So there was this mouse....

I'm in love with the mouse. I would go and visit him twice a year if I could. This year we went on his cruise. He loves us so much that he greeted us at the door of the ship.

This post will be slightly out of order at first because I want to talk a little about the highlight of our trip. It was Ryan in the talent show on the last night of the cruise. We went to watch it and he told us that he had talents. We asked him what they were and he reminded us of his break dancing talent. We had missed the signups and rehearsal but Ryan and I went to see if it was too late for him to join in. It was his lucky day.

The other pretty boring acts were over and then it was Ryan's turn. He was the grand finale.
Here he is with the MC named David. He's answering questions about his talent and where he lives but I can see he's raring to go.
The music "Pump Up the Jam" begins and he is off. I wish we had video.



It was quite entertaining and he was definitely the star of the show. But let me go back to the very beginning.

We flew to Florida on January 9th. Lou's birthday. (Also, Abby's birthday.)
That night we had dinner at the Hoop Dee Doo Review. A family favorite. We only had one night in Florida and the next day we caught the Disney Cruise Line bus to Port Canaveral.
I'm showing this photo of me unpacking so that you can see the stupid amounts of fiber I took along on a week long trip. Those few zip lock bags on top of both suitcases all have fiber and yarn. That doesn't include what I had in my carry on along with 5 spindles. Couldn't help myself. After a little unpacking it was time for the life boat drill and then the Bon Voyage party on deck 8.
Everyone who was anyone was there. It was a great party and we were off floating on the Atlantic ocean on our way to exotic places....
Like the southernmost point in the USA and only 90 miles from Cuba. Key West Florida was quite an interesting stop. We took the Conch Train Tour, walked Duval Street, did a little shopping and then it was time to get back to the ship.
But not so fast. In my vacation research I had found information about chocolate covered Key Lime pie on a stick and I wasn't leaving without a bite of that. It was delicious. There were four things I wanted on this cruise and three of them had to do with food. Pie on a stick, souffle, duck, and sitting down time. I got a little of each.
Back on the ship and the next morning we had breakfast with Mickey and the gang. We all got lovely hats made from napkins. Here are my mom and dad with Maggie and Ryan all wearing their cute hats.
That evening the kids were chosen to be in the show and play dwarfs. They are the 2nd and 3rd dwarfs in this photo. I wish I could have been on stage with Snow White.
But we did get a great photo with Mickey on Formal night. It's a cute picture of us and also inspiration to me to get serious about the weight loss......
Alice was there. Ryan has a crush on her. Can't even speak when she's around.
We made a stop at Grand Cayman and took a Semi-Submarine Tour. It was really great. There were two ship wrecks and beautiful fish. This diver went in to feed the fish for our benefit.
The next day was the Pirate Party. Notice how Mickey has a great outfit for every day?
Some little pirates couldn't make it through dinner.
Other little pirates were just excited about towel animals.
I won;t bore you with all of the details. Suffice it to say the trip was fantastic. Being on the beach in January was lovely. The Disney owned island in the Bahamas was really nice. I haven;t talked about Cozumel because it rained all that day. My mom and I got off the ship and went shopping. New jewels were acquired and we ran back in the rain.
On Disney's Island they have placed the Black Pearl from the Prates of the Caribbean movies. It really does look scary. You can't get very close to it though.
And this is the sky on the morning we got back to Florida. It was just a wonderful trip. Also, we missed the below zero temperatures for the whole week we were gone and I am not sad.
Before I close, here is my favorite pirate from the whole trip.

Now it's back to work for us all.