Easter

Yes I know Easter was a while ago, but it's better late than never right? (That seems to be my philosophy as of late). Our friends has a Easter party at their house. It was lots of fun. Here are photos. Enjoy!

Cruise (part 2 - adventures)

We had two days off ship. Our first stop was Progreso, Mexico. We had to take a bus from our ship to the city. We wanted to go see the Mayan ruins and had been told by our friends about a particular area that they heard was nice. We ended up going with our friends, the Hales and another couple. We don't know what anything really is because we wanted to walk around on our own instead of taking the long tour. We had a lot of fun.























There was a sink hole that we heard was at the end of the "tour". We wore our suits and the weather was perfect for a swim...except there were fish in the water, and I don't do fish!


This is a video of Ryan and our friend Jimmy. It shows the sink hole better than our lone picture


Our second day to Mexico was to Cozumel. Here we hung out on the beach with our friends.
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If you look in the background of this picture, you can see to the left a big white "iceburg" that you could climb and slide down. There was also a trampoline out in the water that you could jump around on and paddle boats and kayaks too. The boys played on the iceberg for a while and Ryan and I went on the paddle boats.

This is also a significant photo because my dear friend Mandy was so supportive of me going into the water. If you don't know me, I don't go in water where there are fish

Cruise (Part 1- On the Ship)

So I've started this blog post many times, but every time something happens and it erases. I hope this one makes it.

We went on a cruise a few weeks ago and it was AWESOME! I have never been on a cruise before so I was like a little kid in a candy store. There were 4 other couples that went with us and I think that made the trip even more fun! There was always someone to hang out with and new places to explore.

We hadn't really figured out how we were going to get down to Galveston, but the guys surprised all the ladies by rending a limo. We live across the street from another of the couples who went on the cruise so we all decided to meet around here. The girls were all confused when there was a limo driver outside and one of the guys actually played it off like he was helping the "lost" limo driver find another neighborhood. Clever. What a nice surprise.


This is our ship, the Carnival Ecstasy.


A little tour for your enjoying pleasure.

The first day we decided to play some mini-golf. It was so windy though that the balls would roll around on their own. I did horrible -HORRIBLE! Until hole 9 when I got a HOLE IN ONE! It was an all or nothing hole (I wish), but it was really fun.





We claimed tables everywhere we went. Our group brought lots of fun games to play. This is in one of the dining areas.



This is in the Starlight Lounge which is the bigger entertainment room. We played many games here as well. Luckily they had big booths for all of us!




Our friends performed "The Three Amigos" for the talent show. It was awesome!


The guys performed "I Will Survive" for karaoke. There's video somewhere...


This is where we had dinner every night.

and fun too

One night there was a "formal night" where we got all dressed up for dinner and dancing. It was nice to wear my (favorite) prom dress, except when I was done eating. I thought I would rip the dress at the seams, so I went back to my room and changed into my backup dress :) (it's good to be prepared)

We went dancing a few nights and I can honestly say it was a lot of fun. (This coming from the girl who hated dances at school or any form of dancing for that matter) I really think this cruise helped me open up and relax. After dancing, we were always hot so we would go to our "wind tunnel" to cool off. Any idea how it got that nickname?






:)


Other activities on the ship included shuffleboard,
and water slides.



This is our last night on the ship (or so we thought) Look how foggy it is already.
The next day the fog was even worse. The docks in Galveston were closed due to so much fog. We kept getting hourly updates from the cruise director but it wasn't until later that evening that we knew we would have another day on the ship. It wouldn't have been so bad if they would have just told us in the morning, but the waiting was frustrating. We still had a good time thought and enjoyed another day and night for free!

All in all, the was the best vacation I have been on. I can't wait for the next one! (hint hint)

Whose Kid Is This?

So, as Andrew is growing he is developing a personality much like mine. He's emotional, cranky and moody... definitely my child. Then he goes and does this stuff and I think, hey, he has some of Ryan's personality too. Check it out.

Sweeping the kitchen...



Andrew found my drawer in the bathroom that has my lotions and stuff in it



And he decided to reorganize it for me...

He lined them all up in a nice little row. Then he came and found me and was so excited that he lead me to his neat row. He apparently wasn't happy with where the row was because he move it to a new row (you can see it in the back of that picture)

The new row.

After he was done playing, we sang the "clean up" song and he put them all back. What a good little boy. Just like his Daddy. :)

My new hobby...

Wow, I'm on a blogging roll! Nothing for months and now 4 posts! Woohoo!

So, recently I've decided I want to learn how to crochet. I taught myself by watching utube and other videos online. I started learning the stitches and I'm just starting to figure out how to follow the directions without a video (it's like a new language)! I'm definitely better at making girls hats :)

Here are some of the hats I have made.

This was my first one. (you can tell I was learning)



My second one was bigger



And my favorite!!! (I love it so much I'm saving it for our little girl, when ever she joins our family )

My mama would be proud... :)

oops

I meant to put this video of Andrew helping me pull weeds. It's almost the same thing, but he was actually pulling weeds and putting them in the box. :)

Videos of Andrew

(if you get the email sent to you with this post, you'll probably have to log in to the-kearns.blogspot.com to see the videos. There have been some problems in the past with that. Sorry folks)

I took this video this morning. This just shows some of Andrew's new things and his first couple words. (Those are the beads from last night). His newest word is 'shoe' and one of his first words was 'dog'. I'm not really sure why because we don't have a dog, but he gets so excited when he sees a dog outside, or if we're watching TV and a commercial comes on with a dog on it, he stops what he's doing and runs over and points to the TV. 'dog' 'dog'. Even snoopy got an excited 'dog' (which sounds more like doh)





Andrew is your typical little boy who likes to play in the dirt. Here he's "helping" me pull weeds.


The other night, Andrew refused to drink from his sippy cup. He kept pointing to Ryan's cup and asking for "more please!" so we gave in. He made a mess, and choked a bit, but he was so darn happy. Plus we just gave him a bath afterward so who care.

Rockets vs. Jazz Game

We were lucky enough to get to go to the Houston Rockets vs. Utah Jazz game. Let me tell you! this was no basic basketball game. Well, the game was good, but it was the rest of the experience that was awesome. Thanks to our good friend Tim, we were able to use his company's season tickets. Not only that, but where we parked was crazy cool. We pulled into the delivery area or something, we followed this tunnel down right to the area. We valet parked next to a Ferrari that had a clear trunk that showed the engine, SUV's that had black windows (the ones that carry important people) the bus for the other team, and more fancy nice cars. There were probably less than 20 cars there so when we got out of the car we joked with the valet people that they probably don't get many mani-vans down here.

We walked into the area where we were checked in and searched and got our fancy all access wrist bands. Then we walked to the court where the athletes and half time show people go. It was cool. I felt important. We checked out our seats, FOURTH ROW! Sweet! We went back to the Lexus Lounge which was awesome. This is the type of place that I won't ever be able to afford to go again on our own. We walked in, showed our wrist bands, and met our friend who showed us to our own private room. We had food ready for us, a tostada bar, popcorn chicken, wraps and a salsa bar. Oh man. It was soooooo good. They had a full fridge of drinks, our own formal dining table set for 12, a couch and flat screen TV, coat closet, bathroom and counter full of alcohol (which of course was left untouched). We even had someone who came in to serve us drinks and check on us, but we were self sufficient. But man was it cool to be waited on and I felt so important! So we loaded up on the yummy food and went back to our seats.



It was so different to watch the game up close. Man those guys are big! We sat right in the middle so it was great! We all thought the court looked smaller because of our angle and that really made the guys look big! At half time we went back to our suite and ate more food. Then we went to the dessert bar and got even more food! Ryan had a smore cake (oh yum!) and I had a turtle that looked like a hockey puck. Wow! It was good!

I kept noticing people had these mardi gras beads (it's Fat Tuesday) and I really wanted one. So when we went back to the lounge, I asked the lady at the front if she had any or knew where I could get some. She said they were all given away, but she's try to find some for me.

The third quarter went by so fast! Before I knew it the game was over and it was time to go. We walked back to the lounge and I asked the woman if she had any luck with the necklaces. She found me two pair! I was so happy! I brought a pair home for our friend who was watching Andrew for us and proudly wore the other one home. (Which Andrew wanted when we picked him up and when he just signs "please" "please" how can I say no?)

We had such a wonderful time! Thanks Tim and Julia! Thanks Jenn for watching Andrew! And thanks Uncle Venny :)

Some videos:

Organizing Gifts

Andrew loves to stack and organize things (much like his daddy). We had our big Christmas party last Saturday (which was very fun and successful) and so we put all the Christmas gifts away. We pulled them out after Andrew went to bed last night and so he rediscovered them this morning. This is what he did...


I think he had more fun with the boxes than he will have once he's opened him. I guess we could have just given him wrapped boxes for Christmas :)



Merry Christmas everyone. We hope you're holidays are full of joy and love.

This video is just for fun.

The Spirit of Christ-mas

When you have a moment, watch these inspiring videos. May we remember the true Spirit of Christmas.


The Spirit of Christmas

A Christmas Gift