Bond Family Blog

I still can’t believe that Thanksgiving has come and gone! But I am so grateful for our family this year. Preston has been such a blessing in our life. It has been so much fun to watch him learn and grow. This year we hosted Thanksgiving at our house. Ryan’s family came over and helped us with dinner and played with Preston. I am so happy to have family so close and to be able to spend time with them. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!!!

***WARNING*** This post contains a lot of photos. If you have slower internet make sure and give it time to load. Sorry I couldn’t help but to put them all up here!

We just got back from taking Preston on his first cruise. It was so much fun and he was such a good baby! On the 4.5 hour plane ride on the way there he slept for almost 2 hours and he just liked playing and eating puffs. He did pretty well with the three hour time change, although he didn’t sleep very well the first night in the hotel. On Saturday we got on an hour bus ride to Port Canaveral where we met Mickey Mouse waiting to get on the cruise ship.

It was so fun to see the ship all decorated for Christmas. Preston was very anxious of all of the characters and he even cried a few times. Chip sat down so Preston could sit on his lap but Preston was NOT interested. For the safety drill they gave us an infant life jacket for Preston to wear. So we put it on him and tried to carry him down to our meeting place. It was horrible to carry him! If you ever have to…make sure and wait to put your life jacket on until you are done carrying the baby.

The first day on the ship we got to go meet the people in the nursery that would be babysitting him and we also got to take him to play in the 3-4 year old zone. The 3-4 year old zone was decorated with Peter Pan. Preston had fun playing with us.

Our first night at dinner we were able to meet a great couple, Jason and Joann. They have a little daughter, Evey, who had just turned one. It was a lot of fun to get to know them and to watch the babies play together. At dinner it was a lot of fun to watch Preston eat and try new things. The first night we gave him a hard roll to nibble on and he fell asleep eating it. From then on he got a roll to eat at almost every meal.

The first island we went to was Disney’s Castaway Cay. It was a little windy, but a lot of fun. We went for a bike ride and then Preston got to play on the beach.

The next day we got to spend time just chillin on the boat. They have an area reserved for the little babies called the “Splash Zone” Preston loved getting to play in the water and crawling from one water to the next.

On Tuesday we went to Grand Cayman and I got to swim with the dolphins. That was an amazing adventure and I would totally do it again! It was cool to feel their skin and get to ride my dolphin “Darwin”.

The next day we went to Cozumel. Ryan and I were really tired and it was REALLY hot that we decided to skip our excursion to the Mayan ruins and just hang out on the boat. It was fun to see the shops and we even got Preston a fun name puzzle for his room. That night we had Pirate night on the boat. This is a big deal and they have a huge party up on deck after dinner.

On Thursday was another sea day and we got to enjoy a wonderful morning at the spa and then an evening in the adult resturant. It was nice to have some time for just us and to remember some of the things we did on our honeymoon.

Here on some of the many pictures of Preston and the characters.

The last morning of the cruise we got to have our character breakfast where we got to meet all of the characters and they even helped us dress up as characters.

Our last day on the cruise we got to go back to Castaway Cay. We went snorkeling and it was a lot of fun.

Overall it was a great cruise and Preston did so well for all of the places we drug him to. I am so glad that we went and that everything went so well. It was a very long trip home as our plane ride was 5 hours long. But Preston was coming down with a cold so he slept for over 3 hours of it so it wasn’t as bad as we were afraid of.

We bought Preston a new toy at the consignment sale last week. Here’s a video of him playing with it.

We took Preston to Disneyland for the first time on Halloween last weekend for Grandpa’s birthday. We drove down on Friday night and stayed in a hotel. Which was good because Preston was so excited he couldn’t sleep. He was up at 3:30. Ryan finally went and drove him around the parking lot and we finally got him back to sleep after 5. I was amazed how good Preston did at Disneyland for lack of sleep. He got to ride on a lot more rides then I thought he could. He went on Pirates and Winnie the Pooh and Haunted Mansion and Buzz Light Year. He had a lot of fun watching all of the people and seeing all of the sights. It was fun seeing all of the family!

We finally lowered Preston’s crib today. And not a moment too soon! As soon as we got it done he grabbed onto the bars and stood up. We are in trouble now! He is still recovering from his cold…has a little runny nose still. But this weekend he started crawling forward and pulling up on things. I have also started to try feeding him more during the day in hopes that it will help him sleep longer at night. Yesterday was our first run at eating food with breastmilk at all three meals. He only woke up once last night, much improved than twice a night. We’ll see how tonight goes!