Fall Soccer

The fall soccer season is over. No more practice or games until spring. Megan played on her first all girl soccer team this year. Her accomplishments: She almost scored a goal. She was also more agressive than she was last year, so she may be more motivated to get the ball. I was her coach this season which was fun.

Ashley played on her same team again. She scored a goal this year which she was excited about. She did much better than past years. Her goal is the spring is for a "hat trick."

Ashley steals the ball from opponent!

I've Got the Magic in Me

Kaitlyn's Multiple B-Day Parties

Kaitlyn turned five years old last week. She had a friend party and a family party. She had lots of fun and got some great gifts. Kaitlyn and Chrissa got matching pajamas (Chrissa is Kaitlyn AGD). No severe candle burns from the birthday cake this year; that was a plus.

Happy Birthday Kaitlyn

We love this girl so much and it seems like everyone else does too. She is a little people magnet because she is so fun to be around. We love you Kaitlyn. Happy 5th birthday!

Some of our favorite movie clips of Kaitlyn:

Cabo San Luca

This was our shortest port of call. We were in Cabo San Lucas from about 9am until 2pm. We took a water taxi and toured the famous arch in Cabo, Pelican beach, Lovers beach, and we saw the sea lion colony. The water taxi had a glass bottom so we fed the fish and watched them swim under the boat. We had the boat drop us off at a less crowed beach, but we had to get off the boat in the crashing surf. It seemed really dangerous (again, no safety legislation in Mexico), but that's how everyone was doing it.

The beach was really steep so the water stayed pretty low, but during the afternoon a giant swell came up and started sucking bags and people back into the ocean. Our beach toys got swept up by the wave and our bags. Tara ran and grabbed the bags while I held Kaitlyn and Britney. Megan saw the beach toys and ran after them. I didn't notice that until Ashley started screaming and point in Megan's direction. Megan was on her belly kicking while the wave sucked her into the ocean. Tara was oblivious to all of this while she saved the bags. I could let go off Brit and Kaitlyn because the water was still too high and they would have been swept up. Tara was too far away, so I had to wait a few second before letting go of the little ones. I man saw all this happen and ran down to get Megan. He got there first, but I reached her, grabbed her arm, and then the wave took us all out and churned us. I got some footing and pulled her up and we got out of there. It was pretty scary. Megan knows how to swim, but not in the surf or crashing waves. At the same time a lady got sucked in and tumbled. On lookers had to pull her limp body out of the waves. She looked dead, but was fine a few minutes later. Not too many people swam after the rouge wave took everyone out. Although this wasn't a tidal wave, I can see how the tsunami would have sucked hard. We survived Cabo San Lucas! Someone should be making those t-shirts with that slogan on them.

The family standing on the "beach of death"

The famous Cabo arch

The Sea Lion colony

Mazatlan

Mazatlan was by far our favorite day of the cruise. We heard from several of our friends about Randi's Happy Horses in Mazatlan. So we surprised the girls with some horse back riding along the beach. Most places don't let kids under 8 ride horses, but not in Mexico (virtually no safety legislation in Mexico), they'll strap a baby seat to the horse if they need to. Kaitlyn actually got her own horse, four years old and she rode her own horse, no, not a pony, a horse. The Mexican guy told Kaitlyn, "Hold this rope. Pull it left, he go left. Pull it right, he go right." Kaitlyn's response was, "What's left mean?" So I felt pretty safe after that conversation. The Mexican guy said, "It's okay, the horses do what I say anyway." This was actually the case too.

We rode for several miles round trip along the beach. The kids loved it. It was great for me at first, but then the pain set in. I felt like I was Suzanne Somers whipping boy. The next day I felt like I had been through Thigh Master torture. No need for a vasectomy now, Randi's Happy Horses took care of that.

After we rode for a while, we stopped at a beach restaurant, had lunch, and played at the beach. The water was really warm and the waves were good. Lots of boogie boards and body surfers.

Megan

This is the ranch where we got the horses from. Very third world.

The video below was shot during a much needed crotch and inner thigh break.



Notice Kaitlyn got a seatbelt. Mexican safety standards.

Kaitlyn

Ashley

This started this video below right after Kaitlyn slapped the rump of her horse. It was funny though I'm not totally convinced a 4 year old should be in charge of a horse.



Me, Tara, and Britney

Britney didn't get her own horse, but they let her sit on it.

Here we are back on board the Splendor.

Puerto Vallarta

Puerto Vallarta is the girls most favorite place in all the world. Second favorite place is Idaho, that's the truth go figure. It was more than toasty in PV, over a 100 degrees. I was sweating like a pig in a Mexican chorizo factory (that's sausage). Our day was cut short in PV due to the man-over-board incident early in the morning. We were supposed to get into PV at 9am and leave at 9:30pm, but we arrived at 2pm after the Mexican Coast Guard released the ship from its search and rescue duties.

We really only made two stop in PV. We visited the market downtown first. The girls bought coverups for the beach days and they got their hair braided (a must for Davenport girls in Mexico). We bought some bracelets and some abanicos (fans, also a must for Davenport girls in Mexico). We blew some serious cash, may be $15 bucks total, which is a lot in Mexico.

After looking through the market and walking across the bridge of death at the market 7 or 8 times, we jumped in a taxi and we went to the Westin Regina resort. We weren't guests obviously so we had to sneak in. The place was a ghost town, but the pools were warm. Interestingly, the ocean was even warmer. I bet it was 85 degrees, too warm, but the girls liked it. We swam a little, Ashley made a sand castle, and we watched the sunset. That was Puerto Vallarta.

Kaitlyn thought that she was one hot spanish chica swinging from the lamp post.

The girls loved their fans, most are already broken.

The Westin Regina Resort

Ashley and her sand castle adorned with shells.

The sunset in Puerto Vallarta

The lights of the ship as we boarded that night.

The Sweet Life on Deck with the Davenports

Part 3 of the DFVE (please refer to earlier posts today) was the cruise on the Carnival ship the Splendor. We sailed from Long Beach and our ports of call were, Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas. We had three sea days where we veged on the ship while heading to our destinations. There were three pools on the ship and 5 hot tubs. The pools were nice and warm, but the pools were filled with salt water. It's a cruise thing because they can empty them and fill them right up with filtered sea water rather than hauling fresh water. There was also a big water slide on the ship that the kids loved. If the kids were still awake we would go to shows in the evenings (PG-13 shows due to costuming, ask Tara for more info). We saw lots of dolphins from the ship as well as schools of flying fish.

The first day at sea was chilly, 75 degrees, but with the breeze coming from a moving ship it was colder than it seemed. The next day we were further South and the temperature was in the 90's. It was toasty after that. PV was 101 degrees and Mazatlan and Cabo were in the 90's. We had a sad incident on board during our second day at sea. That evening or rather morning, 2am, there was a ship-wide announcement, even in our rooms. The cruise director said and I quote, "Pardon the interruption this morning, but some of you may have noticed that the ship is no longer moving. The man-over-board alarm has sounded as someone witnessed a man jumping from the ship. We are now commencing a search and rescue effort and a lifeboat is in the water." That was freaking scary. It is pitch black on the ocean at night and we were 50 miles from land. The crew searched from 1:00am until 9:00am that morning and never found the man. It was actually a crew member who jumped, suicide most likely. Sad, but on a funnier note, we told the girls before the cruise that if they didn't behave nicely and politely that the captain would throw them off the ship. They were very well behaved after our 2nd sea day.


There was a mini golf course on board, just 9 holes. We played that a bunch. The girls got better each time they play, but of course I totally dominated. Surprisingly, no one hit a ball of the ship.

Here we are standing in front of the Grand Atrium in the middle of the ship, 10 stories high.

I took this picture from the top of the Grand Atrium with the zoom. Tara and the girls are down there somewhere.

The girls were very excited to go back to our staterooms in the evening to see the many varieties of towel animals. The hanging monkey was a favorite.

Nearly every night our waiting staff did something crazy, sang a song or danced. Here are the girls dancing with our waiter and busboy.



They made Kaitlyn Minnie Mouse ears every other night at her request.

This is Chris. He and his family sat with us for dinner ever night. His mom was really impressed with our family and wanted her older daughters to settle down and have kids. She almost cried on the last night of the cruise.

Up on deck as we came into Cabo San Lucas.

Here we are gathered for muster stations. If you haven't been on a cruise ever, before you depart you must gather at your muster stations. This is where you must go to board the lifeboats if you have to abandon ship. In the past they even made us wear the life preservers, but I guess they are required to anymore. They did give each of the girls a green wrist band to wear with the letter "G" on it. "G" was our muster station and if we were ever separated from the girls and there was an emergency, the crew could get them to the right boats. They wore those for the entire cruise.

It felt like we were eating all of the time. It was great. The food in the dinning room was nice, but the buffets were reminiscent of Chuck-O-Rama.