Cruising in the Caribbean

I finally have myself some high speed internet and am ready to give you the rundown on our 7 day cruise to the Caribbean. To the left Evan and I in front of the ship ... do we look ready for some fun or what? To the bottom, Colt having the time of his life in our room with some bubbles. This was such an awesome vacation - it could bring this girl to tears knowing it's over. Moving on ... to quote Evan, the best excursion of the trip was actually making it TO the ship. Because of some psycho Houston traffic and thinking that the boat departed out of Galveston as opposed to Houston, we had 30 minutes to make it onto the ship and we were an hour away. Cruise ships don't wait. I have never in my life seen my parents drive like they did. Heavenly Father was looking down on us, as both cars were doing 80 in 30 mph zones. Rumor has it that my dad even took his car to the side on 2 wheels trying to make a turn. Evan was frantic (heck, all of our blood pressures were way past cardiac arrest levels) on the phone with the cruise line. He found out that they pulled the planks to the ship at 3:30 pm. All of us looked, with total despair mind you, at the clock. 3:26 pm. I don't think any of us wanted to believe that this vacation we had looked forward to for a whopping 2 years wouldn't happen. Providence prevailed and we screeched into the parking lot at 3:34 pm with the cruise ship attendees waving us frantically onto the ship. Let the vacation begin!

Can we say the food people? Get a load of the midnight chocolate buffet. Thanks to my bro-in-law Logan for these pictures. Who wouldn't want to document absolute melt in your mouth heaven on earth? Bless the wonderful chefs in the back who made this dream of mine come true. And I wish y'all could have seen Evan do some serious damage on this buffet. Six plates later and I was starting to wonder if he would ever come down from the sugar high.

Our first stop was Progreso, Mexico where the whole fam went on a Mayan Reality Tour. We saw the Mayan ruins (Below, Colton with his Nana and Poppa with the ruins in the background.) And Colt drove the tour bus ... or at least wanted to. We stopped in the city where these cute ladies fed us this yummy homemade lunch and these little kids danced a few traditional Mexican dances. Most embarrassing part of the trip: when one of the little boys asked me and my brother Adam to get up and dance. Umm - right ... I'm not exactly known for my Latin moves. Let's be honest - I'm not known for ANY moves. Thankfully I don't have a picture of that moment.

Here's Ashley, Heather and I getting ready to go snorkeling and dunebuggying (yeah, not a word) in Cozumel.

This was my favorite day. Cozumel ... can we say heaven anyone? My parents took Colt for the day and all of the 'kids' went on an excursion with a hilarious tour guide named Pancho. No, not the raingear. He told us if we tipped him 100 bucks or more, he'd give us his sister. Gotta love Pancho. Anyway, we drove these dunebuggies along the gorgeous coast line, stopped and snorkeled in the clearest water I've ever seen (and yes I even snorkeled.) Many of you know my aversion to the ocean - probably because I'm a frequent visitor of sharkattacks.com - but I was loving it. Well, 'my fingers clenched around Evan's arm' loving it. We hung out at this beach (above) where they had a homemade all you can eat (yea!) Mexican buffet. After my 10th empenada I was ready to do some laying out without worrying about Colton eating the sand. Thanks Mom and Dad!