A new basketball season has started in our household. Tim had a great game, but his team is new and still have some kinks to work out. I'm hopeful that they can pull it together next week!
1.20.2011
1.19.2011
1.18.2011
A Day at Sea and Jungle Island
I figure it's time for me to finish up the posts about our New Year's trip to the Caribbean. I apologize in advance about the length. But, if you make it to the end, you'll find two great videos from our trip!
Our last day of the cruise was spent at sea, as we sailed back to Miami from Grand Turks. The cruise provided a ton of entertainment throughout the day and Tim and I wanted to take full advantage of that! Of course we forgot our camera for some of the most entertaining parts, which included an ice carving demonstration (the carver created a two doves and a heart in a huge block in less than 30 minutes and it was AMAZING!) and we had the "pleasure" of witnessing the Hairy Chest contest. I'm sure you're all really disappointed you don't get to see those pictures. :-)
When we got back to the cabin, Tim decided we needed some pictures of our surroundings. This included the hallway outside our room:
This was on our way to a Towel Folding class! While we waited for the class to start, I made an artistic representation of Mt. St. Helens:
Here I am putting the final touches on my Elephant:
Aren't they cute!?
What could this possibly turn in to?
Bulldogs!
Of course that night was also the big New Year's celebration! We went to dinner in the formal dining room and then caught the last big Vegas-style show in the Palladium theater:
Then we went back to our rooms, where our awesome steward surprised us with New Year's hats and noise-makers! Laurie and I went a little crazy with our noise makers!
We headed to the big party on the Lido deck with the rest of the boat, where they were streaming the live-feed from NYC. It was the first time we had been in the same time zone as the "actual" ball drop!
I don't know if you can tell from this picture, it's pretty dark, but the deck was completely full. It was insane!
Laurie and I celebrated with more noise making...
Fun was had by all and we ended the night with a midnight buffet and then headed straight to bed for our early departure from the boat.
The next morning we were supposed to disembark with the other excursion groups, Patti had booked us a morning at Jungle Island to occupy our time between disembarkation and our flight later that afternoon. Unfortunately for us, the boat docked an hour ahead of schedule and everything got bumped up earlier. Without warning. We got a call telling us we had 8 minutes to get down to our meeting point.
8. Minutes.
We're smiling in this picture, but we were all a little p.o.'d...
We did make it to Jungle Island and we had a great time! Unfortunately I don't have any of the "official photos" from the day, we didn't buy any, but imagine us holding parrots, an alligator, and a skunk.
They have a lot of flamingos and the feeding time is definitely a frenzy and activity!
These white birds kept landing and sitting on the flamingos like they didn't want to get wet. It was highly amusing!
Tim with a statue of a snapping turtle:
Now for two videos:
But not nearly as much as this girl!
After our tour was done, we headed back to our bus and went straight to the airport! Unfortunately our flight from Miami to Houston was delayed, but not enough to interrupt our flight from Houston to Seattle. We were very thankful for that cushion time in Houston!
And now you're completely caught up on our trip to the Caribbean! We had a fantastic time and it only took a few days to get rid of the rolling feeling from being on the ship. Bonus!
Our last day of the cruise was spent at sea, as we sailed back to Miami from Grand Turks. The cruise provided a ton of entertainment throughout the day and Tim and I wanted to take full advantage of that! Of course we forgot our camera for some of the most entertaining parts, which included an ice carving demonstration (the carver created a two doves and a heart in a huge block in less than 30 minutes and it was AMAZING!) and we had the "pleasure" of witnessing the Hairy Chest contest. I'm sure you're all really disappointed you don't get to see those pictures. :-)
When we got back to the cabin, Tim decided we needed some pictures of our surroundings. This included the hallway outside our room:
Our balcony, as viewed from our room:
The lobby of the ship, as viewed from the glass elevators:
This is what the class looked like, and while it does look like it was mostly children, we were not the only adults there...not by a long-shot!
The next morning we were supposed to disembark with the other excursion groups, Patti had booked us a morning at Jungle Island to occupy our time between disembarkation and our flight later that afternoon. Unfortunately for us, the boat docked an hour ahead of schedule and everything got bumped up earlier. Without warning. We got a call telling us we had 8 minutes to get down to our meeting point.
8. Minutes.
We're smiling in this picture, but we were all a little p.o.'d...
Yes. We did do that. No. We won't do that again.
Are we the only ones that think this is hilarious?!?
We got a little animalistic towards the end...
And now you're completely caught up on our trip to the Caribbean! We had a fantastic time and it only took a few days to get rid of the rolling feeling from being on the ship. Bonus!
1.17.2011
1.14.2011
1.12.2011
Half Moon Cay & Grand Turks
Our third and fourth day could be classified as our "beach days." Thankfully the weather was starting to warm up and we no longer needed sweatshirts and blankets to be outside! Bonus!
I had the pleasure of spending the morning with a masseuse...it was very nice to be pampered! While I was at the spa, Tim went to breakfast with his family, something we hadn't done yet, preferring to have it delivered to our room instead. We all met up again and headed to the lower echelons of the ship to board another boat that would take us ashore.
Half Moon Cay is owned by Holland America (Carnival is a subsidiary of H.A.) and pretty much all of their collective Caribbean cruises stop there for a day. It was a great!
We found our beach chairs...
We watched as Tim & Patti gathered the courage to try the water...
...it was cold.
After an hour or so of reading (I finished my book...One Day...it was SO good!) and lounging, we all headed to the island BBQ for lunch.
During lunch, we decided to try and rent some water equipment so we could enjoy the water without having to dive in.
After a while it was time to head back to the ship. Our view looked like this as we left the island:
That night was full of fun, including a show by our wait staff at dinner and BINGO in the main theater. I was TWO away from winning $500! Grrr...
And, yes, I'm wearing a crown of pull tabs. I won $10 from those! :-)
Our next day was spent in Grand Turks and we had some great weather! Thankfully we had waited until the last day for our snorkeling adventure and, judging by the weather, it was the perfect choice!
Laurie is modeling our excursion tickets...
Tim is modeling his hat...
In front of our ship (on the left) and the ship that was in every port with us (on the right)...
Most of our crew was from Jamaica and they definitely had that "yah mon" swagger...at one point we had anchored off of a small beach to play in the waves and one of the crew members was floating in a life raft with a pitcher of "Love Potion #10," a rather cough-syrupy concoction and a stack of cups. He was offering it to all of the "Spice Girls" on the trip. :-)
Here we are on the boat, pre-snorkel...
Finally it was time to head back to the shore to have a look at the island. Or at least the cruise resort that they have built for short-term visitors. That was a big surprise, we thought there would be more there!
I liked this weather station...
And then it was time to head back to the boat, but not before we took a picture in front of the big "Grand Turk" sign...
And the cruise ships.
There's still more! Including our New Year's celebration and our final day in Miami! That post is on the way...
I had the pleasure of spending the morning with a masseuse...it was very nice to be pampered! While I was at the spa, Tim went to breakfast with his family, something we hadn't done yet, preferring to have it delivered to our room instead. We all met up again and headed to the lower echelons of the ship to board another boat that would take us ashore.
Half Moon Cay is owned by Holland America (Carnival is a subsidiary of H.A.) and pretty much all of their collective Caribbean cruises stop there for a day. It was a great!
We found our beach chairs...
We had a clear view of our ship...
After an hour or so of reading (I finished my book...One Day...it was SO good!) and lounging, we all headed to the island BBQ for lunch.
After a while it was time to head back to the ship. Our view looked like this as we left the island:
Our next day was spent in Grand Turks and we had some great weather! Thankfully we had waited until the last day for our snorkeling adventure and, judging by the weather, it was the perfect choice!
Laurie is modeling our excursion tickets...
Our catamaran for the excursion...
Here we are on the boat, pre-snorkel...
After our time in the water, in which I spent the ENTIRE time (Go Me!), we had a dance party...
I liked this weather station...
(click on picture to enlarge)
Tim, Laurie and I headed to Margaritaville, the only restaurant available to us, for a Linner.
That was pretty much those two days in a nutshell! I did forget to mention that we actually got to Grand Turk about an hour late. Our excursion was scheduled for 15 minutes after our original arrival, as were a bunch of other excursions! In order to accommodate this, everyone with an excursion got to exit the boat first. We were among the VERY first to get off! Oh, and at the end of this day, I tripped getting back on the boat and somehow damaged my ankle. Go Me! :-)
There's still more! Including our New Year's celebration and our final day in Miami! That post is on the way...
