We sailed on the Carnival Paradise to Cozumel.
Our room was crowded with 5 people, but we didn't spend much time in our room.
After breakfast, we didn't see much of Reese because she loved hanging out in the kids' club.
Brooke is sliding down the slide.
Here we are enjoying the beach in Cozumel, Mexico, at Mr. Sancho's Beach. Brooke, Jordan, and Reese are playing on the inflatables.
It wasn't that easy to get to the top of the iceberg. Reese is almost to the top with Brooke.
They made it!
Here, my mom is enjoying her raft.
And Jordan is enjoying the sun.
Mom and I enjoyed the margaritas.
Back on the ship there is self-serve ice cream and passengers can eat as many ice cream cones as they want!
We spent 2 days at Disney World. Here we are at our hotel.
It's blurry, but Brooke is coming down the slide.
Our first day at Disney World was spent at the Blizzard Beach water park.
This is the wave pool.
It rained and the park closed for a few hours, but we came back and enjoyed no lines until closing!
The second day we went to Hollywood Studios and then to the Magic Kingdom.
At Hollywood Studios, Brooke auditioned for American Idol. We were surprised at the competition!! Brooke didn't make it, but it was a good experience.
The Tower of Terror!
Magic Kingdom
Here he's demonstrating how not to be shy.
It's a Small World ride
At the end of the day we rode Splash Mountain as many times as we could before the ride closed and kicked us out. As we were leaving the ride, we saw this enormous bullfrog!! When he finally hopped, we screamed so much!
As we were reluctantly leaving the park, we discovered that the Electrical Parade was performing one last time, so we sat along the route and enjoyed the parade.
This is Cinderella in her coach.
That was a LONG day and we squeezed in as much as we possibly could!
The next day was my 50th birthday! We checked out of our hotel and drove to Port Canaveral.
Here we are on the Carnival Ecstasy.
We went to Nassau, Bahamas. Reese bought a new hat.
The next day we were shuttled on a boat to Half Moon Cay.
It's a beautiful beach with a free lunch (a little crowded, though).
Back on the ship, we played on the water slides. Here, Brooke is racing down the slide.
Reese tried the big slide.
Jordan is relaxing.
Mom got a fancy dessert in the shape of a swan.
When the cruise ended, it took us all day to fly standby back to Atlanta, so Mom spent the night at our house and then flew to Arkansas the next morning.
We put some corn in our backyard to feed the deer, and here we have a visitor.
Reese had to have a tooth pulled, and we all had various appointments before we headed back to Saudi, so the rest of our time at home was running errands and packing. I took Jordan downtown to have her medical exam taken for the Air Force Academy. A lot of candidates get rejected because of failing this exam, so we just kept this in our prayers. She ended up passing the medical!
We didn't find three seats on any of the flights out of Atlanta, so we flew to Detroit to catch a flight to Amsterdam, and then flew KLM all the way to Dammam without any problems. Our boxes didn't make it since we switched to Detroit at the last minute, but Bruce was waiting to pick us up when we arrived. He drove me back to the Dammam airport two days later to pick up our 8 boxes. It was like Christmas when we unpacked them. I brought back my birthday presents, and the girls brought back some early gifts as well, and Jordan brought back tons of school clothes so we wouldn't have to worry about shopping over here for the whole year!
Here's a picture of one of my birthday presents... metal flowers that are hung above my bed. They took up a lot of space in the box, but aren't they pretty? I brought fabric to make curtains, pillows, and a duve' cover for my room as well; so hopefully, I'll find some time to sew this year.
Bruce had been taking care of Zoie, the desert dog; so she was at our house when we arrived. Her owners were in the states, so we watched her until October. We sure were happy to see Shadow... he was the same as always, happy to see us, and didn't hold a grudge.
We were pretty jet lagged when we got back, but school didn't start until September 1st, so we just enjoyed the end of the summer (a hot one!) in Saudi. These pictures pretty much sum up how we felt.
Jordan didn't waste any time getting together with her friends. I'm so happy that she has made so many wonderful friends here, and she'll take these memories with her when she goes to off to college.
What a wonderful summer we had together. If Jordan gets accepted into the Air Force Academy, this will have been our last summer together as a family. I'm sure we'll get to spend time with Jordan again, but the AFA only gives them three weeks in the summer, and I don't think she'll get any next summer because it starts in June as soon as she graduates from high school!
Thanks for stopping by!
- Pattie -
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