Ahh what an adventure!!!  My parents sure know how to spoil us when it comes to Christmas gifts.  We were able to go on a 7 day western caribbean cruise.

1st let me point out some things that I learned.

• I have amazing parents!! (already knew that one but had to throw it in)
• Never take your kid/kids on a cruise!
• Don’t go on a Carnival cruise (pick a different company)
• Room Service ROCKS!!!
• You don’t have to have a good body to wear a bikini. 🙂
• It’s easy to gain weight when you can eat, eat, eat with no preparation or clean up.  Don’t worry I gained 3 pounds in a week!! Hallie on the other hand decided to go on a purple grape diet and lost weight.
• Weather plays a huge roll in a cruise.

PRE-CRUISE: MIAMI

View from our hotel window. It was too windy to swim dang it!

Memories:

• Ordering pizza and hanging out with my parents.
• Feeling the baby move for the first time that night.
• Thinking my dad was silly for wanting to go out so late and get food for the next day. (We forgot the next day was Sunday. Opps! Dad’s always know best!)
• Seeing a toilet seat on the balcony across from us. I sure hope it was because they were remodeling. wink, wink

DAY 1: BOARDING THE SHIP

The view getting on to the cruise ship.

Me and Hal as the ship was leaving

We called her Hollywood Hallie with those sunglasses on.  So CUTE!!!!

Memories:

• Seeing my Aunt Tammy and Uncle Brett for the first time in a long time. (They went on the cruise as well.)
• Realizing just now many people were going to be on the boat with us.
• Noticing our fake tans really weren’t so tan after all.
• Watching people get drunk of their rocker before the ship even took sail.

DAY 2: ALL DAY AT SEA

Everynight at dinner we chose a starter, main coarse, and dessert. But wait it gets even better than that-you can have as many of each as you want!!

Me and Ben on our formal night.

My amazing parents!

Hallie refused to eat in the dining room so here we are later that night letting her eat in my parents cabin.

Memories:

• Dressing up and getting our picture professionally taken for free. Too bad only the “taking was free” to buy the picture (that turned out super cute btw) cost $22. Too much for me!
• Eating amazing food that I had never tried before.
• Having my parents watch Hallie so Ben and I could go see a show, play air hockey and go dancing. So fun!! Well, until Ben twirled me and showed the room what was under my dress. 🙂

DAY 3:  COZUMEL, MEXICO

First time off the ship.

The above pictures are all of the ancient Mayan ruins. It was awesome! Don’t miss the huge Iguana in the last picture.

The jeep we rented for the day.

Memories:

• My mom and Hallie shopped.
• My dad and Ben and I rented a jeep and went and saw the Mayan ruins. It was about a 30 min drive so we got to tour Cozumel on the way.
• Stopping at some little resturant off the side of the road and eating the best tacos we’ve ever had. I made the mistake of putting their home made salsa on my taco before trying it. I have never eating something so spicy!!!!
• Stopping at a beach and playing for a few minutes.
• Seeing whole families on little scooters going across town. Seriously we saw a family with three little kids and two parents on one little scooter. Hilarious!! Everyone drives scooters in Cozumel.

DAY 4: BELIZE

One of the nicer houses in Belize.

Ben and Hallie on our city tour. Hallie was awful the entire ride. Ahh the stress!

The view leaving Belize.

Our cute little family on the Tender boat bringing us back to the cruise ship.

Memories:

• Experiencing a 3rd world country first hand.
• Being humbled to see the massive poverty. Wow we are blessed to have all we have.
• Passing an LDS church house (didn’t get a picture). It was the nicest building in the city and it had a 12 foot barbed wire fence all around it.
• Telling our tour guide (who was hilarious) that we were Mormons and finding out that he had started reading the Book of Mormon a while ago but had gotten busy. (IF only I had a quarter for every time I heard that on my mission.) I told him to start again. He was such a good guy I hope he does.
• Seeing where the tour guide gets his hair cut.
• Seeing shacks with menus written on the outside wall. (They were restaurants)
• Seeing little kids fill up soda bottles with water that was from the gutter.

DAY 5: ISLA ROATAN  (our favorite)

The view from our breakfast table. GORGEOUS!

The port we docked at.

Ben and my dad left the girls and went scuba diving. They LOVED it!

Another gorgeous view! Roatan is a quiet beautiful place. We are hoping to go back for a future anniversary!

Memories:

• Docking at a different port because of the wind.
• Spending the day with mom, Hallie, aunt Tammy, and uncle Brett
• Seeing the LDS church house surrounded by fence. This time the Church lot even had a huge basketball court.
• Finally swimming in the ocean. Hallie LOVED it- she was laughing the whole time!
• Hallie burying everyone’s feet in the sand.
• Having a million little kids try and sell us things. (Reminded me of slumdog millionaire.)
• Getting sunburned because I didn’t put on sunscreen with the overcast weather.
• My mom and uncle paying a little boy to be me and Hallie’s bodyguard for 15 min while we shopped. He stopped cars for us as we crossed the street, shewed dogs away from us, and helped us with the stroller.
• Eating Iguana!!!! It actually wasn’t bad. It is what they eat a lot of on the Island so I had to try it.

DAY 6: GRAND CAYMAN

The town named HELL. We just had to get our picture!  hahaha

We had to take this picture to depict what Hallie was like on the cruise ship. Don’t ever take kids!

To be continued….