Spring Break 2017 - Disney Cruise!

This year for Spring Break we took the girls on a Disney Cruise. We left early Monday morning for Orlando, drove an hour to Cape Canaveral, boarded the biggest ship I've ever seen, and spent 4 days cruising to the Bahamas and back. It was pretty amazing. The general theme of the week of Princesses - we all got our fill. Lauren was in dress up heaven, and although Sophie is getting a little old for princesses, she got into it on board (how can you not?).

The girls had a meet and greet with all of the princesses at the bottom of the grand stairs. Here they are with Belle. When not wearing a bathing suit Lauren was wearing her own princess dresses. Like I said, princess heaven. 

The ship made 2 stops - Nassau, where we didn't get off; and Castaway Cay, Disney's own island, where we did get off. We spent a few hours swimming in beautiful, clear water. Sophie and Dave went snorkeling and the girls got their hair braided (you can see in this picture). That morning Dave and I also did a 5K on the island while the kids hung out int he kids-only area. 

The girls also got Princess makeovers in the Bibbidy Bobbidy Boutique - Lauren decided to be Princess Minnie and Sophie was Princess Tiana. Here's Lauren in her Princess Minnie dress with the celebrity herself. 

And the last princess thing we did was tea with Tiana, Cinderella, and Belle. Here are the girls with Tiana. Yes, it was all a bit over the top, but we couldn't resist. 

Disney

While we were spending the week in Argentina, the girls went with each set of grandparents for a week of fun. Lauren headed to New Jersey to spend time with Mom Mom and Pop Pop. Here's the happy girl...

And Sophie went to Disney World with Nana Nana and Pappap, where she was in princess heaven. Here she is with Princess Jasmine (I like the attitude)...

And Snow White.

 And she celebrated her birthday (again) with a Cinderella cake during her lunch with all of the princesses. I'm not sure we'll be able to top this birthday! 

Viva Argentina!

Although it still feels like winter, we all took a week off for our "spring break" trips. Dave and I headed WAY south to Argentina - and it was amazing! We started the trip in el Calafate, Patagonia. It took us 25 hours door to door, but it was totally worth it. We arrived Saturday night, checked into our hotel, which was more of a bed and breakfast, and headed right to dinner, where we enjoyed some amazing wine (Malbec of course) and local beef. We spend Sunday exploring the town, which is small and tourist-based, with lots of little shops and plenty of places to eat. And then on Monday we took our first big excursion, where we hiked the Perito Moreno Glacier.

Here's what it looks like from the water...

 And here's the group (8 of us and 2 guides) about an hour into the hike (it took us about 2.5 hours to get to the middle of the glacier)

At the center was a pool, where we sat and ate our lunch (which was a quick lunch, b/c it's pretty cold sitting on a glacier)

The next day we took another excursion to Estancia Cristina, a ranch in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, it was a three hour boat ride to get there, and we passed nothing but icebergs on the way. Here's one of them...

Once we made it to the Estancia we did a 9 mile hike down through a canyon, which at one time was covered by an ocean, so there were lot of fossils. Here's a shot of the group (there were 12 of us and a guide) hiking down into the canyon. 

 Dave and I with some mountains in the background. There's a hanging glacier on the one right above my head. Unfortunately no pictures really do either of these hikes justice. The scenery was really breathtaking. 

On Wednesday we left Patagonia (sadly) and headed north to Buenos Aires, where we spent the rest of the week. The weather was warm (unlike Patagonia or Philly) and the city is incredibly vibrant - although not many people spoke English, so we had to bumble along with our very poor Spanish (mine much worse than Dave's). 

We did the tourist thing - mostly wandering around to different neighborhoods, checking out the the sites and eating... lots and lots of eating (lucky we were doing so much walking). Here are a few random shots...