The Grady Family

Monday, March 3, 2014

Snow Day!

Snow absolutely shuts Dallas down!

We had a fun time staying cozy, enjoying our fireplace, baking, and playing in the snow!

Cousin Play Day

The Sharps came over last month to hang out and eat (best way to spend a Saturday in my opinion!!) and we got such a kick out of watching these cousins play! They are getting to be such good friends!

Colin and Dylan both got Buzz Lightyears in December for birthday/Christmas and they have such a fun time playing with them together!

"To infinity and beyond!!"

Reagan loves sitting in her buggy and Blake was sweet enough to push her around!

Arboretum

In the end of January, we had some unexpected nice weather and had a Saturday picnic at the Arboretum.

Colin loves finding all the waterfalls along the path!

Reagan loved all the attention from Daddy!

Making wet hand prints on the cement...

Little and big hands :)

Colin's Room!!

When Nana was here in January, she painted Colin's room and it is SOOOO ADORABLE!!!

Nana is an expert at clouds and hand painted everything - including the cute plane (the letters are cut from vinyl)!! She added some fun construction decals and spray painted stone texture spray to resemble dirt.

Colin was eager to have a sun like Reagan's room and Nana couldn't refuse! We bought a new dresser from Ikea and called it good!

Colin loves his room and tells everyone who visits that "Nana painted it for me!"

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Cruising Through Life

To celebrate Kevin's new job, we decided last minute to book a cruise out of Houston to Cozumel, Roatan, and Belize on Princess.

Honest opinion?

The cruise was pretty disappointing.

Incredibly relaxing, but not as exciting and fun as we had hoped.

The summer before my senior year in high school, my family took a cruise from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta and it was an amazing vacation. We had so much fun! From the fancy dinners, to the shore excursions, to the free room service and the round the clock pizza and french fries, I was simply blown away.

The next cruise was our honeymoon which went from Long Beach to Catalina Island and Ensanada.

Another great cruise, abeit chilly, January weather.

I don't know what happened with this one, but it just never got off the ground, so to speak!

First of all,we arrived at our allotted time and it we encountered a HUGE line that took almost two hours to get through and on to the boat.

Our first day at sea was relaxing, but that night I got a notice that my ATV tour in Cozumel was cancelled due to flooding.

No biggie...I'll just book something else.

Excpet that everything else is booked.

Okay, no problem. I will book something once I get off the boat.

Nothing.

Okay, there are two other ports to enjoy...I can just enjoy the shopping.

Kevin came back from his scuba dive disappointed as well!

His sinus infection wasn't completely gone and while he could equalize, the pain in his sinuses made diving impossible.

The saddest part is that other experienced divers on the trip said it was the beset dive they've ever done!

BUST!

The next morning as we were supposed to dock at the Island of Roatan (part of Honduras) but the captain announced that due to the strong winds, it would be too dangerous and cancelled the port.

So no snorkeling at a cool shipwreck and another day at sea.

I like days at sea, but it got a little rocky!

It was so rocky that that night, everyone got sick!

Even Kevin!!!

The next morning the captain came on and announced there was an increase in norovirus cases on board and so everyone got a little nervous!

When we woke up the morning of our Belize stop, we were sure it would be cancelled...but it wasn't!

Yay!

Unfortunately, they had to cancel my cave tubing expedition but I was able to go ziplining (so fun!!) and Kevin took in some of the local ruins at Altun Ha.

On the last day of the cruise, we finally saw blue skies and sun! No more rain!

Well, needless to say that by the end of the trip we were eager to get home to see the kids but that was to be delayed as well! The fog was so thick that the harbor pilot couldn't navigate the port for several hours, so we hung out in our rooms until they finally kicked us out!

When we headed down to disembark, it was absolute chaos! Thankfully, we pushed and shoved our way off the boat and beat the crazy and crowds.

The kids were excited to see us and we were eager to see them.

So, this post sounds super negative but I promise we had a fabulous time!

I didn't have to cook, clean, take care of kids, or anything else and my biggest complaint was that because of the rain I couldn't get a tan but had to take another nap...boo hoo!

Like I said, it was incredibly relaxing and it was great to just spend time with Kevin.

Every night we had fun getting dressed up for dinner and the show and spending time meeting new people (a much older crowd!) and just talking about things besides what we did that day, what we will do tomorrow, and the kids.

We loved watching movies in the hot tub, ordering drinks, taking long naps, getting ice cream, listening to bad karaoke, and watching the water and the waves.

We are so fortunate that my mom could come out and watch the kids for us! It was her Christmas present to us, but she went far beyond the call of duty!

For crying out loud, she even potty trained Colin while we were gone!