Dorius Family Cruise

{Thanksgiving 2015}

We planned a cruise a year ago to include the whole Dorius crew from my Grandparents on down to our two boys. (We were missing 3 of my cousins who are currently serving LDS missions, but we literally had every member of the family there besides them.)
We were the group of 41. 

As per usual for us, our departure was quite dramatic. Jesse of course was gone for the week or so proceeding our trip, I worked a night shift on the Thursday before we left and when I went to pick up my sweet boys from my aunt and uncle's house the next morning, they were sick as could be with croup. Their cheeks were rosy, fevers were high, they had retractions, and stridor. They looked a step away from the hospital. So of course, I called the pediatrician immediately and told him we needed to come in as soon as possible since we were leaving that afternoon for St. George where we were staying over that night before driving to Los Angles. 

He fortunately got us in just a few hours later, and he and I had a heart to heart about if we were safe to go on our cruise. I was so nervous he would say no, but after a good exam and chat, he dosed them up with steroids, wrote prescriptions for more, and told me to watch them closely in case they got worse over night, but if not, we should be OK to go cruising.





Because they were so sick, I couldn't possibly take them to the sitter like I had planned so I could sleep, so instead we went home, they lounged on the couch, and I finished packing us up. With some help from my cousins, we hit the road (with one of my cousins in tow so I could actually get a little sleep) and drove down to Provo to caravan with my brother and SIL

We finally made it to St. George that night, stayed up late transferring luggage into the different vehicles we were taking, and making other preparations, and finally hit the sack only to wake up a few short hours later and start our trek to LA.

Jesse and my dad met us at the port and our adventure started!! 

Of course the boys had awful croupy coughs for the duration of the trip and fevers for part of it as well, which made for mellow boys and we spent a lot of time in our cabin, but oh well. Luckily kids deal with being sick a lot better than adults do a lot of times. I would just sleep in 3 different beds every night bouncing between my own and whoever needed me most, so it definitely wasn't a relaxing vacation, but still fun.

And now, in no real particular order, here was our Dorius Family Cruise in pictures!

Briggs boy climbed up on my lap, laid back, and was asleep in all of 2 minutes.

One of the formal nights.

Here is our whole group of 41.

And our little family of 10.

My sister and I are almost 11 years apart... but since I'm pretty sure I'm still 17, we are essentially the same age. :)

We got to celebrate my mom's birthday on board the ship!

{B}

{I}

Our first stop was Puerto Vallarta

A big group of us went ziplining together. 

Of course we were too fast for the bus so we had to sit and wait awhile.

Seriously, my siblings (and husband) and pretty awesome.

I love doing stuff with them.

And we need a shout out to my awesome parents who took the sickly boys this day so we could get out and enjoy ourselves.

Brad rocked some pretty cool helmet hair after we finished.

And then most of us stopped off at a little taco shop for some authentic Mexican tacos before getting back on the ship. Because you know, you can never have too much food when you're on a cruise. :)

The next day was Mazatlan

We took a bus tour around the town and stopped off for some souvenirs. 

The boys saw these wooden fish in a couple of places and quickly were obsessed. So we bought them a couple of little fish thinking it would be a perfect thing to bring home. And it was until they found sharks they liked over the dophin and fish we had previously bought. And of course there was only one big shark and one little shark, but they were playing with them great so we decided to try buying those as well since they wouldn't leave them. That was all great as well, until they both decided they needed a big shark! So my saintly mother found another big shark and they were both happy again and we were now up 5 wooden toys. 

 Jesse also found these awesome bouncy balls that light up and have a fish in them. For my fish loving boys, this was quite the treasure.

We stopped off at a restaurant and enjoyed a meal and played around this gigantic fish. 

 The end of our tour was at a market where we bought some more great souvenirs.

And Jesse and Ian discovered this hilarious game.

Our last stop was Cabo, and since by then I was starting to feel sick too, we decided we wouldn't plan anything big or rush off the boat. So we took our time getting up and down to midship to get on our little tethered boats to head over to Cabo.

{Also I don't care who stared at my children with their backpacks with leashes, because my children did not get lost nor fall overboard. Mission accomplished.}

I should add here that my parents are amazing. Our cabins were next door to each other so we weren't as worried about waking other people up in the night, and they were always willing to take the boys at any time. They were so great to have around!

Remember those awesome wooden sharks we got in Mazatlan? Well the moment we walked off the boat, Ian threw his over the railing and into the ocean. I wanted to cry, and he of course was screaming over something. It was so sad. We then decided our first stop would be to buy another big shark. And of course we couldn't find any. Instead they had crocodiles. Well you can't just buy one crocodile, so we had to get two. 

The boys were in heaven, but we couldn't believe how many of these silly wooden creatures we had collected during our trip.

Other moments of note:

The sunsets.

They were amazing! 

Our family shirts that Jesse and I helped design. 

The front reads "This is what awesome looks like"

The back includes a whole slew of quirky things about our family and just funny things.

Enjoying the 90 degree weather over Thanksgiving week! 

Ice cream. 

Gotta love soft serve ice cream nearly whenever you want. 

Also not shown, but definitely eaten, was the pizza. Gigantic slices of pizza all the time is a winner in my book.

 The boys randomly started walking up the walls into handstands one night. 

They might be my children.

I'm pretty sure I spent half my childhood in handstands. 

We also tried to hit a couple of shows and one night sent the boys back with my parents and did a body part trivia. Three of these kids are currently in school {pre-med, pre-pharmacy, and pre-optometry}, so they are pretty smart. I used my nursing skills, and Jesse of course is considered the genius and even though we were too smart for some of the questions (and all the other people in the room of course) and over analyzed all the questions, we ended up winning! The reward was a bottle of champagne so when we walked up to the front, the announcer guy asked if any of us were even old enough to drink! As Jesse said, "Our team was made up of four 12 year olds and one forty year old." haha. Ironically, Taryn is the only one not over 21, but since we don't drink anyway, they found us some lanyards and funny little bags as compensation in addition to our champagne. haha

Although we toyed around with the idea of re-christening the boat and giving it an awesome name. We decided to leave it for our room attendant, since we had no idea what to do with it.  

And then we made the journey back home. 

All in all, it was fun. I just learned a few things. 

1. I don't do as great at taking pictures when my children are sick, nor when I forget the battery charger to my camera.

2. It's not called a vacation when you take your kids. It is simply a trip.

3. Taking sick kids even makes it less of a trip. Although I guess I should just start resigning myself to the fact that this is how my life is. If you recall, our last trip to Hawaii had a similar feel.

4. I absolutely adore my family. My grandparents have set such a wonderful example and we are all on good terms, love being together, are doing good things in life, and it's just so fun to spend time together!