Thursday, January 08, 2009

Holy Hectic Holiday!

Wanna know what the VanHorns did over the holidays? Here goes.

First, we had our own dang Christmas:

Then, we took some airplanes, plural, through San Francisco and Chicago (with 2 kids, did I mention that part?)

on Christmas Eve to make it to Columbus, OH in time for Christmas day with my parents.

The next day we drove my mom's car 11 hours south

to Charleston, SC (thanks mom! sorry Sage puked in your car) for a hotel Christmas with Erik's family:

In the morning we all took taxis to the Norwegian Majesty for a week-long cruise. Yep, a cruise. It had been a year in the planning and despite the fact that the economy is crumbling, we went to live like kings (ok, more like pirates) for a week out in the ocean.

First we stopped in Great Stirrup Cay:

The next day we went to Nassua, Bahamas:

Then Freeport, Bahamas:

There were also a few days when we just stayed on the ship out at sea. We didn't get many pictures of ship life because we spent most of that time chasing a baby down rocking halls and corridors, getting lost, trying to get kids to sleep, watching goofy song and dance shows, or eating at one of their many grazing stations. The best parts were dinners with Erik's family and watching Sage hang out with his Grammy and PopPop and cousins and letting his cousins watch McKenna while Erik and I sipped rum (not their expensive ship drinks, but our own that we smuggled on like pirates (thanks dad!).

New Years:
Happy 50th anniversary Grammy and PopPop!

The next morning we docked in Port Canaveral, Florida, where we took a taxi. . . to rent a car. . . to drive to Orlando. . . to go to Disney World! (free, since Erik is still working there until February.) Whee! We only had 6 hours but we explored as much as we could.

then drove the rental back to Port Canaveral, got a taxi back to the ship and made it back in the nick of time. Here we all are on the last night:

We spent one more day at sea and then Saturday we were back in Charleston to lug our luggage through customs and into a taxi to my mom's car and drive 11 hours back to Ohio (thanks mom! sorry McKenna puked in your car).

Next up, airplanes, plural,


and now we're back home. Whew! If you're not completely exhausted you can see more pictures in my Flickr album.

8 comments:

Sheila Lamb said...

Wow! I am exhausted :-) But what a great trip(s)!

Amy said...

Good lord! Sounds like a Christmas you'll never forget. Your kids will need a Lexus to top this one.

Anonymous said...

Ok so that was exhausting! Two tho be made me laugh out loud: 1) your dad, the Bishop, helped you smuggle liquor onto the ship and 2) the apologies to your mom about the kids puking in the car!

Hola, I'm JMac: said...

oh my...oh my...that's all I can say! You are one brave woman :-) The trip sounds awesome...I love the water in the bahamas. Clear and WARM! That photo of you and McKenna is so great. Are you and hub both from back east? Also, is that the swiss family robinson treehouse? That was my absolute fave as a kid :-)

KB said...

Yep Clint, my dad asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I told him liquor. It came in handy! Especially because the were selling 6-packs of Budweiser for $25!

JMac- We're from West Viriginia originally, been in CA for 4 years now. That treehouse is Winnie the Pooh's, but Erik and Sage did climb up in the Swiss Family one they had there.

Anonymous said...

Hey K.B. -- Thanks for the chance to "relive" our family adventure. We really enjoyed the pictures!
"Grammy"

textile_fetish said...

I'm blown away. You know how to rock the holidays!

Anonymous said...

holy cow! that was fun! you sure did a good job describing that trip!

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...