ice ice baby(moon)

For months Matt and I had our baby moon planned for 2nd weekend in December. As the weekend drew closer we realized that the weather might put a kink in our plans. We had originally planned on dropping Pearson off with Matt's parents Thursday night and leaving Friday after lunch, but when the freezing rain was supposed to start Thursday night we knew we needed to change our plans. Thankfully my parents are close by and were able to take Pearson to Matt's parents so we could leave late afternoon on Thursday instead.   Our hotel reservations were for Friday and Saturday so we still needed a place to stay Thursday night. Our sweet friends, The Hoopers, graciously opened up their home to us!!

Five Stars for Hotel Hooper!!

I'm so thankful for this little guy growing in my belly who gave us a reason to take a 2nd Babymoon!

Friday morning we started off with a delicious breakfast at The Guenther House.  Jonathan and Tammy recommended it to us and it was sooooooo delicious.  Matt had a banana waffle that was to die for and I had the best biscuits and gravy ever!!  

Our check-in time for the hotel wasn't until 4pm, but we decided to go ahead and head to the hotel to park our car and drop off our stuff so we could walk around the river walk.  Much to our surprise, our room was ready at 11am so we went ahead and checked in.

Our hotel room was so nice and we had a great view of the river walk from our bedroom! The whole reason for our trip to San Antonio was because I won two free nights at The Hotel Contessa at one of our Dallas Moms Blog Quarterly Meeting.  Ya can't beat staying at a swanky hotel for free!!

After we got settled into our hotel we walked around the Riverwalk.  It was really cold (for San Antonio) but we definitely didn't complain because we knew it was better than being cooped up in our house from the ice storm that hit Dallas the night before. 

My parents recommended that we go see a movie while we were there because the theater on the Riverwalk had the recliner seats and was really cheap.  We rarely go to the movies while we are home so it was a nice treat to get to go to the movies.  We saw Catching Fire!!

Our tickets were only $5.75 and we had an gift card with $8.25 on it so it only cost us $3.25 to go the movies.  The recliners were so nice for the pregnant Mama!!

Since we didn't have lunch and we couldn't get a reservation at our favorite restaurant in San Antonio we decided to head back to the hotel and clean up then eat "Grandma & Grandpa Style" at 4:45.  We walked right in.  Boudro's is a little pricey, but worth every penny.  We figured since we weren't paying for our room we could splurge on a really nice meal.  Plus while we were eating we realized it was our 6th anniversary of our first date!!

ACHIOTE SPICED DOUBLE RIB LAMB CHOPS 
Ragu of hot and sweet peppers, cheesy grits and pomegranate demi glace 

 GULF SHELLFISH PLATTER

Seared bay scallop with chimichurri, blue crab seacake and grilled shrimp with beurre blanc, lobster tail baked with cognac and jack cheese, fried oysters remoulade, Louisiana crawfish pot pie served with jalapeno corn pudding on a bed of Southern braised greens 

 After dinner we hung out in the beautiful lobby of our hotel for their happy hour.

 

I tried so hard to be a good wife and stay up and hang out with Matt, but I crashed about 8:30 after drinking a chamomile tea. (Which apparently nobody told me you weren't supposed to drink while you are pregnant, but that's a whole other story) Matt was a happy camper though because there was a Baylor basketball game on TV at 9pm so he happily watched the game while I went to bed early. 

Saturday morning we slept in and then walked to Shipley's donuts for breakfast.  We had plans to eat a big lunch so we didn't want to eat much for breakfast.  

Have you notice a theme to our trip? We pretty much ate our way through San Antonio!

Our lunch stop was at a place called Tip Top. It's a diner that my parent's recommended to us.  It was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives a while back.  

 We split the biggest chicken fried steak I have ever seen in my life, a huge order of onion rings and a lemon merengue pie with merengue that was about 4 inches tall.  It was all soooooooo delicious (except the mashed potatoes.....they tasted like instant).  We ate every bite of our steak and pie, but we could only eat about half of our onion rings.  We were so stuffed.  I'm so glad my Dad told us to share the chicken fried steak.  

After lunch we headed back over to The Hoopers house to watch the Baylor football game with them.   Since it was the last Baylor game of the season and the last game played at Floyd Casey Stadium, I knew Matt wouldn't want to miss it.  When the game was over, Jonathan and Tammy showed us around town and took us to one of their favorite Mexican Food Restaurants and yogurt places. 

It was so great to get to spend part of our Babymoon with our sweet friends that we hadn't seen in quite a while.

And since Jonathan thought it would be cool to be sneaky and take a selfie on my camera, he gets his face plastered on my blog!!!

Sunday morning we slept in again then slowly got ourselves checked out of the hotel to make our way back to Dallas.  Before we left we had to pay our $32 bill!! Yup, it just cost us $32.48 for our two night stay!!  Technically it should have been more but they forgot to charge us for one of our nights of valet parking.  

While the price of our stay at the hotel was nice, the best part of the trip was who I got to spend it with. It was so nice to get away with the hubby for a kid-free weekend before our next little man joins the family.  

**The funny thing about this whole trip was that this was the 2nd time that we escaped an ice storm in Dallas while on a Babymoon.  When we took our Babymoon before Pearson was here we missed the terrible ice storm that came to Dallas before the Super Bowl.  While everyone back home missed 4  days of school, we were cruising around the Carribean.  We have some kind of luck planning our Babymoons to escape bad weather!!

the happiest place on earth

{Tuesday, May 14th- Disney World}

When we were shopping around for different cruises, as soon as we saw that there was a cruise that left out of Galveston that went to Disney World we were sold!! Matt and I have both been to Disney World, but I have heard that you experience it in different ways at different ages.  We both thought it would be fun to go as adults without kids before we take our own kids someday.  This cruise was our chance to do that.  

We had one day with a park hopper pass to squeeze in as much Disney as we could.  We docked in Port Canaveral so we had about an hour bus ride into Orlando before we even got to Disney World.  We got off the ship and loaded our bus around 6:45am.   

Our first stop was Hollywood Studios.  It is the smallest of the parks so we felt like we could hit all the high points quickly and then move on.  We arrived at the park around 8am before it opened at 9am.  They let us in the park around 8:40 though.

Our morning got off to a rough start because apparently we didn't completely understand the Fast Passes.  I went to go get in line for Rockin' Roller Coaster and Matt went to get our Fast Passes for Toy Story.  We didn't know that you had to have both of our cards to get the Fast Passes so I ended up having to meet Matt in the middle of the park to get my card.  Once we both got back in line at Rockin' Roller Coaster they announced that they were having technical difficulties and didn't know if or when they would even open.  We were so frustrated and didn't really know what to do.  

I decided to go ahead and wait in line while Matt walked next door to Tower of Terror.  I had no interest in riding it.  It is one of the things I remember doing as a kid so I didn't need a fresh memory of it!  Dropping multiple stories in an "elevator" isn't really my thing!!

Rockin' Roller Coaster ended up opening up while Matt was finishing Tower of Terror so we got both of those rides knocked out pretty quick with 10 minute wait times.  There was one drop on Rockin' Roller Coaster that I didn't care for but other than that it was really fun.  However, I definitely don't love roller coasters like I did as a kid!!

Other things we did at Hollywood Studies......

Star Tours

This was a really neat 3D simulator ride.  I know absolutely nothing about Star Wars but I still enjoyed it.    We barely had to wait for this ride.  Maybe 10 minutes. 

The Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow

We had to wait about 15 minutes for this show. It was a little theatrical show in a cave.  We all just stood in a room and watched it.  It was literally the dumbest fifteen minutes of my life.  If I could have squeezed my way out to walk out, I would have.

Toy Story Midway Mania!

We got a Fast Pass for this ride.  Our fast pass was at 10:10, so we did all the other things at Hollywood and then did this last before we moved on to another park.  The Fast Passes are a genius way for you to be able to do other things while "waiting in line" for another ride.  This was definitely my favorite thing at Hollywood Studies, but also one of my favorite things at all of the parks.  Basically it is a giant 3D video game where you shoot targets.  Each target has a point value, and you are trying to get as many points as you can.  You compete with the person you are sitting with.  Just in case you were wondering.......I beat Matt.

If we had longer I would have loved to see The Little Mermaid Show or the Beauty and the Beast Show, but we had to move on.  We hit the high points of Hollywood Studios in about an hour and a half.  It wasn't crowded at all!!  We left Hollywood Studios around 10:30.  

Our second stop was Animal Kingdom.  We really weren't planning on going here but when we finished Hollywood Studios so quick we decided to squeeze it in.  I was excited to go here because neither Matt or I had ever been as it wasn't even open the last time we went.  It was so pretty.  I loved how you really felt like you were walking through Asia and Africa.  The plant life was absolutely beautiful and I loved seeing all of the animals.  Animal Kingdom is soooooo big, especially compared to Hollywood Studios.  I don't even think we walked through it all because we were in such a hurry.

After we took the obligatory picture with the big tree we headed straight to the Kilimanjaro Safari to get a Fast Pass.  Our wait time was about an hour so we walked all the way across the park to Expedition Everest.  The wait time for the roller coaster was about 25 minutes.

I actually really enjoyed this roller coaster!!

On our way to the safari, we saw this crazy cool lady on stilts covered in greenery. She would get in these crazy positions and then hold them.  It was amazing to watch!

We grabbed a quick bite to eat (and actually ate while we walked) then got in line for our Safari.  

We had great seats for the safari because we were in the back of our vehicle.  We could look out the side and the back.  We saw so many neat animals.  I think the only animal we missed was a lion.  He was hiding. 

We left Animal Kingdom around 1:00pm and headed to our final destination, Epcot.  

We decided to skip Magic Kingdom because we felt like so many of the things there are really geared for little kids.  We know we will be back someday with Pearson and we'll do all that stuff with him! I was a little sad that we went to Disney World and we didn't even get a picture with Cinderella's Castle.  Oh well, next time!!

The Flower & Garden Festival was still going on so we got to see all the amazing topiaries in full bloom.  They were truly amazing!! I didn't even get pictures of all of them. 

I didn't really get many pictures of us at Epcot but here are the things we did.........

Spaceship Earth

This is the "ride" that is inside the big ball at Epcot.  It's a very slow moving "roller coaster" where you can see yourself in the future.  It's nothing special but there was no wait at all and it was air conditioned!!

Ellen's Energy Adventure

Oh my word, this was sooooooooooo dumb.  It was basically a 45 minute movie where you moved from screen to screen in a big moving car.  It was a dumb story line and VERY dated.  I actually took a little nap during the movie since it was so boring.  There was no wait time for this as well. 

The Seas with Nemo & Friends

There was no wait time for this as well.  It was a cute little kiddie ride, but quite boring for adults.  They had some neat stuff to look at/do after the ride, but we didn't do any of it.  

Soarin'

One of our other favorite things at Disney.  This was a simulator ride  where we felt like we were hang gliding over all different places.  Some of the places even had smells so it felt so real.  I loved this "ride".

Living with the Land

This was a boat ride through a really neat greenhouse and fish farm.  It's sounds boring, but it was quite interesting to see how they grow alot of plants especially the tomato trees!!

Mission: SPACE

This was a simulator ride where we felt like we were astronauts blasting off into space.   We did the "mild version" because I'm a weinie. I thought it was still really neat so I'm glad we did the "mild version".

Test Track

We got a fast pass to this ride, but there was still about a 15 minute wait to ride.  Part of the wait was creating your car that you would be testing.   I really enjoyed this ride.  The fast test drive was definitely the best part!

After riding most things in the Future World, we headed to the World Showcase.  I remember not being impressed with this as a kid and I definitely felt that way again as an adult.  There really wasn't much to do but walk around and look at things.  It was starting to get hot and our feet were definitely starting to hurt after all of our fast walking around the parks.  

We walked through all of the countries and rode both of the boat rides through Mexico and Norway.  They were both really dumb and boring.  We actually waited the longest we waited for any ride for the Norway voyage and it was probably one of the least favorite things we did.  I definitely could have done with out both of the boat rides.  We stopped in Mexico and ate some overpriced nachos that we could have gotten at any ballpark and then ate a crepe in France that didn't even come close to comparing to our favorite crepe place here.  Overall, I was really disappointed with the World Showcase part of Epcot.  I really wish we would have just skipped it and headed to Magic Kingdom for the rest of our evening.  We had planned on staying at the park until closing time to see the firework/light show but we had done everything we wanted to do at the park and we didn't want to sit around for an hour and a half waiting for it to start.  We decided to call it a day and hopped on the 8:15 bus back to our ship.  We made it back on the ship around 9:30 and we were greeted by none other that Captain Mickey!!!

We ate a super late dinner at the Topsider Buffet and then soaked our tired feet and bodies in the hot tub while watching Cars!!

We had such a fun day at Disney!!!

our last day at sea

{Friday, May 17th- At Sea}

Most of the cruises I have been on have been 7 Night Cruises, but this one was an 8 Night Cruise.  Having one extra day at sea was really nice.  We were SUPER lazy today!!  

I woke up at the crack of dawn because of the time change so I got up and took a little jog  around the track (which I actually did on 3 of the other mornings as well) then walked around the ship and took lots of pictures.  

We laid out by the pool for a few hours with our friends this morning but then we spent most of the afternoon in our room.  We got all packed up, watched The Amazing Spiderman and even took a little nap.  

After a lazy afternoon in our room we head up for a little snack.  I got an ice-cream cone and Matt got a few slices of pizza.

On our way back to the room we spotted goofy!!

 Tonight's dinner show was a combination of singing and dancing from the entertainers and the characters and also a magic show.  It was really good!!

These were our table mates for the week. 

{Erin & Sam and Amanda & Carlo}

We really enjoyed chatting with them each night and getting to know them over the cruise. 

 After dinner we watched all the Characters bid their farewell in the Lobby Atrium, then we headed to a late night Magic Show.

Our last towel animal was a little Texas armadillo!!

Overall, we really enjoyed our Disney Cruise.  We would highly recommend a Disney Cruise to anyone......with or without kids.  If you have kids, there is no reason to go on another ship.  Disney has so much for kids and is totally set up for families to have a good time.  If you are going without kids, they really do have a ton of things for adults to enjoy.  Plus it's not really much of a party ship like so many other cruise ships are.  We never saw any crazy drunk people and we never had to look for lounge chairs by the pool because most people are traveling with their families.  A Disney Cruise is definitely on my list of things I want to do with Pearson someday.  He would definitely love it and we wouldn't mind going on another Disney Cruise either!!

a quick stop in key west

{Thursday, May16th- Key West, Florida}

Our day in Key West was super fast.  We docked around 6:45am and left around 12:45.  We met our friends Steve and L'Loni for breakfast at 8am and leisurely got off the ship. (I told you we hung out with them alot!) Neither one of us had booked excursions so we decided to go in together and rent a little golf cart to sight see on the island.

Matt quickly moved to the front seat to be the Navigator so us girls could just sit in the back and chat!!

 Our first stop was the the southernmost point in the USA!!

Our next stop was The Key West Butterfly & Nature Conservatory.  

I probably wouldn't have chosen to go there, but L'Loni really wanted to.  It's was surprisingly really neat and I really enjoyed it. 

 One little butterfly decided to hitch a ride and hung out on my back for a little while.

 I was able to get so many good pictures of the beautiful butterflies.

 When we left they stuck a blue butterfly sticker on us as a little souvenir.  Matt actually kept his on all afternoon. I was quite surprised!!

 After driving around town for a little while and doing a little hat shopping for myself, we stopped for a frozen drink at a little walk up bar.  There were so many yummy choices.  I went with the Banana Breeze and Matt got a Mojo.  So good!!

 Our morning at Key West went by so fast, but it was getting really hot so we were actually ready to get back on the ship.  We ate lunch at the buffet then headed up to the lido deck for some sun.  I got to try out my new hat that I bought! I love it!!

We ran into Pluto before our show.  Our show tonight was sooooooo good.  It was called Dream.  It was basically a quick scene of all of the classic Disney movies.  Matt and I both left the show singing Disney songs. I was singing Bippity Boppity Boo and Matt was singing Under the Sea.  This show made me want to come home and watch every single Disney movie I watched growing up.

 Tonight was also our semi-formal night and lobster night.  Dinner was so incredibly good!!

 After dinner we went to a late night adult ventriloquist show.

We were greeted by a little elephant and note that it was time to change our clocks back as we were headed back to Texas.