Western Caribbean Cruise

So, if you don't know, Dan and I went on a cruise with all of his siblings and their spouses and his mom and her husband, and let me just tell you it was fantastic!!! We left our kids with my parents, and that was really difficult for both of us. The only nite I have ever spent away from Kailey was the nite I spent in the hospital when I had Owen. So needless to say, it was a sad goodbye for me, but after about the second day away, I was feeling pretty good about not having to worry about wiping bums, negotiating nap times, and doing the laundry. The kids did really well at my parents, and I should mention that my parents did really well with the kids. Both Dan and I were so grateful that we could count on them, and feel very lucky to have such unselfish, loving nana and poppy. My Mom cried when we picked the kids up and both her and my Dad told us how much they would miss them, so that made us feel good! So anyway, back to the cruise.....

Day 1...A Sea Day. We spent all day checking out the boat, laying in the sun on deck 13, and just relaxing! It was so nice not to have to worry about what time it was, or what I was going to have to cook for dinner. All I had to worry about was myself, and it was a much needed break! I felt like Dan and I were on our honeymoon again! It was so nice to be with him and to be able to attend to his needs and wants, and not have really anything else on my mind. I mean, check out that picture...I know you all want to attend to his needs to! haha

Day 2...Roatan, Honduras. It is an island off the coast of Honduras. It was absolutely beautiful! Lots of trees and jungle. We only had a few hours there unfortunately because one of our ship's engines were out so it took us a little bit longer to get there than previously estimated. So we decided to take advantage of the beauty and head straight to the beach. We packed our snorkeling gear and took off for the beach. It was beautiful. We went snorkeling with some guy and his dinky boat - which ran out of gas on the way back. I was a little skeptical of him and his rig when we met his buddy out in the middle of the ocean. We tied up with his buddy's boat and took off to see some fish, coral, and other stuff. Our guy led the way, and I started getting nervous when he led us into NOWHERE. I've been snorkeling before and typically your "guide" will park his boat next to some coral gardens, or a reef or soemthing. He doens't park hundreds of yards out and make you swim forever into black darkness. So I get to thinking, this guy is leading us out to pasture so his buddy can take all our belongings that we've of course left in the boat. I know, I watch too many crime shows. So I high tail it back to the boat to spoil their plans - hahaha they cannot outsmart me. Yeah, well, no one was doing anything with our stuff so I guess I was a little paranoid. Oh well. We watched the sunset on the beach and then headed back to town. We wanted to eat some dirty tacos - I mean c'mon, I am married to Dan. So we found some lady who had set up shop on her concrete porch, and ate some DELICIOUS somethingerothers on her dusty dirt lawn. It was perfect! Here are some pics of the beach at sunset.

Day 3...Santo Tomas de Castillo,Guatemala. Another gorgeous place. So much jungle, I couldn't believe it. We hiked up to some waterfalls and were able to swim and play in them. The water was pretty cold, but it looked to beautiful and fun to let that stand in my way. After the

waterfalls we spent the rest of our day touring the city. We had about 4 or 5 little Mexican tour guides that showed us around. Basically though they just wanted to get tipped. And they would take whatever....dollars, coca-colas, dinner, walkie talkies..you know, the usual.

They were really sweet though. They took us to a great place for lunch. For 2$ we got chicken, rice, salad, and a huge drink - Tamarindo. It was excellent. Try finding all that at Taco Bell for 2$. I'll post a picture of it. We later got a choco banana. That was really good too. And then we later got a bunch of Mexican candy. Sheesh, we ate a lot that day! And so did those kids:) We also enjoyed the beautiful beaches of Guatemala. Acutally, there were no beautiful beaches. But Tony's cab driver certainly thought there were. In reality, it was some water lapping up against a concrete wall. No sand, no blue water, just some dirty water, rocks, and concrete beach chairs. I'll post a pic of that too.

Day 4...Belize City, Belize. Ah, the infamous cave tubing. So fun! A little scary for me, because I'll admit it, I'm a little bit afraid of the dark, plus a little bit claustraphobic, plus a lot a bit afraid of things that could be lurking in the dark water in the dark cave below me. However, I was having too much fun to let myself think about all of that - most of the time anyway. It was atleast 1/2 hr of floating down the river. As soon as the caves opened up, we were in the middle of the jungle, adn we could hear these two crazy monkeys yelling at eachother up in the trees. It was really cool! Some of our group were able to see the monkeys. I was sad I didn't. I wish they could have come down the trees and played with us - wait, who am I kidding, if they would have come down, they probably would have beat the crap out of all of us:) Because we were in teh water most of the time, we didn't take many pictures...actually, we didn't take any. We realized this on our way back to the ship. Belize didn't have a big enough port, so we had to take tender boats to and from the ship. So, here and Dan and I on the tender boat. Yay, beautiful Belize.

Day 4... Cozumel, Mexico. This was a really fun day. We rented scooters as soon as we got off the boat and just toured around the island. We saw some ruins, which Dan really liked. I'm sorry, but I just can't appreciate that sort of thing. I asked Dan why he liked it so much and he said that he enjoyed imagining the people that must have lived there and he would picture in his mind what they might be doing- uh, okay, dear, thanks for sharing, still don't get it:) We also hung out on the beach, the boys did some snorkeling, I did some napping on the beach, but I kept waking up b/c I knew I was drooling in my sleep and I was embarrased. Why is it that I drool during naps - anyone else out there have this problem? I swear I don't at nite, it's just during my naps. Weird huh. Anyway, the sun just felt so good!!!

Day 5 Another sea day. Again, just more relaxing. Played some shuffleboard, cards, and read two books. Great day!

So that's it! Hope you all enjoyed my vacation as much as I did! Thanks Parkinson family for an amazing vacation!!!