Mrs B, Author at World Traveling Military Family

Fun at Blount Cultural Park

March 7, 2011 By: Mrs Bcomment

On President’s day we decided to take advantage of the beautiful spring weather and head down to Blount Cultural park and feed the ducks and geese. There were many other folks there who had the same idea so the ducks/geese were not very hungry, unlike the last time Bea & I came.

The kids had fun anyways and I enjoyed the visit from a black swan, the first one I’ve seen in person.

Here are some photos from our trip:

Bubby had this duck following him around to get the bread

Love it! The goose snatched it right out of his fingers! And then honked at him, LOL!

Goose with reflection in water, I love how he seems to be ‘looking’ at himself

Boo trying to feed the lazy, stuffed geese

Black swan

We have thing for statues after the Iceland visit with Poppie, so I just had to get the kids to ‘pose’ with these guys!

Boo, not wanting his picture taken, but I took it anyways, LOL! So handsome! Growing up so fast!!

Bubby somewhat indulging me but not ready to get close to the statues

Love this one of Boo, it cracks me up!

Frontier Days at Fort Toulouse 2010

March 6, 2011 By: Mrs Bcomment

This past fall (Nov, 2010) Mr. B & I got to go on a field trip with Bea to the Frontier Days at Fort Toulouse in Wetumpka. I had gone the year before with Bubby while Mr. B was deployed, this year Mr. B got to join us.

It was a neat experience, it got a bit chilly towards the end, but there was lots to see and learn about.

Here are some photos from the day:

Getting ready to fire the cannon, and it was loud!

Bea & her friends standing behind fort walls

Rear view of the cannon

Soliders

Fur map

I loved this shape of this door hinge

Indian area

Juggler

The fort area

Handmade yarn

The process of making the yarn

Yarn dyed and drying

A hat resting on a musket

One of the table displays

Cruise Day 5 – Day At Sea

March 3, 2011 By: Mrs Bcomment

Last day at sea, heading back to the US! How quickly the days passed by! But I do have to say this (5 nights) was the perfect length for a first cruise.

We tried out the Imagination dining room (the one we eat at every evening) for breakfast this morning. The morning waitstaff was not near as friendly as the dinner or lunch staff had been. Breakfast was good but the Belgium [Read more…]

Cruise Day 4 – Cozumel, Mexico

March 1, 2011 By: Mrs Bcomment

While the last port was bare and desolate with only a few tables/shops throw together for tourists, this port is filled with shops, restaurants, music, and more than a few drunk people…well at least by the time to board again, it’s a wonder some folks made it back to the ship.

We got off the ship and walked through the little shopping area to the taxi stand, this was a bit of a walk. We got a taxi at 9 am, it cost us $22 US for 6-8 people. The taxi ride was quick, about 5-8 minutes long, before reaching our destination Chankanaab National Park. We had made reservations to swim with dolphins here, our in-laws just bought admission to the park and they were able to watch and use the park.

When you check-in for the dolphin swim make sure you have your reservation paper in your hand, EVEN if you’ve already previously talked with someone, trust me we learned the hard way. We got really lucky because I had purchased the Dolphin Royal Swim for all of us even though Bea was only 7 1/2 years old, but she met the heights requirement. So when I got the confirmation email you had to email back the names of the kids with ages and heights. I did so for Bea explaining that she was only 7 1/2 years old but met the height requirements AND that Mr. B &; I both would be participating and they did not give us any problems about it! I was so excited as I wanted to go the one that you got interact with the dolphins the most. I mean it’s a once in a lifetime thing, so might as well, right?! I’ll post more about the dolphin swim in another post as this is already going to be long 🙂

With the dolphin swim purchase we had gotten a free meal, so after the swim we decided to eat lunch. We did have a minor issue as one of the guys tried to tell us that we didn’t get free lunch, but after Mr. B asked to him to read the reservation again, he found that we did indeed get the free lunch. That was great as it saved us $43! Lunch was cheese qusedillas or a cheeseburger and a drink.

Dolphin Swim Area

After that we headed to the snorkel cove where we scored some lounge chairs and tiki umbrellas. It was great because the day was a bit overcast and we were in the ‘off’ season the park was NOT crowded at all! Bea had fun building a sand castle while Boo snorkeled and Bubby tried to catch little fish.

It did rain a few times but during the dolphins swim it didn’t matter as we were already wet in the water and it was a light rain, and the other time we were able to sit under umbrellas and it ended very quickly. There was one persistent lady in the snorkel cove area who kept trying to get me to pay to get Bea’s hair braided, and maybe I would’ve considered it but at this point we were ready to head to the shops and look around before getting back onto the ship. I just hate it when people are so persistent like that!

Bea under a Tiki umbrella

Bubby trying to catch fish

Bea playing in the sand

Sandy toes 🙂

Boo snorkeling

Snorkel Cove area

We got back to Puerto Maya (the shopping center) and started to check out the shops. The kids all got one of the popular braided bracelets that you can have personalized with name, ect. Bea also got a hand blown kitty necklace and Bubby got a Mayan calendar.

The crowd was starting to get very loud at Fat Tuesdays, which you pass to get back on the ship, you could tell everyone was trying to get their last drinks in before getting on the ship. Bea took a few pictures with the funny stuff they had set out side for photos. We got back on the boat shortly before 4 pm.

Boo & I headed up to the top of the ship to take some pics of the area.

Cozumel port from top of ship

Rickshaws

Sister ship was in port, Carnival Inspiration, you can see the storm rolling in

Boo & I

The ‘big’ bed is actually two twin beds pushed together to make a ‘queen’ bed, I found it to be quite large and we did not have any issues with the seam part. I was quite surprised at how comfortable the bed was, but I guess it doesn’t take much when you’ve been out all day exploring and fall exhausted into bed ;p And the best part was that there were TONS of pillows…normally at hotels we never have enough, but they gave us 2 per bed, so we had 10 pillows, more than enough to go around!

We ate in the dining room and then went to watch the new show “Win.” The boat was rocking pretty hard that night as we sailed out of the port, I seen the vomit bags taped up again which means that some may not be tolerating the motion well. While I could definitely tell that we were on a ship that night it really didn’t bother me, which was great. The show was good it had singing, dancing, and a game show theme.

Towel animal of the night was a bear.

First Re-Upholstery Project!

February 28, 2011 By: Mrs Bcomment

We have some bar stools that the kids use in the kitchen, Mr. B HATES them because they get dirty so easy and look BAD! They are a pain to clean everyday!

So on President’s day I had an idea to run into the fabric store and look for some vinyl fabric, so we could just easily wipe them down. Not only did I find some but I found a remnant for cheap, total cost was $5.41 and I still have some left over to use for something else!

Mr. B popped off seats for me and helped staple the fabric as I stretched it around the circle seats.

The verdict: We LOVE it! They look so much better and are soo much easier to keep clean! It was so fun & easy I’m thinking about re-upholstering our dining room chairs next! 🙂

See how ugly & yucky they look?!

Close up of the ugly!

Much better!!

Close up of the newly improved bar stools! PS I LOVE vinyl fabric now!

And YES, I want to get back into the swing of blogging, I get on a roll and then iLife/iPhoto decide to not cooperate with Blogger and it just makes me so frustrated that I quit for awhile! Hoping they will decide to cooperate in the near future!

Cruise Day 3 – Calica, Mexico

January 12, 2011 By: Mrs Bcomment

Our first port to visit was Calica, Mexico!

The first task of the day was to figure out how in the world to debark from the ship, it was literally like walking through a rat’s maze, LOL! Now for future reference we know you have to go to the 4th floor and go alllll the way forward to get down to the 3rd floor and off the ship! It was much easier the 2nd day after mastering it on the 1st day 🙂

Right off the gang plank we were ‘forced’ into some photos with locals dressed up…good ole Carnival trying to make a $$. Then after we got past the forced pictures there was some locals dressed up taking pictures for donations. They were dressed like the local Indians so of course Paw Paw had to get a picture 🙂

We were able to easily get a van for 5-8 people (we had 7 people) for $20 from the port to X-Caret. It was a large van and we all easily fit. The van ride was 7 minutes and we seen interesting signs such as precaution signs for Iguanas. The ride back in a van for the same amount was cheaper, it was only $16 and we couldn’t argue with that.

Xcaret (pronounced Ish-Karray) is great park to spend the day, there is lots to do, too much to do all in one day, but we sure got our money’s worth! Me being the bargain hunter that I am decided to find the best deal…and NO we did not go through Carnival. I used the Xcaret site and bought us all the Xcaret Plus pass which included a buffet, 2 drinks, snorkel gear, lockers, & towels. So we only spend $7 in the park for the WHOLE day for our family of 5!

First we headed to the Xcaret Plus section to get our lockers and snorkel gear, it’s a separate and reserved section for those with Xcaret Plus tickets, which was a great benefit. We get to the snorkel area and we are the first and only one’s there for the first hour! The water was clear and following the fish was fun! Even after the first hour only 1 other couple showed up, we were spoiled to have it to ourselves for so long. Mr. B & Boo went further out while I worked with Bea in the cove area. Once she got the hang of is she LOVED it! Bubby on the other hand wasn’t such a big fan, he didn’t like the way the rocks and stuff looked underwater and it freaked him out a bit. If we’d had a longer time to work with him (one-on-one for a day) then I’m sure he’d be fine. He lounged in the comfy chairs and checked out the iguanas for the majority of the time.

The Flying Men was a neat little show to watch

Boys with their Mexican Pepsi’s

Next we headed to the bird breeding area (Bubby’s pick) where we saw tons of parrots and baby hatchlings. It was a neat area to walk through and enjoy the beauty of the park. We even climbed up some ‘faux’ Mayan stairs to get a birds eye view of the park.

Who would’ve gussed that baby parrots are so darn ugly?!

Then we headed to the lunch buffet, everyone was hungry and ready to eat! We choose the one over by the Puma & Jaguar exhibit. They had quite an assortment of food, something for everyone including Mr. B’s dad who does not like Mexican food. Drink options were Mexican tea (kinda like ice tea but not really) and orange juice (which tasted like Tang). There were several dessert options as well from pastries to soft serve ice cream.

After lunch we headed over to check out the butterfly exhibit, which included a waterfall and stained glass ceiling. The kids had fun trying to stand still and have the butterflies land on them. The stained glass ceiling was amazing!

We checked out the arena replica of the Mayan ball game on our way to ride the 360 view scenic overlook tower. It was an amazing view of the whole park and we could even see our ship from up there!

After that we headed to get life jackets to float the underground river, I was worried about Bubby after the snorkeling incident, and he really wasn’t too sure about it…but he loved it and had a great time! I’m so glad we got to do that as a family! It was a really neat experience! They say it takes 45 minutes to get through the whole river, we swam it in about 30 mins. The water was initially freezing but as soon as you got in you adjusted and it felt great! The only downside was that the life vests started to rub our arms and we all got a bit of vest burn.

The weather was great, it was slightly overcast and not too hot. Another thing I love about going off-season is that the park was not crowded! There were beach chairs, huts, & hammocks readily available for those who wanted them.

After that we were ready to head back to the ship. We stopped and got our free drinks and watched the baby quail hatch for a bit. It was neat seeing the kids get to watch a baby bird hatch! I noticed that the park was very clean and the bathrooms were kept very clean as well, this is always a great treat!

Watching baby quail hatch

Taxi ride back was just as fast and we were back an hour before leaving port. Mr. B & his dad checked out the market stalls with Bubby right outside the gangplank while the rest of us headed on to get ready for dinner. Dinner in the dining room was uncrowded tonight and we were done 30 minutes earlier than normal, our waitstaff told us that was normal on port days. After dinner we headed back to crash and prepare for our next excursion the next day!

Frog towel animal

Cruise Day 2 – Day At Sea

December 23, 2010 By: Mrs Bcomment

Tuesday was our first official ‘day at sea’ it was also formal dining night as well.

When we woke up the kids watched the new version of the Karate Kid while we got ready for the day.

We got up and headed to breakfast at Tiffany’s around 9 am, it was a bit busy and our group of 7 had to split up at 2 tables until we could get 2 together. We found the secret to getting food quick and easy…just walk out to the buffet by the pool…there is never a line out there! While the inside lines are often backed up. There is a bar in Tiffany’s where you can use your soda cards. OJ, Apple juice, & Milk were the ‘free’ beverages available.

The buffet was okay, I’m not really a fan of buffets in general – but the food was good, nothing superb though.

Bubby & Bea headed to Camp Carnival until lunch pick up time (12:30). Mr. B, Boo, & I walked around the ship to check it out. We found the casino but just walking through it about gave me lung cancer from the smoke, LOL! So I took a pic and we moved on. Mr. B & Boo played some ping pong on the Lido deck. It took us awhile to figure out where to get the ping pong balls & paddles from…you go down to the pool deck and check them out from the little hut.

Decorative ceiling lights

View of the Casino

For lunch we decided to try the Imagination dining room where we ate our dinners. It was fun as we all tried new items that we might not normally try…Boo even ate sushi! It was good but I did not walk away feeling ‘stuffed’ which is really a good thing, LOL!

We then headed out to the pool despite it being a bit chilly. There was no rain yet it was still a bit windy. The pool was salt water and unheated. Bubby & Bea had fun on the slide & in the pool despite it being cold…we didn’t hear a complaint from them…they didn’t even want to leave when it was time. Mr. B tried swimming but said it was too cold for him, he said it was like jumping into an ice bath, LOL! Boo headed into the Mikado lounge to watch Bingo.

Some of the Diet Cokes we got tasted a bit flat…despite being poured from a can, the ginger ale seemed to hold up better.

Formal/Elegant night was a blast and much less intimidating than I expected! Dress attire showed up in the forms as simple as slacks & button up shirts to Tux’s and gowns. We rode the middle line and went semi-formal. Lobster was on the menu that night and Mr. B had 2 and said they were good, I choose the Cornish game hen. The waiters even put on a ‘mini-show’ and sang “When the moon hits your eye…”

Our waiter Ryan was great! And the drink waitress knew our drink order by the 2nd night and already knew to bring who Diet Cokes and who regular Cokes. When we went in for lunch she recognized us and knew what to bring out, it was great. That’s one of the perks of having the same wait staff every night.

After dinner we took some pics and then Bubby went to Camp Carnival while the rest of us headed to the new show “Just Rock” in the Mikado lounge. It was like watching a live version of Glee with lights and pyrotechnics-who would think pyrotechnics and a ship would go together?! They had only been showing the show for 1 months, it was neat. Bea loved it but unfortunately at the end couldn’t hold on any longer after the busy day and passed out on the mini-couch and Grandma Donna’s lap. They sang oldie classics like ‘Simply Irresistible,’ ‘Jailhouse Rock,’ & even some ‘Monster Mash.’ The costumes and the sets were well done and it was fun to watch.

Unfortunately Mr. B was left with the task of carrying a heavy sleeping Bea all the way down to the room, the elevators were hopelessly crowded after the end of the show so we braved it all the way down the 4 flights of stairs.

Also discovered that the Mark Twain library has lots of board games and tables, although we never did find out how to check them out and get them out of the locked cases. My recommendation would be to bring your own set of cards (Skipo, Uno, ect) so you’ll have them…I sure wished I had brought ours.

Our evening towel animal was an elephant 🙂

Cruise Day 1

December 22, 2010 By: Mrs Bcomment

So after checking out the room & schedule we head up to the Mikado bar to grab everyone a soda and head out to the top deck to watch the ship leave the port!

Looking up from floor 7, it was decorated for the holidays

Skylight on ship

Bea waiting for her soda

The boys waiting on their sodas

Soda with Sign & Sail card, the small square sticker is the soda sticker for unlimited sodas

Artwork on the walls

Bea strinking a pose

Giant Chess set

Lifeboats

The back of the boat with the Mobile city in view

See you later Mobile, AL!

Pool

Bubby watching the ship leave

Boo watching the ship leave

Bea watching the ship leave

Yes, it was a bit drizzly but as we’ve learned from traveling Iceland & Japan, rain is often part of the equation so it didn’t really put a damper on things for us. We’ve learned long ago that you can’t control the weather, you just enjoy what you have and make the most of it.

Leaving the port

We did the safety muster drill, which was a breeze, and the kids 12 & under had to get mandatory wristbands for the trip. Normally these drive Bea crazy but she was able to wear it for the duration of the trip without issue.

We ate dinner at the Imagaination dining room and despite our large party size of 7 we got seated with another family of 3. It was a great way to meet new people and I’ve since became Facebook friends with them!

Dinner was good and we had the famous melting chocolate cake for dessert, it was a must have staple for the boys, with Boo even ordering 2 and the end of the trip for dessert!

We got the kids signed up for Camp Carnival (Bubby & Bea) and Club C (Boo) and Bubby & Bea stayed and played at theirs and had a fabulous time!!

Mr. B, Boo, & I checked out the show “The Great Game Show” it was okay but I was starting to get tired from our long day.

Duck Towel Animal

Our room made for the night, beds down and towel animal on the bed with chocolates, I do have to say that the chocolates were pretty nasty…no one would eat them

Since we had left the port the boat was quite rocky BUT I do have to say that while it was rocking a good bit it was NOTHING compared to our Westmann Islands ferry trip…I think us & our friends are still tramatized from that ferry ride! So while others on the ship were apprently getting sick…which is why I assumed the staff started taping up vomit bags in the bathrooms and near the elevators, it didn’t really impact us. Mr. B said he felt a bit off, but that was it. I did wake up several times in the night and felt the boat rocking and swaying, my body is not used to sleeping and moving at the same time, LOL, but I was able to easily go back to sleep.

Oh yeah, and remember our missing luggage? Well around 4:30 pm we asked our room guy and he told us to go check with Guest Services, and sure enough it was there! Along with 20 other bags. Thankfully I had attached brightly colored ribbons to the bags so we were able to easily identify them and grab them. The scary part was that we just told them the bags were ours and walked away with them…hopefully they don’t have many dishonest people onboard. We found out that our luggage tags (that we put on when handing to the porter) had gotten so wet they had fallen off, so next time we’ll cover them with clear packing tape to ensure that they stay on.

Our Cruise!

December 21, 2010 By: Mrs Bcomment

Last month we went on our first cruise! We were on the Carnival Elation out of Mobile, AL. IT was a 5 night cruise to Calica & Cozumel, Mexico. Mr. B’s parents went on the trip with us!

On Monday, the day we left, we drove down to Mobile, AL…it took us about 2 1/2 hours, which was not bad at all. We were all able to fit in the Tahoe thanks to a roof-top cargo carrier that our friend loaned us. I was glad that we were able to drive down there and back in 1 vehicle.

We arrived at the cruise terminal around 11 am. We unloaded our bags with the porter, which was a speedy 5 minute process, and then headed up into the parking deck. It was $75 for the 5 days to park there. After getting inside the terminal we took a bathroom break and got in line for the security check, it took us 1 hour to get through security and onto the ship.

These photos were taken right after getting your sign & sail card and you ‘had’ to walk through in order to board…they had many ‘forced’ photo opportunities like these 🙂 These were the only ones we bought during the whole cruise.

Paw-Paw & Grandma D

All of Us

The Kids, yes our scanner decided to quit on me….sigh

Once on the ship we bought our soda cards and then headed to Tiffany’s for lunch (12:45ish) as we knew the rooms wouldn’t be ready until 1:30 pm. At first we didn’t realize there was seating inside and was trying to figure out how to find a table on the wet/rain-soaked deck. Once we found the inside seating we were able to score a table section (with 2 tables) to seat all 7 of us. We had an Italian theme lunch with soft serve ice cream for dessert.

We got to our room, R91, shortly after 2 pm out of necessity for a bathroom stop. Bea needed to use the bathroom and the one I found near Tiffany’s was NOT good. Why…you ask? Well first off when we opened the unlocked door we were HORRIFIED to walk in and see the back of a very OLD man peeing! We immediately turned around and ran out…I don’t even think he knew we had walked in. As Mr. B came walking down the hall I told him that bathroom was unavailable, then the old man exited so Bea and I entered. Well I’m not sure if we scared the old man or what but there was PEE all over the toilet seat!! There was NO WAY we were going near that so we headed out and decided the ‘safest’ route would be to head to our room.

The room was decent sized for 5 people…I mean we were only going to be in there to sleep…kwim. One Queen sized bed (well technically 2 twins pushed together, but I found it more than large enough), 2 twin wall beds, and a roll away bed. Sure it was a bit crammed at night, but we were sleeping so it didn’t matter, LOL!

The kids checking out the room & taking a break

The did have several good TV/Movie (free) channels for the kids. The kids were able to watch The Chipmunks Squeakual while Mr. B & I looked over the days events and made a ‘game plan’ for the rest of the day.

Me with wall bed behind me, the kids ‘fought’ over who got to sleep in the beds each night until we came up with a rotating system 🙂

Robes provided for use….just don’t put them in your luggage & take them home unless you want to pay $49 for them :p

Bathroom was small yet sufficient

Large bowl of ‘freebies’ in the bathroom

In-room drinks…not a bargain but good if you get desperate, LOL! We never used any of them due to the unlimited sodas provided from our soda cards.

Beach towels were provided….just don’t lose them or it’ll cost you $22 each! We brought our own to take on the off-shore excursions with us.

Only 1 bag had arrived to our room by 2:30 pm, the bedside book said to give them until 6 pm or so, so we were missing 2 bags. What concerned me was that Mr. B’s parents had gotten all of theirs and we gave them all to the porter at the same time…..odd…..

Well I’m wrap up the beginning of Day 1 here and continue tomorrow

Six Flags Over Georgia

October 13, 2010 By: Mrs Bcomment

On Saturday we drove to Six Flags Over Georgia, it’s about 2 1/2 hours from here. It was a good day and we had fun (until the car ride home that is…when I got a full blown migraine) but it was definitely not one of the ‘best’ parks we have visited.

Normally I wouldn’t have chosen this particular weekend (Columbus Day weekend) but the Free tickets expired on the 31st and we have something every other weekend this month, so that pretty much decided the date. There were quite a few people there…which was fine…until the major rides started breaking down! Batman, Mind Bender, and Superman were down on and off throughout the day, this caused backups at many of the other rides in the park. The ‘kiddie’ areas were not very crowded and Bea and I hit a few while the boys went on some of the larger rides, the downside is that they were not exactly close to some of the bigger rides.

I highly recommend SKIPPING the Ninja roller coaster, it was HORRIBLE! All of us got off with neck pain and headaches! My neck is still sore and Bea’s is too and she keeps having headaches 🙁 The boys, Bea & I were in the first 3 cars of the roller coaster and as you get to the top your there for a few seconds while the back is being pulled up and we were dive bombed by a swarm of wasps! We didn’t get stung but it was crazy! Won’t be riding that ever again…truthfully we won’t visit the park again…we just were not impressed. They had this Mr. Grouchy puppet show and it was horrifying to watch a puppet call kids ‘stupid,’ ‘morons,’ and ‘idiots’ I mean come on people is that really funny?!

The pros were that the weather was great and the crowds were tolerable even if not ‘ideal’ by my standards 😉 The family meal that we purchased online using a mycokerewards.com code was awesome. It was $29.99 (for a family of 4) and it was more food than we could eat…always a nice surprise at an amusement park. Another plus was that when my headache was starting to get bad I was able to find some Tylenol in a gift shop and so $2.09 later and 2 pills in my belly I was hoping to start feeling better…sadly it was not to be. The park was decorated nicely for the Halloween theme, it wasn’t ‘scary’ and well done.

Overall a great place to visit once, for us not worth a second trip 🙂