Bon Voyage!

With Mimi and Papa on their balcony...in Jamaica.

Me, Franci & Brit

Dinner one night...

Dinner the 2Nd night.

Since I FINALLY have our cruise pictures on the computer, I can blog about it!

My Mimi and Papa celebrated their 60Th wedding anniversary on August 5Th, and what they REALLY wanted was for everyone in the family to go on a cruise with them. All 16 of us (minus 5 of the great grandchildren)! We left EARLY Sunday morning, the 2Nd, and arrived in Galveston around 10:30 or 11:00. We dropped off our bags, parked the cars, and made our way to the ship! We were all so excited that while we were boarding the ship someone thought they saw Britanie's luggage on a rack about to be loaded, so like a bunch of rednecks we all ran to the window in amazement. It sounded something like "WOAH look there's Brit's luggage!! Oh my gosh they are about to put it on the boat! Where's my bag!?! Oh no wait....that's not Britanie's bag." Dad said we looked like Jed Clampett and his hill-billy family. It was funny. Here's the itinerary for the week:

Day 1- Fun day at sea (a.k.a. we'll be sailed for quite a while so find something to do)

Day 2- Another fun day at sea!

Day 3- And another fun day at sea!

Day 4- Mimi and Papa's anniversary and we arrive in Montego Bay, Jamaica

Day 5- Cayman Islands!

Day6- Cozumel!

Day 7- Last fun day at sea

Day 8- Get the heck off the boat

So let's go back to day one....about 3 hours after we boarded, ate lunch and checked out rooms and unpacked. Jared, Dallas, Britanie and I decide to go try out one of the pools. We get in the pool and all of the sudden my bathing suit FALLS APART. The only one piece that I have that was slightly too big for me as it is. The lining stayed in place but the outer "shell" I guess you would call it, lost all elasticity known to man. It looked like I had lost about 200 pounds and I had nothing but extra skin to show for it. My butt looked like I had taken a crap in my bathing suit. Nice. We have 6 more days of "bathing suit wearing time" and my suit crapped out after 3 hours. I had brought a couple of two pieces for Britanie since I didn't plan on EVER wearing them again.....ugh. So yes I thought ok I'll wear one of these just for the next two days till I can buy something in Jamaica. I figured, "I've seen a lot worse around here, and in bathing suits a lot smaller then what I'm gonna put on". Jamaica couldn't have come soon enough. Well on day two, the ladies were laying out and guess what....no one told me that the sun was stronger the closer you get to the freakin equator! So my SPF 30 didn't quite cut it. I was so burnt that you couldn't see anything but the halo of my star tattoo on my back (its a pink star). By Wednesday I realized I couldn't take the pain so Jared went to go to the store on the boat to get some highly over-priced aloe. But they weren't open. So he had to go all the way back to Jamaica to get me some even more over-priced aloe. How sweet. Jamaica was nuts. We didn't opt for the taxi drive deep into Jamaica, we settled for the shuttle bus ride to Margaritaville and the "Center City Mall" or whatever it was called. Basically people literally come OUT of their shops to try to drag you back in with them. Yikes. They don't believe you when you say you are broke. The Cayman Islands were SO much better than what we saw of Jamaica! We went to the beach after a few hours of shopping and souvenir buying. Dallas and Jared brought home pockets full of stupid rocks that they dug up with their feet in the ocean. Can't wait to display those little beauties in a jar in the bathroom. Come to think of it, that is probably why Jared wouldn't let me throw away the empty pickle jar Saturday night. Great, that's so classy. ANYWAYS...I forgot to mention that every night when we would get back from dinner and whatever activity that was going on after dinner, I beds would be turned down with chocolates, a list of stuff to do the next day, and a little animal made out of towels! Which takes us back to day 2....before we even got to breakfast Jared accidentally erased all of our pictures on the camera....work pictures, Jared's 2Nd birthday party pictures, and our first day on the ship, which included a picture of the towel seal waiting on our bed. Okay, back to day whatever....we arrived in Cozumel and the water was BEAUTIFUL! I couldn't believe it. It was amazing. We didn't really wanna do a whole lot there so we shopped a little bit and then caught up with mom and dad to get a taxi downtown and shop there and eat some real Mexican food. Okay downtown Cozumel was worse than Jamaica. And I forgot to mention that in the Cayman Islands they don't bother to stop at the stop signs, and I don't think they even have stop signs in Jamaica, people just pull out in front of each other and you honk to say thanks. It was crazy.

Mimi had it set up to where we had seated dinning every night at the same tables with the same waiters which were amazing! The food was so good! I tried duck, lamb, escargot, lobster tail, lobster bisque....I hated all of those things, but it didn't matter because you could just order something else! Dallas and Jared had at least 3 entrees every night on top of their 2 appetizers, salads, and whatever else they wanted, followed by a few desserts. Our waiter was so nice to us, I'm sure we looked like a bunch of fat greedy Americans, lol.

There was SO much to do on the ships and we all had an awesome time. I am SO thankful that we got to go and share that experience with my family. I loved it. I want to go back already. Maybe someday :)