The Cruise - FINALLY!!!

It's been over two weeks that we've been home and I'm just now posting on our cruise. I apologize for those of you who have been waiting to see pictures, but I was waiting to get our water cameras developed so that I could include those pictures as well.

Now, on to our adventure (BEWARE, lots of pictures to follow)...

Sunday, September 12, Brett and I flew to Texas to meet up with our good, old friends, Matt and Ashley. We hung out at Matt's parent's house in Houston where they treated us like Texas royalty with an amazing Texan BBQ (that meal was the best on our entire vacation).

Monday morning, we headed to Galveston to find our ship and get checked in. After getting settled, we decided to check out the boat, go to dinner, and peruse the ship after dinner.

Tuesday, we were up and ready for a fun day on the ship. We lounged around on the deck only shortly before playing a couple of rounds of miniature golf. Then we went to play on the water slides!

Tuesday evening was the formal night where we all dressed up and had a friendly game of over-sized checkers (since none of us knew how to play chess).

Wednesday was our first stop in Progreso, Yucatan, Mexico. We went on our first excursion with Matt and Ashley, renting dune buggies and driving them to Xambo where there were ancient ruins to explore.

Our guides explained that though these ruins were small, this was like an ancient Super Wal-mart, where people would come to do their trading.

This is where they performed their sacrifices. The chamber on the right is where they held the animal they were going to sacrifice. The stone in the center is where the animal was killed and sacrificed. And the chamber on the left is where they would some of the blood and organs from the animal. Interesting.

The doorways into these rooms were where the priests stayed and people coming to see them had to enter the rooms by crawling on their hands and knees as a sign of respect.

Here we are sitting by the sacrificial stone.

Then we went to a resort on the beach to hang out and relax. It was absolutely beautiful!!!

This is the background on my computer. It makes me happy every time I look at it.

Back to the boat for dinner.

Thursday was our second stop to Cozumel, Mexico. (Those are storm clouds from Hurricane Karl that we had to deal with.)

We went to a resort that had an adventure park. We got all suited up for our challenges of rope climbing, rappelling, rock wall climbing, and zip lining. Though it wasn't as big as we were imagining, I'm sure glad it was the size it was as I was climbing and swinging around.

After the adventure park came the snorkeling. Brett and I took some water cameras with us and these were some of the shots we took...

While snorkeling, I was attacked by a jelly fish. And, no, in case you were wondering, Brett did not have to pee on me to stop the stinging. Our guide put cider vinegar on it. But now I do have a large scar on my arm from that experience.

Brett had a great time snorkeling!

Back to the boat for dinner with our awesome waiter.

They came to sing to us to celebrate our 10 year anniversaries (Matt & Ashley were celebrating theirs too)

Each night our waiter and waitress would sing and dance for us. Ashley and I decided we would get up and boogie with them!

Friday, our last day on the boat, we were looking out into the ocean when we noticed something flying out of the water. We soon learned that they were flying fish!

We decided to join in the excitement and play a little Bingo. We didn't win, but Matt and Ashley were SO close!

And, our last evening on board.

Our wonderful waiter would bring Ashley and I hot chocolate after dinner every night since we were always so cold in the boat.

The lights and glitz of the ship. I thought it was just like a floating casino.

When we got back to pick up the kids on Saturday, we found this banner that they had made for us. Pretty cute!

We sure missed them, but we had such a great time just enjoying each other and being able to reconnect with our good friends. It's something I think we should make time for more often.