Our Christmas Cruise to the Caribbean

We left Galveston on Sunday, Dec. 21st. It was COLD!!! We stood on the ship huddled together. We had some big waves which made walking on the ship interesting. None of us could walk in a straight line!

Our room was bigger than what we had thought it would be. Most people said it was a closet. We were actually very comfortable. We had a king size bed, a couch that could be converted to a twin bed, a table and chair, and a bathroom (now that felt like a closet!) My parents had their own room.

Monday I started out in jeans, but after lunch it warmed up that I put on capri's and sandles. It was still pretty windy and rocky.

Tuesday:
We went to Cozumel - took a "ferry" ride to the mainland so we could tour the Mayan Ruins of Tulum. I say "ferry" ride - cuz it was more like a speed boat from H#@@! We were dipping and flying ... it was horrible! I was doing ok until the guy beside me started hurling. Then I lost it! All of it! I dreaded the boat ride home! We drove to Tulum and saw the ruins. I am still trying to decide if it was worth the boat ride!!!! It was pretty. We didn't get to go into the ruins though. They had them ropped off due to graffitti problems a few years back. It was interesting to hear the history. We ate at a local resturant. After losing my breakfast I was hungry...I ate with caution though. I am glad to report that I did a lot better on the return trip. We sat in the air, music was playing, and another passenger took pity on me and gave me some motion sickness meds before we took off.

Wednesday:
We were in Grand Caymans next. Here we took a tender (ferry boat) from the ship to shore. It actually was tender - anything would be compared to the cozumel tender! In Grand Caymans, you cannot dock so a boat comes out to you and carefully walk from the ship to the tender. Here we went to a turtle farm and saw sea turtles - they had baby turtles to 70 yr old turtles. Then we took a boat ride out to a sandbar where we got to swim with stingrays! It was waaayyy cool! One swam up Jeff's back! On the way back from the sandbar, 2 of the boys leading the excursion jumped off the back of the boat and fished for Conchs. After they had found about 10 of them, we were back on our way. While we were riding in the boat (it was about a 35 min ride back to the island) the boys cleaned the conch shells and passed them out to the passengers. They also cleaned the conch aninmal and cut it up for everyone to eat. Jeff and my Dad ate some ....gross! Jeff spit his out. The islanders thought his reaction was funny. Due to some taxi/bus issues earlier in the day, we were running about an hour late. When we got to the dock to take the tender back to the ship, we were greeted by some crewman who ushered us back quickly. I was the last passenger back on the ship! Boy were we glad that we had booked through the cruise line! If we hadn't, the ship wouldn't have waited the extra hour for us to get back.

Thursday:
Jamaica - Christmas Day -We drove 2 hours from Montego Bay to Ochos Rios where Dolphin Cove is situated. Jeff & I got to swim with the dolphins!!! It was very cool! We have some picture of our dolphin pulling us in the water and kissing us. We also got to see Dunn River's Falls. It was beautiful. The port of Jamaica was not very pretty. It was interesting seeing the island though. Our bus driver was a crazy driver! He would honk and pass someone (they drive on the left side of the road) on the right and put us in the lane with oncoming traffic and at the last minute he would scoot back over and we would barely miss all parties involved.

We then had 2 days at sea to relax. We laid out by the pool and read, played cards, walked the ship. It was nice.

My First....

So, everyone always says this, so I might as well too.....

I've never done blogging before, this is my first one, so bear with me while I learn to do all the neat things that everyone else has on their blogspots.

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading my sister-in-law, Rebecca's, blog. Jeff's family seems to be getting into it, so I thought "what the hey!" Jeff & I live very boring lives it seems - so there my not be much on here when you get right down to it.

My sister, Susan, and her family were just down here for a visit. We had lots of fun going to Plano & seeing them, and bringing them down to Rowlett to our house to go swimming. Jeff & I were both excited to see them grow as swimmers in the short time they were here. Jason was pretty good to begin with, but went from having to have a mask that covered his nose to going to goggles and doing flips off the waterfall. Emily & Kate both had waterwings, wouldn't go near the waterfall, and barely put their face in the water - when they left they was doing cannonballs with no floaties, and diving down to the bottom of the pool to pick up gold coins. (fake pirate stuff...no one get any crazy ideas about coming to visit so you can plunder our gold coin collection!) Even little Kari had a full body float suit, water wings, wouldn't go near her dora the explorer goggles. She finally shed her full body float suit - which was good cuz that was hard to get on and off everytime she had to pee...which was a lot cuz she couldn't get enough of the pool water - even after we switched over to salt water! - Her favorite pool activity was to have her water wings and goggles on & play 1, 2, 3, take a deep breath, and go under water. She would get really excited if she actually got to touch the bottom of the pool with her foot. Her last day I took the water wings off her & taught her the fundementals of floating on her back. In her last moments in the pool, she was swimming face in the water, little legs kicking, no floaties on whatsoever, back & forth between Jeff & I.

Susan & I got some shopping in. We all went down to the farmer's market in downtown Dallas and picked up a couple of pineapples, strawberries, "Parker County" peaches, a couple of Isreal melons (cross between a cantalope & honeydew), oh & just a few green beans to bottle. The kids raced with Grandpa Phil to snap their beans. I think we ended up with 21 quarts and 16 pints of green beans. Like I said..a few green beans! Susan & Grandma Phil stayed up until 4 am bottling, while I ducked out at about midnight .... Thanks for the beans ya'll!