The Ditto Heads: Why hello there, ALASKA!

It's the truth! We cruised to Alaska and back. With an 18 month old. And while I'm pregnant. And we liked it. A LOT!! But honestly, we could have cruised to Siberia with the Dittos and it would have been a blast. How can you not have fun when you have unlimited food at your disposal, and your husband and all his brothers sing Backstreet Boys for karoake? :)

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Since the ship took off from Seattle, of course I took advantage of the opportunity to head out a few days early to hang out with my sista. Mel and Randy are the best host and their 4 boys taught Owen how to be LOUD and have way too much fun.

Airplane delays are the WORST.

The nice people at Delta made it so we had an ENTIRE ROW to ourselves.
I was expecting to have him on my lap (he's still free after all) so this was totally
awesome and made the flight a piece of cake.

Remember how they live 5 minutes from lots of gorgeous lakes?! We need
to move to Seattle. We were in heaven!

Is it bad to call my kid a weirdo sometimes? His cousins were off having a blast
on the slip n slide and all he wanted to do was sit on top of the a/c unit. See? Weird.

Weird but cute!

The next picture needs some explaining. While Mel & Randy went out on a hot date (woo woo!) I was watching the boys. Needing to maintain my favorite aunt status, I took them to get shakes. I'm in the horrible habit of putting whatever happens to be in my hands at the moment on top of the car while I buckle Owen in his car seat. It works on my short sedan, but since I can't the top of Mel's minivan I inevitably left my wallet ON TOP OF THE CAR. I realized it was missing when we pulled into the parking lot. So these disappointed kids had to pile back in the car while I prayed and retraced our drive hoping beyond hope that I would find it. And let me tell you that prayers are answered because we found it! About halfway back it was lying in the middle of the road, just waiting to get run over. We all let out a loud cheer and headed back for shakes. Hoorah!!

Moments after this picture was taken Owen's straw bent so nothing was coming out
of it. Which prompted a full-on meltdown. We're talking lying on the floor and banging
feet and fists. I laughed at him for about 20 seconds and then fixed the problem.
Let's just say he slept real good that night! :)

Looking at the horses.

Marcus was too cool to come swim one night, but here's the rest of Owen's cousins.
I told them to flex. They're hilarious.

Playing hard all day = sleeping hard at night.

You know you're living the dream when you get to eat Mel's homemade chocolate
cheesecake for breakfast. It was good prep for all the eating on the cruise.