Christmas

My tennis partner surprised the kids and dropped off some Mintia mints from Japan to my parent's house

Our Xmas look for 2016

 Tutu joined us for her 93rd Christmas

Christmas Eve dinner with Tutu, Aunt Eloisa and Uncle Jim 

 Christmas morning, Shane woke everyone up at 6:30.  Hailey with her beloved Sirracha beef jerky

Trying out the mints from Japan flavored Dry Hard

 Hawaii here we come!

 Sadly this was what i wanted the most

Shane being badass for about 2.2 seconds

 He is such a gamer.  He loves playing sports, video games, board games and brain teasers and he got all of those

 Headbands to match every outfit

 Our traditional Xmas bike ride on the beach

Perfect calm day with a big swell

Hermosa Beach 

Selfie while skating

 Jesse and Mike couldn't stop doing the puzzle

The D'Alessandros

Cookies

What do you get when you have 3 boys and a girl who loves boy jokes decorating cookies?

 A bunch of obscure Xmas Cookies

Nothing says Merry Christmas like this

 Dank

 Star of David, ran out of room so it's Dave

 Illuminati 

Squidward

Photos

I never aware of the photo culture on cruise ships.  They have picture backdrops all the time and offer to take your picture.  One night the 3 kids took off for an hour. It wasn't until the next day when we saw all the pictures posted that we realized what they had done. For the rest of the trip we tried to make the worst awkward pictures.  One of the funniest things on the trip was looking at all the photos they posted of our family.  We would be laughing so hard while everyone was so serious and buying their perfectly posed pictures.  Luke mastered it and Pete was a close 2nd but we don't have any of Pete

We only got a few pictures of pictures

 Papa trying to play the kids bad picture game, I hope!

Ensenada

Ensenada Port, the cruise people would take your photo every time you left the ship.  I wish i had the other ones they were hilarious

 A picture of a picture

  Shane came up with the perfect slogan.  Mexico, where the shopping comes to you!  Hailey just loved it, she said it's so much better than LA, they are so friendly.  Luke loved saying Buenas Dias the whole trip to anyone and everyone.  It went over much better in Ensenada!

Each kid had $30 to spend.  Hailey started to feel sorry for one of the beggers who had a little kid and gave  $5 of hers away.

 Carranza statue, one of our relatives, hope he can help get them into college.  See the resemblance? 

 Some of us crazies took a cab to Playa Hermosa Beach which was really pretty.  Papu, Pete and Hub stayed back and tried to win Trivia 

There was a lady selling stuff and about 3 minutes after she passed us the boys yelled she has sling shots!  They chased her down and negotiated in Spanglish

 There were tons of sand dollars on the beach

 Shooting anything that moved.  The clouds came in fast and we had to quickly get out of there.  Our Taxis cab driver saved us, he was waiting for us at the top of the stairs knowing we were going to get drenched and be helpless

Catalina

Catalina Island was beautiful.  We rented a 6 person golf cart and explored the island since there are no cars allowed

Pete with his typical smile

 We also rented bikes for the 3 who didn't fit on the golf cart.  Such a cute town to explore on bikes 

 Kids went Parasailing and Hailey had to make sure Pete was OK.  He doesn't like heights and was a bit scared.  Hailey liked to jerk the parasail while flying and he hated it

 These two have no fear

We put the kids on a boat with a bunch of Korean tourists.  

 When we checked in they asked if the kids wanted 500 ft or 800 ft rope.  We told them the 800ft, Pete had no idea

Catalina Casino