Family time this weekend

So as I mentioned in another post, we drove up to my husband's aunt and uncle's house to hang out with Z's cousin who's come for a short visit. It was fun, loud, and crazy (as always) with four kids (Z's other cousin and her kids joined in on the fun) and a dog.

Cousins catching up

Daniel and I (and the puppy and Sasha)

 

This photo makes me laugh - Z has snapped this one of his cousin!

 

Sarah, Jonathan, and Sasha playing

Sasha building a ship (I think) with Jonathan and grandpa

While downstairs, Z was playing computer games with Sarah and Daniel

I think we've got the next Picasso!

This morning, I woke up to have my husband show me a beautiful little picture Sasha drew (almost) all by herself.

This was apparently an elephant and Sasha drew the entire thing by herself, then asked papa to add the trunk.

Then, this afternoon, she asked for a marker and drew papa and me. Ha!

The one on top is papa, and the one on the bottom is me. Then she attempted to draw herself, but didn't seem to like the result and went on to a new page. How awesome is that!!

Look who's back!

It's Sasha's Uncle Mike! He's been overseas for a while and we haven't seen him in forever. He just flew in yesterday, without telling anybody besides his sister, so it was a big surprise for everyone. He's only here for a few days, so we're heading up to his parents' house today to hang out with him.

Sasha's first visit to the Met

We woke up on Monday morning, not having to go to work and not really wanting to unpack our bags quite yet, so we headed out to the city to go to the Met. I love love love that place, it's so big, there's always something you haven't seen, but I usually end up right by all the Monets and Manets and Degas(es?)

I think Z was amused at how giant my head looked from this angle

I love this winter wonderland picture - credit goes to my Z! After this picture, the camera suspiciously disappeared into the backpack he was carrying, hmmm...

Our trip in pictures

Here are some pictures from our trip last week. We had a blast, did a lot of fun things, and a lot of relaxing and even doing nothing!

 There was a restaurant called Tsar's Palace where we, naturally, ate most of the time, which was decorated with portraits of Russian tsars and beautiful paintings like the one above

 Sasha on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, she liked it at first, but the very first loud bang made her scream and she spent the rest of the ride clinging on to me!

Papa and Sasha split a delicious (and rather large) turkey leg

Mickey's 3D show

Sasha's new Minnie Mouse

Kiddo lasted literally 20 seconds on the carousel before completely losing it and demanding to get off

Sasha's obsessed with Woody and Buzz right now

She was terrified of touching the sand, so at first we got her to touch it with her pinky. This is NCL's private island in the Bahamas, which was pretty small with not much to do - so we mostly hung out under our little cover and ran around the beach

We had to take a little boat from our ship to the island and back - it was rather rocky, but pretty cool!

 

Next, we docked in Nassau and spent the day in Atlantis, watching the fish and swimming and being pretty much in awe of the entire resort (but why does it have to be so ridiculously expensive to stay there?)

 Then Sasha got to make her own pizza which, if I must say so myself, was delicious. My kid is a natural!

 Sunday morning, the view from our cabin, arriving back in New York

We had a lot of fun, got to do a few kiddie activities (since Sasha is now old enough for the kids' club) and relaxed! I would've preferred a bit more active ports (like Bermuda cruise we did last time). And sailing out of NY in February turned out to be a bit of a bummer since we couldn't really use the pools on the ship the first and the last (two) days - although Z was brave enough to go hang out in the heated jacuzzi even when it was so cold!

We're baaack!

We just got back home this morning and it is entirely too cold here. Our heat was turned off for the week and we're wearing many many layers. We had such a wonderful time and didn't want to come back (but isn't that true for all vacations?) We have so much to unpack and so much laundry to do, but thankfully papa has a day off tomorrow, so we're not even bothering with any of that at the moment.  Pictures and stories coming later, just wanted to stop by for a quick update!

Vacation time!

In just a few short hours we'll be boarding our cruise ship for a nice relaxing, much-needed vacation. The bags are packed (why do I always have a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach that I've forgotten something, even with the extensive packing lists I make?) My parents are picking us up in an hour to get to the port.
"See" you next Sunday!

Packing, unpacking, more packing and pictures

Yes, we survived the few days without daddy here. I realized my last post *might* have been a little overly dramatic, but we did ok. Granted, Sasha demanded to call papa once an hour for the past three days and she's been more clingy than usual, but she missed him and it was just so sweet to hear her tell him that over the phone!
So now Sasha and I are packed (with the exception of a few last minute things we'll throw in our suitcases Sunday morning), Z needs to unpack from his trip and then pack again for the cruise. This is the one thing I really don't like about vacations - packing and unpacking. But in just a couple of days, we'll be in warm sunny Florida, away from this freezing cold winds and frozen snow.
And here's what we've been up to the last few days:

 

Sasha woke up with this absolutely adorable wavy hair on Thursday morning - guess who forgot to comb the kid's hair after her bath the night before ;)

 

We made a Valentine's day garland yesterday

The end result

 

Sasha has been running around saying "I'm a doctor" and playing doctor with me and her dolls!