All Aboard!!

Get ready for a lot of pictures!! We decided to go on a cruise with our friends after graduation and we had a blast! We were gone for a week and stopped at Coco Cay (island owned by the cruise line), St. Thomas, and St. Martin. The whole cruise thing was new for me. There are definitely pros and cons to going on cruises but overall I loved it! It was nice to get away and eat meals without kids pulling on me, get dressed up each night, enjoy entertainment every night, go dancing, eat ice cream whenever I wanted, read books, laugh a lot, and well the list could go on!

Excursions


Our first stop was at Coco Cay. We loved it here. We went Kayaking with Jen and Logan out in the ocean. It was a great tour. The water was BEAUTIFUL and we saw some cool things out in the ocean and got to get out of our Kayaks to swim around with the sting rays. I loved it!

On St. Martin we all took a fairy out to a tiny island where we were driven up to the top of it and mountain biked down to the beach. I was nervous at first because I've never done mountain biking. I like to bike but mountain biking I realized is different (and this was not anything extreme) However, once we got down our first hill I enjoyed it a lot more. It was a beautiful ride and we ended up at Honeymoon beach which was pretty secluded and beautiful.








We had fun experiencing something very new to us on St. Thomas. We went snuba diving. It is kind of like scuba diving but you don't carry the oxygen on you. We could dive as deep as 20 feet. It was a strange thing to get use to at first but once I got the hang of it it was awesome. Here is Jen getting ready to try it out.
Here is the first of our group to go. This is Bryan, Mindi, Logan, and Jen. Here they are learning how to breath with the oxygen.

Islands

After Kayaking we all had fun relaxing on the beach and swimming in the nice warm beautiful water. One of my favorite things was swimming out to some docks in the middle of the water with Bryan and Mindi. We loved hanging out there for a while. Here are Jen and Amber attempting to snorkel.
St. Martin



This was Honeymoon beach just off of St. Marin.
The sun never really showed in St. Thomas but we still had fun. It was a really nice place.
We ate at a local place and I loved it. The view was so pretty. We all enjoyed looking out at the palm trees and beach.
This was our view for lunch and right down there is where I got a back massage on the beach. I was super happy about this! I wanted one so bad but the boat charged $120 for one and I got 45 minutes for $20! It was heaven!! Andy was smart not to leave me with any extra money because I would have gladly given her $20 more for another 45 minutes!! It really was a highlight of the trip!



Jen, Amy, Mindi, and Amber

Fun on the Boat

There was sooooo much to do on the boat! We only did a fraction of what it offered. They had swimming pools, hot tubs, dancing, ice skating rink, shopping, movies, live shows each night, formal dinners, Karaoke, arcades, rock climbing, basketball tournaments, work out room, running track, flowrider.....pretty much if you are board on a cruise it is your own fault.

This is looking down to the promonade which we passed all the time in the evening.


We found we liked being at the back of the boat away from a lot of the people. We'd hang out here relaxing and reading. People would come and go as they wanted. It was so beautiful looking out at the pretty blue water.



We had ice cream at least once a day and sometimes more.



This is the track I'd run on. It was pretty cool looking out at the water while I was running.

The evenings were fun. We'd get dressed up and go to a show dinner and then usually some other form of entertainment. It was nice staying out as late as we wanted knowing we could sleep in the next morning.

Here we are with out waiters. They were so nice.


We had fun dancing...ok so some of us had more fun than others!


The guys competed in a dodgeball tournament. To determine which teams played first they had to do this competition. It was pretty funny to watch!

This trip would not have been possible without my mom who not only took on taking care of 4 kids but also giving Ethan his shots and calculating how many carbs he is eating and how much insulin he should get. She did a fabulous job and I am very very grateful for her!!