An Amazing Summer Home Leave 2014

It will take lots of posts to get all caught up but we had a wonderful time at home with family and friends!  Though we don't know anything definite at this point, we may be moving from Manila sometime this next year.  When talking with the kids about this recently, they all said that they would be both happy and sad to leave-which I guess is a good thing.  It has been 3 years of neat experiences yet we would all love to get to be closer to family and friends again!

On Saturday, we realized that one of the flights on our itinerary to get to Atlanta had been dropped, we had a hotel reservation in Vancouver for what was really the last night of our cruise, our travel tax to leave Manila had not been pre-paid, and our current visa extension (of about 4) was going to expire on July 3rd-making it difficult to get back in to the Philippines.  So there was a lot of last minute scrambling that day!
 
When the 5 of us left Manila on a Sunday in June, we got up at 4:15am, flew to Tokyo, then Seattle, and then to Vancouver-4 countries, 8 meals, watched countless movies (I watched almost all of Top Chef Season 10) in a very short time=exhausted!

 We took a trolley tour of Vancouver in the afternoon and Greg and I stayed awake the whole time but the other 3 each had a nap during the ride!

 Above-Stanley Park, Below-the Lion's Gate Bridge

 The next morning we went to Stanley Park and rode bikes.  Greg's company has an office there and it is always a favorite weekend activity if he is there over a weekend!

 Our Disney cruise ship is in the background

 We rode under the Lion's Gate Bridge

 Vancouver has lots of beautiful and unique architecture

 There are whale watching trips available from Vancouver

 and float planes too

 The Olympic cauldron from 2010

 Our ship!

 Ryan's hair was so excited about the cruise it was standing up!

 Our cabin

 Below is the theater where we would watch a show every night before dinner

 The welcome deck party!

 Pulling away from Vancouver

 Really EVERYTHING is somehow Disney themed-even the ketchup at dinner!

 beds folded down and ready for sleeping in

 The Princess gathering!  We got to meet 5 all at once!

 This was the buffet restaurant where we ate breakfast nearly every morning

 The kids all loved having time in their kids clubs because they did such neat things-magic shows, scavenger hunts all around the ship, Belle came and read a story, arts and crafts.  We also spent some time with each one-Greg and Ashley went to see Frozen one afternoon and the boys loved the arcade!  Ryan is excited to have beaten me at air hockey!

 Below is our day in Tracy Arm-no place to get off, but the ship went back in an inlet so that we could see a glacier.  It was fascinating to watch our huge ship turn around.  Nearly all the passengers were outside most of the day-enjoying hot chocolate and the views! 

 Elliott children NEVER turn down ice cream, no matter how cold it is!

 Below-how they would like to look in ALL pictures that I take of them!

 Seals on the beautiful blue ice!

 and yes later that day the kids went swimming.  There were 3 pools on the ship-this one:  only for kids, another only for adults, and a 3rd for both-we tried that one out another day!

 The best part of the Mickey's pool was the slide into it! 

 This was a piece of glacier ice that was brought onto the ship for us to see!