Earl Family Cruise - Day 5

For my (Courtney) blog post I decided that I needed to give out awards to the deserving participants of our family cruise. For those of you who didn't realize that our reunion was a constant competition of who is the smartest, best looking, most athletic...etc, then you probably aren't an Earl....

It's no shock to any of you that I win the most awkwardly quiet award (I was actually the only one in our family eligible for this award ever since Rhode learned how to talk). So I am going to let the pictures do most of the talking in this blog.

The competition started out with a nice little van drive over to a waterpark called Aquaventura. Dad almost took the Gringo Translator Award with his bilingual skills in portuspanglish getting us there, but Trevor pulled ahead at the last second by scoring us some taxi rides back home. Trevor wins! (Although I think that they might have both been disqualified because of how much sunblock they had to put on in the water park...embarrassing)

So we went to the park and watched a dolphin show. We watched the trainers being launched in the air and doing back flips and were all wondering the same thing... How in the world is swimming with sea lions going to be cooler than this?

But we had faith in my dad's patient who told him that our "swim with the sea lions tour" we had pre-signed up for would be more fun than swimming with the dolphins. This is our excited faces as we were lead to the pool to go meet the sea lions...

...and this is Pepe...


Yup... This is about how interested we were in learning about sea lions. (How fast can those dolphins swim?)

I'm pretty sure that this next conversation went like this...
Kristy: How long do we have to pet this thing for?
Trevor: I don't know... I'm going to pretend to be excited and give a thumbs up so they don't see how weird this actually it.



Turns out they changed the program so you don't get to actually swim with the sea lion (turns out, its kind of dangerous, whoda thought?). But you do get to watch it do poses and you get to pet it while it lays there like a tub of lard in front of you. (I think it would have actually been less gross to pet a tub of lard) Luckily we got a nice award out of this and so the Best sea lion picture goes to Mom!

Preview

(although I'm not really sure it was a fair competition because this was the only time that Pepe decided to do anything cool)

Luckily for us, Mexicans don't like to give money back and dad is good at pretending like he is rich so we got a free lunch and we got to visit with the dolphins later that day! Dad gets the King of getting whatever he wants award for that display.

• Sidenote: At lunch our table was swarming with bees. Kacey made us all feel stupid for being afraid of them because of course "if you leave them alone they wont sting you." Let me tell you, I was about two seconds away from crying and showing her kids my bee sting so they would be scared of bees forever just to get back at her...

So this is our newest friend Dori...


Yeah I know... Bring back Pepe! We want to see some more of that beastly face and moldy fur! But I guess Dori will just have to do.

We got to feel, shake hands, and even kiss the dolphin. (I guess it's ok for dolphins to give out their kisses like pretzels) Although this picture was a great contender for best dolphin picture, unfortunately it lacked the kind of dedication that it takes to be a winner. (Scarlet couldn't reach the dolphin on her own...aren't you Kacey's kid?) But there is nothing cuter than seeing a baby kiss a dolphin.


And the Best picture with a Dolphin award goes to Mom! Just look as she accepts that kiss with such style in her designer sunglasses. Plus it's mothers day. (Kylie stop crying...The judges were sick of talking about how cute you were when you were little...)

Here is a shout out to my father who for once actually looks blind in one eye in this picture.

So what's my excuse?....

We also had a great day just running around and going on all the different slides. This also opened up a lot of opportunities for awards. First we are going to start with the best toilet bowl slide picture. To explain, the toilet bowl slide is a crazy contraption. You jet down this water slide at full speed and it launches you into this circular bowl. You take a few speedy circles around the tube until you go falling out the bottom.

Now you would think that Brad would have won because he is the biggest (fattest?) and could go down the slide the fastest.

Or it could have gone to Jon Wayne who likes to pose for the camera while he is going down.

But no.... Neither of them are writing this day's blog... So the award for Best toilet bowl picture goes to me! (Courtney... in case you forgot who I was because of the middle child curse) I won because I'm pretty sure this looks exactly like what Barbies look like when they get flushed down the toilet.



You have to look closely at this next picture to see what exactly is going on but Scarlet is "helping" Rhode go down the slide by bossing him around and making sure that he is waiting for his turn.

So the award for having kids who are exactly like you goes to Kacey! (Kacey just called to order me to finish my blog right now...some things never change)

After the eventful time at the water park, all the competitors walked down the beach of Puerto Villarta. There were many different interesting things along the way. This is one of the first things that we saw.


Yes... he stacks rocks for a living. At first, you might think it is a little pathetic. But your next thought is probably...this is what Bryan can do! So the Finally we found some useful skill for this kid award goes to Bryan! We were all so happy to find something that our poor little Bryan might actually be able to accomplish with his life. (I think this might be his first award ever)

Joking Bryan... we all know those rocks would be too heavy for you to lift...

There were also a lot of sand castle artists that we enjoyed looking at along the way. There was one certain piece of artwork that was my personal favorite. In case you can't tell, it is a sculpture of the last supper made out of sand.


Yeah, it was pretty amazing. So the Something Jon Wayne can't do award goes to.... Jose? Carlos? Juan?.... I'm sure one of them is right.


Then we all went back on the ship and ate dinner after a long day of competing. It really was such a fun time for us all. I think most of us would agree that Puerto Villarta wins the Best day of the vacation award. Not because of all the fun things that we got to do... Mostly because we got to do them with each other. I am so blessed to have been born into such a great family. And even more blessed to have such an incredible mother! We would be nothing without you mom. I love you and Happy Mothers Day!