Carnival Horizon Favorites

Happy Friday!  I'm so excited to reap our favorite things from our cruise to the ABC Islands on the Carinval Horizon in June.  We had a blast!  This is our third Carnival cruise.  We loved the bigger ship, the 3 ports and the food.  We stayed in the Family Harbor and the lounge across the hall from us with food, ice cream, drinks, games and comfy couches was such a treat.  As usual, Kevin planned every single detail and found every perk/deal that he could to make our vacation extra great.  We had the best time.

We drove from Southern Indiana to Miami!  That was a long haul of 18+ hours.  We had three rounds of flights get changed/cancelled so we opted to drive and guarantee we got to Miami on time.  Since we were staying in a suite, we took advantage of all the perks - early boarding was great!

We stopped at every Buc-ees we could.  The Beast Burritos were so good.

We navigated all the toll roads, construction and parking garages and had no problem getting on our ship early.

We had to do some strategic packing for this trip!  We had hotel bags for the two nights of road trips to get to Miami, our cruise was 8 nights and then we had one hotel stay on the way home.  So I packed everyone for 3 different trips.  Our cruise closet was colorful and fun!

Leo mastered the soft serve ice cream machine while we were still docked in Miami.  Those cones were definitely a highlight of his vacation.

Matching pjs.

The weather was lovely on our whole trip!  We encountered a little rain here and there on our drive and at sea, but our port days were perfection.

My cruise bag with a bag charms of all of our ports - Aruba, Bonaire & Curacao.

The Horizon was the largest ship we've ever sailed on.  More restaurants.  More pools.  More fun!

Leo was really into trying new food this trip.  He tried and LOVED Caesar salad.

I spotted a walrus at our hibachi lunch reservation.  Leo says "War-lus".  Don't correct him.  All of the restaurants on the ship were yummy - BBQ, hibachi, sushi, Italian and the coffee shop.

Leo wasn't the only one mastering the soft serve machine.  Impressive ice cream tower.

Dressing up for dinner!

Kevin found a deal for us to get the drink packages.  Mocktails for everyone :)

Our ship had some really cool things like the Skyride.  Fletcher and Kevin loved pedaling around the tippy top of the ship while we were at the port.  The views were incredible.

Mini golf.  XL chess.  Basketball court.  Exercise equipment.  Pool tables.  Track and more.

Leo was pretty convinced he needed this singing, Carnival cruise ship tail hat.

Sunset movie on the deck with drinks and popcorn was so much fun!

The Family Harbor lounge was such a treat!  It was across the hall from our room and they served breakfast, snacks, ice cream drinks and late night snacks.  We didn't have to walk all over the ship for drink refills or snacks.  It was so handy.

The kids LOVE LOVE LOVED hunting for rubber ducks around the ship.  They ended up finding 82 different creatures.  Tiny Jesus, Bigfoot, flamingos, 3D printed things and more.

One of our formal dinner nights!

Waiting to board our ship!

Kevin loved the coffee machine across the hall!

Leo adores the Grinch.  Their kid water park was really fun.  The kids really enjoyed the water slides.

We had a blast and can't wait to cruise again.  We all agreed that a 5-7 day cruise is ideal and that an 8 day cruise felt a tiny bit long.  But we had two sea days before and after our three islands.  We loved having three stops and also loved going to such cool countries.  Goodmorning Miami!  We took full advantage of the suite perks again and did the early exit process.  We left our room at 7:20am and were leaving the parking garage in our van at 8:00am!!  It was unreal.  We kept all of our luggage with us, walked straight off the ship, zoomed through customs and couldn't have been happier with the suite perks.

We had two long days of driving to get back to Indiana.  We saw a rainbow or two on our way home and were so thankful for some fresh travel memories together as a family.  Check back next week for a recap of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao.  Let me know if you have any questions about Carnival or the Carnival Horizon ship.

Linking up with Momfessionals

Little Smokey Deviled Eggs

I saw some ideas for 4th of July deviled eggs and had to make my own version.  I used little smokies to make the most festive deviled eggs.  They would be perfect for game day or any summer BBQ.

Grill the smokies on your stove top until they have grill marks on them.

Add a sprinkle of brown sugar to them to give them a little crisp.  I used 1T of brown sugar.

Let them cool.

Make your favorite deviled egg filling recipe.

Here's mine:

Egg yolks

Scoop of Duke's Mayo

Generous squirt of mustard

Sprinkle of sugar

Sprinkle of Kinders The Blend seasoning

Directions:

Mix in a ziploc bag until smooth.

Cut the corner of the Ziploc bag and fill your eggs.

Add a cooled little smokey on top.  Add a squirt of mustard for garnish.

Yum!

These did not save well so be sure to eat them all up the day you make them.

Here's another yummy deviled egg recipe from my archives - it includes bacon!

Gourmet Deviled Eggs

Appetizer Dinner

I have an easy dinner idea for you this Summer.  Plan an appetizer dinner one night.  Buy a couple of new appetizers or the ingredients to make a couple of appetizers, add in some leftovers from your fridge, fruits and veggies.  You're all set!

We did new appetizers of 

Street corn dip and lime chips from Costco

Frozen Taquitos, mini tacos, Trader Joe's cheese curds and TGIFridays potato skills.

We had some fruits and veggies plaus some leftover taco ingredients.

I loved finishing up things from our freezer that weren't quite enough for a full dinner.

My family was thrilled and it was the easiest meal to pull together.

Introducing Peanut

Welcome to the family, Peanut!

After Mr. Mittens died unexpectedly, we were eager to find another boy cat to add to the family.  Pumpkin was lonely and sad to no longer have a best buddy.  We have always had the best luck with cats in pairs.  Penny & Pearl are sisters.  We love to have two boy cats to balance out the mix.

The kids and I started kitten hunting for a boy kitten.  Our wish list looked like this:
Colorful

Unique markings

Long or short hair

Local find

and a great personality!

We started visiting all of our local shelters, Petsmart and humane societies.  The kids fell in love with every kitten we saw, but I kept reminding them of our list.  They'd fall in love with a tiger striped kitten, I saw a darling Calico girl, but we kept hunting until we found Buzz Lightyear!  His whole litter had Toy Story names.  

We scoped out the kittens in the kitten room and Buzz Lightyear caught our eye.  He was so handsome and friendly.  Fletcher held him first.  He purred instantly, snuggled into his neck and started giving Fletcher kisses.  He was very sweet and very outgoing.  The workers all said that they loved Buzz so much.  And he was ready to be adopted immediately.  We held and visited with other kittens, but we all agreed, that Buzz was the best.

Welcome to the family, Peanut.

Olive was determined to convince us that Peanut was the perfect name for our little guy.  Somehow we ended up with cats that all have P names, she loves the Peanuts cartoon and so we stuck with Peanut.

He purred down the road with us.

Kevin knew we were kitten shopping and his only request was a friendly cat.  We stopped by his office to introduce him to Peanut.  He approved.

He's been an easy addition to the family.  Sure tehre were some initial hissing and fighting, but now Pumpkin and Peanut play the days away.

He's so handsome.

We all love him.

Olive is very pleased with Peanut.

Peanut likes to sleep between my pillow and Kevin's at night.

He's very curious and seems to have made himself right at home in just a couple of weeks.

Pumpkin + Peanut.

Best buddies.

We hit the kitten jackpot with this guy.

The shelters in our area are overflowing with kittens right now!  If you have felt like adding a kitten to the family - now is the perfect time!  We have adopted from several different humane societies, adpoted a foster kitten, adopted through Petsmart and Craigslist.  The easiest option was to go through a humane society because the kitten will come home with all of their shots up to date, flea and deworming treatments as well as the option to microchip them.  Let me know if you have any kitten questions!