make reservations for. We were able to get our group in together this year. So we sent all the kids in to eat at the regular restaurant and we had a fun night at Palos. Poor waiters I hope we tipped them enough!!!

Fun Times with our Disney Friends!

Dinners with Friends

We had a lot of fun at dinner times. There were 4 couples for a adult table of 8 and a kid table of 14. Our poor servers had there work cut for them!

Shopping in Key West!

Grand Cayman Stingray Excursion

In Grand Cayman we went on a Stingray excursion with our friends the Allen's & Peterson's. We went with Captain Marvin's - The best and original in Grand Cayman. All I can say is there is something truly amazing about being in the middle of the ocean with nothing around for miles but water. What is also amazing is being out miles into the ocean and being able to just stand up in a sand bar and play with stingrays. It was a awesome thing and I'm glad my kids were able to experience it. While we were on this excursion we met the Cook's from Ogden Utah. We knew right away they were members when we met them *(lol)!! They had two daughters ages 16 and 18. You guessed it Ryan was in heaven. In fact he has been texting one of them since we got home. It was a great time with friends and I hope the memories made will last a lifetime.

Disney Cruise 2008

We finally set sail!!
One of the first people we met on board was Donald Duck. He wa snot to happy abput the Mickey Mouse shirt that Ryan was wearing.

The trip we waited a year for!!

Well we are finally back and I have spent 3 solid days doing laundry and unpacking. I guess that's what happens when you take a lot of suitcases packed to there 50 lb limit. HaHa!! Well I don't know what to blog about first so I guess I will just do a day or two at a time and try to remember all the great memories that were made. Some of my favorite things were the Ocean - truely nothing more amazing the the huge ocean when you can't see anything beyond the water. Watching my kids having the best time, being with good friends and laughing a lot!! And of course my personal favorite Castaway Cay - Disney's private island.

We decided to leave a day early and go to Disney World -ha ha who would of thought that you actually need more than one day to go to Disney World, but we made it to the magic kingdom anyway. We had a lot of fun and it was a great way to kick off the cruise.

Ryan rode the Dumbo ride. He loved Dumbo as a little kid he use to watch the movie 50 times a day. Brandon loved the race car ride he rode it about 10 times. We were lucky that it wasn't that busy so we were able to do things with out waiting in line. I liked going into Mickey and Minnie's houses.

OK sorry about the following post. I know there was little explanation. I was in a really big hurry we were trying to leave for our cruise and I was running short on time. And I needed to empty my memory card. As may or may not know I have been told that I am a little high maintenance when it comes to packing for a trip. Recently Southwest airlines came out with a 2 bag per person limit instead of the previous 3 per person. Well considering the fact that last years cruise I packed every bit of our 3 bags each and 1 carry on each for a grand total of 16 bags, I was concerned about the packing situation this year. So the post proves that I was able to pack for a cruise with a total of 8 suitcases and 4 carry on's. 12 total, I did it!!!!

I Did IT!!!!!