Day 4- Day at Sea

Our fourth day was spent at sea. We had to sail from Cozumel to the Bahamas, which apparantly takes a while. This day had its pluses and minuses. I loved doing absolutely nothing but sitting by the pool for the majority of the day. We watched a fun belly flop contest and a few other random contests by the pool. I did get a bit seasick by the end of the day and ended up going to bed early that night. And because of that I missed the midnight buffet. As if 3 buffets all day long aren't enough they had to do one at night too.

This is a picture of the Centrum, or middle of the ship. I'm probably on the 8 or 9th floor.

In the centrum there was always live music playing. Sometimes people would get up and dance or just watch from the different levels. And yes, the pianist is playing a keyboard on top of a baby grand. Apparantly a baby grand isn't cool enough so he added the keyboard as well.
Here's another nightly shot from the deck. It was always fun to look over the ship to see how fast or slow we were moving.

This is the Palladium, where most of the shows were held. We saw a few comedy acts and the Royal Caribbean Singers and Dancers. We always went to the early comedian shows because the night ones were a bit much for us.

Day 3;Cozumel Mexico

On our third day we stopped at Cozumel, Mexico. The port was a busy little shopping market with highly annoying salesmen. We first went on the Push, Pull, Swim Dolphin Encounter. We were taken to a 'state park' where the dolphins live. There were 10-12 people per dolphin. We were able to hug, kiss, and pet the dolphin while standing in the water by the dock. We also were pushed on our feet while riding a boogie board by the dolphin. Lastly we were able to swim out a bit and ride on the dolphin while she swam back to the dock. Our dolphins name was Scarlett and she really was amazing. For anyone who knows me, you know that I am really, um....frugal. Yes, that's the right word. We were not able to take our cameras with, so the tourist guide person took lots of pictures for us......and then tried to sell each of them for $20.00. Of course we didn't buy any which is a little sad, but oh well. Anyways, this is a picture of the enclosure where the dolphins are kept. If you look closely you can see a dolphins head peaking out of the water on the right hand side.

After swimming with the dolphins were just wandered around the beach area. I LOVE the beach and I wish I could've taken my kiddos. The water is so beautiful and the sand so nice and fair. Basically picture perfect.
While wandering around we found a row of hammocks to chill in. You can't really tell in the picture, but we are pulling our hammocks together without trying to look like we are straining too hard.

This is Steve with the Cozumel port in the background. We walked around the crazy market area for a while, but due to the heat and the obnoxious men who live there we didn't stay long. Plus, we were hungry and wanted to get back on the ship to eat. Yea, I know, we're in Mexico and should try some authentic food, but..........the food on the ship was already paid for!!

These are my beautiful pedicured toes. Last year when I was talking to Lisa Montes, my friend we went with, she mentioned something about needing to get a pedicure before the cruise. My typical answer was, "no way, I'm not paying for that!" So, for my birthday she sent me cute flip flops, this pink nail polish, and some money to get a pedicure because she knew I really would be too cheap to buy it myself. She also bought the same color for her nails, so we had cute little matching toenails. Thanks Lisa! I loved it and I might even have to get another one on my own.

This the state park that we went to to see the dolphins.

These two are our waiter and assistant waiter. They were extremely good at their jobs. Roshan, on the right is from India and Jorge, on the left, was from the Dominican Republic. It was fun for Steve to be able to talk about the Dominican Republic with someone who knew the area. (That is where Steve went on his mission.) We made these two work pretty hard. We always ordered multiple desserts, entrees, and appetizers. And after every dinner Jorge tried his hardest to give us coffee. We should've just told him at the beginning that we don't drink coffee. His smile was so contagious and friendly.

We asked them about their jobs and Jorge said he hasn't been home in 7 months! But, he loves his job. Hmm, where do you vacation when you work on a cruise ship?

Our nightly picture. You can see that we got a bit burnt while lounging around the beach at Cozumel. This is outside on the deck. It was pretty cool to look out and see absolutely nothing!

Here is the upper pool deck. And for some strange reason it is filled with SALT WATER! We didn't swim much in there.

Day 2-Key West, Florida

On our second day of the cruise we stopped at Key West, Florida. We started the day off by doing a Kayak Adventure. A small boat took us about 15 minutes away from the shore, then we kayaked around an island of mangrove trees, swam in the ocean a bit, then headed back. The area we kayaked in was quite shallow (2-3 feet in most areas) and had baby sharks swimming all over. I tried several times to take a picture of the sharks but they were faster than I was. It's quite a challenge to kayak, try to take pictures, and keep your camera dry all at the same time.

Here we are headed back to our ship. I'm sure we are discussing something extremely important, but I can't remember what it was. It was beautiful out there in the ocean and for a brief moment I wished the kids could be with to experience the beauty of it all.
This is a shot of us and the ship behind us, the Grandeur of the Seas. And it definetely is grand!

Our formal dinner that night had a little bit fancier dinner. This is escargo (snails for those of you who are uneducated like I was). It was drowning in butter and possibly cheese, but not too bad. It reminded me of mushrooms. When we were deciding what to order for our appetizers I asked the waiter, Roshan, how many snails were in one order. My friend Serg was deeply embarrassed and appalled that I referredto escargo as snails. How dare I!

Here is our nightly group shot out on the deck. It was kindof fun to be able to dress up each evening. And I must thank my dear friend Lisa Simpson for letting me borrow all her jewelry. Who knew I liked to wear it?! And yes, I did buy a new dress just for this occasion. Actually I bought two, but I could only wear one.

That night there was a karaoke shindig. There were some very good singers, some very bad singers, and a lot of surprises. Of course Serg was brave enough to get up and do a little number. And he also had the most people dancing along by the time he finished. He did a fantastic job and hopefully everyone back in his home church will get to watch their bishop singing and dancing to LaBamba! Also, this is so cool, the first guy to sing a song PROPOSED to his girlfriend at the end of it! He must've been practicing for a long time, because he knew the song like no other and didn't look at the words even once. It was so fun to watch something so sweet.

Day 1 - Leaving Fort Lauderdale

Our cruise departed from Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale, FLorida. There were about 2600 passengers and a couple hundred crew members (I forgot what they said). We had an inside stateroom on the fourth floor. There were 11 decks, in all.

This is a picture of our stateroom, 4763. Our friends, Sergio and Lisa Montes who went with us, were in the next room from us. These rooms are TINY, yet surprisingly sufficient. There was a lot of shelving, storage, and closet space. The bathroom was a bit small, but what can you expect.
Our luggage didn't arrive to our room until later that evening, which was a huge bummer becaue our swimsuits were not with us. However, as soon as the arrived I was in my suit and ready for the pool. Of course I couldn't actually get my hair wet because of our nice dinner that night.

As you can see, we left on September 11th. We saw this flying above us as we left the port. (It is being pulled by an airplane.)

Here is our first evening meal. We had so much fun dining with the same waiters each night and being able to order as many desserts, entrees, and appetizers we want. This is a 'lovely' shot of us (and Steve's pinky).

After dinner we enjoyed taking a walk out on the deck. The sunset was beautiful, but this might've been the only one we saw. We were usually eating during sunset time.

Pre Cruise in Fort Lauderdale

We left a day early for our cruise and spent an evening and morning in Ft. Lauderdale. Our first night there we ate a restaurant called Bimini's. It was a very fun and seafoody place and a bit pricy. But, as Steve liked to say on the whole vacation, "It's okay, we're on vacation." We first ordered giant shrimp cocktails. That doesn't mean the platter and/or amount of shrimp was giant it only means the shrimp itself were very large. I think there were...........5 pieces of shrimp for only a mere $12.00. I then ordered snapper with some mango sauce and Steve ordered swordfish. I won't even mention how much THAT was. However, it was quite tasty!

Here is a picture of our hotel that night, The Renaissance. We were on the 7th floor and had a great view of the city.

After dinner we walked around the hotel and found the pool with these nifty little chairs. Fairly cozy, but also slightly wet.

The next morning we took a walk down to the docks. You can't tell in this picture but IT WAS HOTTTTTTTTTTT! Okay, maybe not that hot, I believe about 85 degrees, but with the humidity it was HOTTTTTTTTTT! I almost bought a handkerchief just to wipe all the sweat off my face....very lady-like, I know.

Here good ol' Steven is getting ready to leave the hotel for the ship. He bought this awesome cruise hat at Walgreens across the street. He was quite happy with it and I'm sure his head was too.

Well there are many more pictures to post but I need to do them in phases. The actual cruise details will follow shortly.

Caribbean Cruise Teaser

Just wanted you all to know, because I know you are extremely worried about us, that we have arrived home safely from our western Caribbean cruise. This is a shot of us on an island in the Bahamas called Coco Cay. It's Royal Caribbeans private island of PURE FUN AND BEAUTY!! I'll get more pictures posted later (after my dear babysitter has left). Thank you Sally, we couldn't have done it without you!!

Random Things in July

This cool piano is just sitting in downtown Kearney on "The Bricks." Anyone can sit down and play it. As we were sidewalk shopping one day, the kids each took a turn "playing" the piano. There was some lovely music to behold.

In July we said goodbye to some dear friends of ours, the Yergensens. We knew them while living in Lincoln and was able to see them occasionally after we moved to Kearney. They got a job down in St. George Utah and thought they would stop by for a few to say good bye.


Kari also lost her first tooth. She was very excited as were her brothers and parents. Apparantly the silly tooth fairy wasn't as excited seeing as how she forgot!