Spring break 2012

My friend Alexis and I were sitting in class one day in January and I said, "hey Lex, let's go on a cruise." We started looking into it during class, not thinking that it would really be possible. I made a slideshow for my husband of all the reasons we should go on a cruise for spring break. It must have been pretty convincing because three days after I said that to Alexis, and made the slideshow, our trip was booked. :) I guess you could call it an impulse buy. We set out on April 6th right after all of our finals to start our long drive (yes, we drove.) from Idaho to Texas. As I look back, it really didn't seem like such a long drive to me, the men always remind me it was because I did not drive at all. I like to think it was because we were having fun. I cannot tell you how many sketchy gas stations we stopped at. That was our word for the trip "Sketch." We had a lot of...well...interesting experiences on the road. I wouldn't trade them for anything! I was so lucky to be able to stop at my sister's house on the way to Galveston and the way back. I had not seen her in over a year, although we could only stop for about an hour each way, It was so fun to see her and love on her little kiddos. They have all grown up so much, and I got to meet my newest neice, Sawyer.

Addison and I with the kids

Us with Brittanie and Nathan, I sure do love them.

Sawyer and I.

Just because she is cute.

After we left Britt's house we went down to Houston to have dinner and stay the night with some of the families that Bart served while on his mission. First we went to some members house and had dinner, they were such a cute couple and so inviting to let us into their home. After we had dinner we took a quick trip to the Houston temple, It was so beautiful. Then we went to another members home to sleep and woke up the next day to finish our trip to Galveston. I'm not going to lie, I am convinced to be a Texan. I loved driving through it, who knew it was so green and beautiful?

At last, we arrived to our ship, the Mariner of the Seas. We checked on and right away went to...eat. It wouldn't be dramatic of me to say that I ate close to 100 burgers that week. yum. The first two days we were at sea. We pretty much just laid in the Sun, swam, ate, repeat. It was fantastic. The first day on land we went to Roatan, Honduras. It is my new favorite place on earth. The beaches had white sand, and the water was so clear. When we first got off the boat all of the vendors were stalking us, we finally picked somebody to take us to the beach. The drive there was "sketch" I don't know how we are still living. There apparently are not enforced road laws on the beautiful island of Roatan, or anywhere else we went for that matter. We came pretty close to head on collisions more than once. anyways, the driver took us to the beach. We weren't sure what to do when we got there so we played in the water for a little bit. Addison and I then took a walk farther down the beach. When we got in the water all of these fish started to swim in between us and just hung around. I think they really liked Addison's swim shorts.

We walked back to Alexis and Bart, and all of us decided to rent some snorkeling gear. BEST DECISION OF MY LIFE. It was a surreal experience to swim in such clear water and see such beautiful rainbow looking fish and coral. It may sound like I am playing it up, I promise I am not. If you don't believe me, go, in fact, I will go again with you. I told Addison that someday we will be hippies and retire on that island. He didn't fight it.

We decided it was time to grab some grub and walked into...town?...and found a little place that looked like it had some decent cuisine :). when we were seated the waiter handed Addison this parrot, and I think those two fell in love at first sight.

Of course we had to all pass it around and hold it...For some reason it thought Alexis' hair was a real treat..

Once our yummy lunch was downed we headed back to the beach to swim and play a little bit more. The day came to an end and we took another life threatening ride back to our ship to sail on to day 2. The Second day we found ourselves in Belize city, Belize. I'm not going to lie, I don't have the best taste in my mouth when it comes to our experience Belize, I am not sure why because when I look back at it..we had a lot of fun. However the day started off extremely "sketch." Addison and I could not find Bart and Alexis on the ship so finally we decided we would start our day without them, bad choice. When we got on land we expected to be taken to a beautiful beach, just like we had in Roatan. So we immediately got in a van with this guy, that claimed he was going to give us a tour and bring us to a beach...wrong-O. He did give us a tour, however I am pretty positive that he made up a good 99% of it. He then said that he was taking us to the beach. We drove clear out of town, probably 20 minutes, and pull up to this little shack looking thing. We walk out to this dock where a lady is sitting and he then explains that this is where all of the tourists come to spend their day and we were just lucky enough to be the first people there...we look to the right and see this pool made out of sand and a slide that looked like it had not operated in a billion years. Personally I think it would be a great place to film a scary movie. Yes, I sound very ethnocentric right now, and like a greedy American, but...it just kind of shocked us. To boot, the lady was wanting us to give her $40 to swim in it. We asked if there was a different beach close by and he said that the one by the pool was swarming with jelly fish...awesome, so we kindly asked him to take us back to the ship...I am sure I did not word or draw it out very well but it was extremely "sketch." Right when we got back we ran into Alexis and Bart and we bought an excursion to go cave tubing. We drove out to get our headlamps, water shoes, tubes, etc. We hiked through a rainforest, which was really pretty. We finally got to the spot where we would get in to start our cave tubing adventure. The water was just as blue as Roatan :)

Cave tubing was fun, I am glad we did that instead of succumbed to the pool of dreams...There were really shallow parts and the guide would say, "butts up." In the cave there were crystal looking rocks inside of the caves that you could see if you shined the light on them. It was a really cool experience. On the drive back we were all pretty tired so we went straight back to the ship after tubing. The third and last day on land we went to Cozumel, Mexico. The first part of the day we mostly just walked around and went shopping in the little shops. Bart and Alexis wanted to collect sand at each of the ports and so we walked into this one shop and they saw this tequila bottle that they thought was awesome so they decided to buy it and dump the tequila out so they could put sand in it. Funny story, the security wouldn't allow them to take the sand onto the ship when they were checking back on to the boat. Here they are buying their first tequila.

We bought an excursion in Cozumel to swim and feed sting rays. First they gave us each two fish that we held in our hands and put it under water. The rays would come and bump your hand and then you would release the fish. Some of the Rays were huge! They would bump against your legs and almost knock you over. after we all fed and pet, held, kissed, etc the rays we went into a deeper tank to snorkel with them. It was a lot of fun, and I am so glad that we did it!

Once we were done with our sting ray encounter we still had a little time to walk around and look at more shops. It was sad to leave Cozumel because we knew our cruise was almost over. On my last cruise a lady set an iguana on my head (it pooped on me) so I figure that taking pictures with iguanas are a new tradition so I gave it another attempt...this one bit my lip. I mean literally had my bottom lip inside of its mouth. I was a little hesitant after that.

The ship had a lot of activities that the passengers could do. There was an ice rink, rock climbing, miniature golf, ping pong, a basketball court, and I am sure I am missing a few things, we had a great time on board. Every single night we had the same waiter, Aimen. He became our friend, and i'm not going to lie when I say that sometimes I miss him haha. We were probably 4 out of 20 people on the ship that did not drink alcohol, and all of the waiters in that area knew it. So on the second night, Aimen brought us chocolate milk. He continued to do so until the very last night. He was good to us.

The last day we pulled up to Galveston, and got off the ship. All of us headed to one of Bart's old wards. It was good that we were able to stop at a place with a sink because Bart brought boiled eggs on the way there for Easter. They were not eaten and somehow forgotten in the cooler, that was in the trunk of the car, in the blistering heat, for an entire week... hahaha. We had such a great time on our cruise, and we look forward to doing it again. We made a lot of memories that will never be forgotten. I am a believer that cruises are definitely one of the better ways to travel. :)