♥ Me, Mom, Alex & Kelly ♥
Panama Panal Cruise, February 2010
Like the rest of you, I believe that I have the best Mom in the whole wide world!! She means the world to me and is always there for me no matter how crazy I get or what decisions I make!! She is my number 1 fan!! Now if only I could get rid of Kelly & Alex…..then I’d be super happy 
Happy Mothers Day Mom, I LOVE YOU!
I spent the last several weeks, working on a “top secret Christmas Project”. Well, I’m excited to share it with you today!
For Christmas I made a DVD montage of my family’s trip through the Panama Canal this past February for my Grandma, parents and Aunt & Uncle. It included photos and videos from our trip! I made one for our last cruise, and it was a big hit, so I knew I wanted to do it again!
I had them open them Christmas Eve day so we had something to do 
Plus, I could wait for them to open it! I was giddy with anticipation of what they’d think! I was right, it was a huge hit!
If you are interested in checking out all 51 minutes of Benson Family fun, I encourage you to watch the DVD. But I know most of you aren’t that interested in my video and that’s okay, I want to post it here for my own personal journaling!
Off to Spokane bright and early in the morning. Snoqualmie Pass is supposed to be bad, so please send good thoughts and prayers our way for a safe and speedy trip!
The triplets love crafts, and I try to do one with them every day, sometimes are more successful the others! If you’re new to my blog here are some of the crafts the kids and I have done over the years:
One of the triplets favorite crafts is using BINGO dobbers to paint with! Where did I get the idea of BINGO dobbers for crafts? On my cruise a few months ago, my cousins and I went to play BINGO almost daily. On the last day of the cruise people were tossing their dobbers in the trash, I on the other hand had big plans for them! I happily collected TONS of bingo dobbers from fellow patrons! No lie, I probably packed 30 bingo dobbers home with me!
Brandi & I showing off all the dobbers I collected after the final BINGO game! Sorry there’s a bad glare, I blame that (haha, see my last post) on my sister Alex who was taking the photo and failed to mention the glare!
I get the dobbers out, the kids grab the ones they want and then go at it! Sometimes they ‘dob’ other times they ‘paint’ with them, either way they have fun! We also have a big box of stickers, I dumb the box out and they have a hay day with adding stickers to their masterpieces!
The Masterpieces the triplets made today!
Dobbers are a CHEAP and fun craft activity for young kids, especially if you don’t want to deal with the messiness of real paint! I bought several lots of stickers on Ebay, just random stickers. Doesn’t matter what the stickers are, they just love sticking them on paper! Oddly enough, toddlers always seem to stick their stickers on top of each other…strange!
We’re always looking for craft ideas, what are some of your favorite kids crafts?!
Brandi mentioned that I failed to mention that we saw some celebrities at LAX while waiting for our flight home from the cruise. I didn’t stop by and say hi or ask for an autograph (thought about it), but we did get some pictures, but Brandi has them on her camera so I can’t share them right now! Anyway, sitting together right by us at LAX was Scott Foley and Malcolm-Jamal Warner! They were sitting together chatting and (apparently) waiting for a flight! Guess they weren’t invited to the Oscars’ because they were flying out of LA and no into it!
Scott Foley most recently has been in Courteney Cox’s Cougar Town. He also was in The Unit and Felicity.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner is best known for playing Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show.
Pretty cool to see celebrities! I’ve only met Captain Kangaroo and Paul Reiser! I’ve now doubled that statistic
Have a fantastic weekend!!
We got home around 630pm last night. We had an uneventful flight and trip home. I can’t complain! However, now that I am home again reality kicks back in…vacation is over! However, sleeping in my own bed was really nice! Now, for a mish-mosh post….
On the first day of my cruise, Brandi & I did pottery and made bowls (see here). I never showed off my final product! 
I’m really proud of my work! I HATED making it, but love the finished look! I stamped in the “Panama Canal” before it dried and then painted the whole thing!
Remember before I left when I was complaining about packing (see HERE and HERE)?? Well I hate unpacking even more! I should have unpacked today, but instead I prefer to rummage through my bags looking for what I need!
Ugh…what a mess!!
Oh well, it may not even be worth unpacking because I’m heading to Texas on the 17th with Alec, Julia & the kids for a week! We’re staying with Julia’s brother Jason and sister and law Kim. I’ve only met them once and spent 24 hours with them but totally LOVE these guys! They were here in December 2008 with their then 3-year-old daughter Paige. They added Quinten to their family in December! I cannot wait to see everyone! Plus it’s the Munro Kids’ first airplane trip!
In addition to visiting Kim and family, my cousin Eryn and her family live about 30-minutes away from them! I hope to be able to visit and hang out with the Klinger clan while in Texas too!
Okay, back to reality tomorrow, I work in the morning and then have a Relief Society Presidency meeting in the afternoon! ….and I jump right back in!
*sniff sniff* it’s our last night on the boat. I’m just about done packing and getting myself ready to go. Today was a very fast day! Woke up this morning and went to a culinary demonstration and then toured the galley of the ship. The galley has an escalator is in it! How cool is that?! I also went on a back stage tour of the Princess Theater! Other than that, I went to BINGO, ate dinner and went to a final trivia game.
Okay, short boring day and I have a lot still to do! I guess I’ll talk to you all again tomorrow from Seattle!
Today started out WAY to early. Kelly, Alex & my mom had an early morning excursion so we were all up about 6:30am…yes that early on vacation!
Me trying to sleep a little bit longer with everyone else running around.
However, my sleeping didn’t last long. We (the rest of us) left about 7:30am for Cabo. I got to say Cabo is one beautiful place! Pulling in on the boat we passed the famous Cabo San Lucas Arch. These rocks are absolutely amazing!! Later in the day Zak and I went jet-skiing (yes again) and we went through and around them!
While walking through town we came across this kiosk which had a baby lion and baby tiger in a crib! They were part of a fundraiser for an animal refuge. We got to watch them while they were fed their bottles!! I could have held one, but it was $25 and I didn’t want to part with my money that bad!! 
We got off the boat and did some shopping while on the search for Cabo Wabo, a restaurant owned and opened by Sammy Hagar of Van Halen. At about 930am we were enjoying the BEST chips and salsa ever! Sorry, Ixtapa, this was so much better!
We found it funny that they had Washington State license plates on the wall!
Like I mentioned earlier, Zak and I went jet-skiing again today! We cut it a bit close though! We shopped with my dad, Grandma, Brandi and Jaime all morning and when they headed back to the ship we went to find the beach. Little did we know that the beach really wasn’t that close! We finally rented the jet-ski at about 11:30am for an hour and had to be back to the tenders by 1:15pm at the latest.
About half-way through our time we realized the tender passing us had Grandma, Jaime and Brandi on it! We had fun zipping around them and having our pictures taken!
After we finished jet-skiing we knew we had about a half-hour walk to the tenders, we decided to take a water taxi which was about a 5-minute ride! We got back in plenty of time for me to do some shopping! I hit up a great store where I got TONS of souvenir shopping done and was really happy with what I got! We made it back to the tender right at about 1:15pm.
This afternoon Alex participated in the Passenger Talent Show. When Grandma first mentioned it to Alex, Alex responded with “I have no talent”. Right, Alex, you have no talent!! She is an amazing pianist! She decided to participate in the talent show and did awesome!!
Left: Alex & Assistant Cruise Director Andrew talking during her introduction
Right: Alex playing the piano on the Universe Lounge Stage
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Hi Madison & Emmalee! We’re getting really excited to see you guys in a couple of days! We have missed you so very much and can’t wait to hug you two!! Hope you are still being good for Amy and having fun! We love you tons!! ~Hugs, Mommy & Daddy~
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Our last formal night is this evening. I need to go finish getting ready. Tomorrow is our last day on the ship. We get off on Sunday morning, it’s crazy our vacation is coming to a close! I’ll have to make the best and have a lot of fun in the last 36 hours I have on board!
The morning started off with a friendly (or not so friendly) game of Scavenger Hunt. We were given a list of about 50 obsucre items and had 30-minutes to find as many as we could. Our team came in 2nd, but only because the “winners” cheated. Ugh…yes I’m competetive and don’t think it’s very fair! I wanted those passport holders!!
After the scavenger hunt we went to BINGO in the Universe Lounge where our favorite waiter Mile (pronounced “Me-Lay”, but we prefer “Miley”) was working. We took a few pictures with him and next thing we knew he stole my camera and left. We’ll just say Brandi, Jaime and I were a bit nervous of what he was going to do! However, he came back with some really fun pictures of “behind the scenes of Princess Cruises”!
Jaime, Mile and Brandi
One of the waiters in the back of the bar area
Another of the waiter’s behind the scenes being goofy
One of the sinks and kitchen stuff??
Prep area???
Mile taking a self-portrait
Today was also the third art auction. They’re not that exciting but I went because everyone else was, and let’s face it…I’m a follower! Grandma & Brandi each bought a painting and Jaime won one but the biggest story was me answering an art history trivia question and get TWO (anyone else who answered a question only got one) raffle tickets for the final art auction. What was the question you ask….?
In what year was the first illustrated children’s book in Germany was published??
I guessed 1652 and the answer was….1658, I was off by 6 years! Out of all of the hundreds and thousands of years I was off by only 6 years! I even caught the art director off guard by being that close! Not sure what I get with my raffle ticket, but I will definitely be going back to the next auction to see!
Showing off my winning trivia raffle ticket!
Tomorrow we are at our last port of call, Cabo San Lucas. We originally had a catamaran excursion planned, but after the bad experience in Huatulco we decided to cancel this one. Instead we’re going to go see the famous arches and find a beach for more jet-skiing!
Good Evening Friends!
*Sigh* it’s Wednesday and we’re down to only 4 more days of our vacation. It takes so long to get here and then goes by so fast! Oh well, there are lots of memories made!
We got up early this morning and went to the beach. Sue & Aaron wanted to try out jet-skiing and Zak & I were happy to go along! We got to the beach and rented two jet-ski’s.
Zak & I took off right away and Sue & Aaron were putting along. Not to far into our journey (maybe 3 minutes) mine and Zak’s jet-ski died. No big deal Aaron and Sue were right behind us. We get their attention and tell them to go back to shore and get someone to come save us. We think they understand and off they go. However, the just start doing circles and driving far away from shore. Once again we get their attention where they inform us “we needed to practice driving this”. C’mon people, here Zak & I are stuck in the middle of the ocean, this is no time to practice!
They finally get back to shore and a jet-ski guy comes and we trade jet-ski’s and head back to shore. We get back and find out that Aaron REFUSES to get back on a jet-ski stating that the jet-ski is broken! Uhhh…sorry Aaron but it was user error! Zak & I (and then Zak & Sue) took the “broken” one out after!
Before getting stranded!
Yes, we know how to drive this! Let us go!
Alex & Jaime playing in the water while we were jet-skiing
Us arguing with the jet-ski man about how much time we had left
After playing at the beach a group of us took a taxi to see the Acapulco Cliff Divers. WOW. It was absolutely amazing! These guys are like 50,000 feet in the air (give or take haha) and dive into a small ‘lake’ of water!! We lucked out and arrived right as it was starting so we didn’t have to wait around!
The Cliff Divers standing at the top of the cliff
One of the Cliff Divers Diving
the crew that went to see the cliff divers
For dinner tonight they had corn on the cob! I was so excited since corn on the cob is one of my favorites! I asked our waiter for another one and he brought me three!
Oh, I forgot to mention that last night my parents bought me a beautiful pearl necklace. For their 25th wedding anniversary instead of buying each other gifts they bought my sisters and I each a piece of jewelry. The girls each got rings, I chose the pearl necklace…love it!!
Modeling my new pearl necklace!
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Hey Girls-
Here are a couple of fun pictures I thought you might like to see! The first one is of Alex holding Baby Doll in our taxi on the way to see the Cliff Divers. The second one is of your mom and dad at the Cliff wear the Cliff Divers dive, oh and Baby Doll is with 
them again too!!!
Madison: I purchased a special gift for you today! I can’t wait to give it to you! Emmalee: Yeah, I still need to find something for you!
Hope you guys are still having fun! We’ll be home really soon!
Love, Cori
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Sea Day again tomorrow and even better we gain (or do we lose??) another hour! We’ll now be just one hour behind Seattle time. We were as far as five hours ahead at one point! So we’re slowly weaning ourselves back into PST!
Another beautiful day in paradise! We arrived early at around 8am (instead of noon) due to the medical emergency on board so we had all morning to wander around the city. I bought a few souvenirs for people (the Munro Kids now are done yay!) and enjoyed the sunshine!
Standing in front of the Welcome to Huatulco sign!
Beautiful photo of the Coral Princess through the palm trees!
Zak and I rented a jet-ski at the beach by the ship. It was so much fun zipping around the harbor and cutting through the rocks! This was so far the highlight of my trip! I LOVE jet-skiing!
This afternoon we had a sailboat excursion. OMG the water was so rough, luckily I took Dramamine. Kelly was sick within 10 minutes of leaving and spent the rest of the trip being sick. Towards the end of the ride, everyone was sick! I asked the captain if we could just go back early (we still had 90minutes to go), and I basically got a standing ovation from the rest of the passengers for getting us off early! Brandi was so sick she said she was contemplating swimming back to the ship if they wouldn’t take us back then! It was very rough!!
Me on the sailboat with the Crown Princess behind!
Mine & Alex’s feet hanging over the water
The Coral Princess and the Rotterdam, a Holland America cruise ship side by side
Jaime & Zak on the sailboat
We got home and had about 45 minutes until dinner. We all rallied (Kelly included) and ate dinner in the dining room. However, I wasn’t up for any dessert so I ordered nothing….this is what I got …
Our head waiter, Ronie is hilarious, he is very witty and funny!
Tomorrow we are in Acapulco. We have no scheduled excursions so it should be pretty laid back. I plan on going into to town and doing some shopping!
