Cruisin'

Well, folks, we did it.  Yes, we took our first REAL vacation since our trip to NYC in 2007!  Can you believe it?!?  Every year since that vacation, there were things which kept us from taking a trip...Jeremy getting a job without vacation time yet, then the summer before we had Hattie in August we wanted to save our vacation time for her birth, and then the past two summers we used vacation time for Clarion choir tours.  Needless to say, we were excited to take a cruise earlier this month!

We began our vacation by driving to Longview to spend the weekend with our family and to leave Hattie there while we cruised.  Hattie immediately got to work in the backyard as her alter-ego, Cinderella!

Jeremy was so stressed...   ;)

We painted our nails blue to match her Cinderella dress!

Sunday morning, we drove from Longview down to Galveston.  We spent the night at The Galvez (an old historic hotel) and had an amazing time!  This hotel was built in 1911, and it has so much old charm and beauty...I felt like I was in The Great Gatsby!

We spent a little time on the beach on Sunday afternoon, cleaned up for dinner, and walked down the sea wall that night.

In the morning we slept in, walked around The Strand  (where Jeremy bought a hat...oh so dapper), and then boarded our ship: The Triumph!

As soon as we set sail, the sun started to set...so gorgeous!

Our first morning looked like this...

That first day was spent at sea.  We tried to relax at the pool and enjoy the sunshine while we had the chance.  Then after dinner that night, we explored the ship a little more and found a karaoke club!  It was so fun...I unknowingly signed US up to sing (a complete misunderstanding...I thought Jeremy WANTED to sing with me!), and we BOTH ended up having a great time!  Then we went to bed and woke up at our first stop...Progresso!!!

We got off the boat and saw these guys with a baby tiger, lion and monkey.  They were charging people to hold them, and we were completely stunned!  Eventually, we found out we were not supposed to take pictures, but I accidentally already did!  Oops!

The excursion we picked was called "Salsa and Salsa."  We took a 45 minute bus ride to the town of Marida, took a quick tour of the city, saw this 500-year-old cathedral, and then stopped by a hotel for our salsa and salsa lessons!  We made two types of salsa, guacomole, and then they taught us how to dance the salsa!

The Governor's Palace in Marida

The SALSA!!!

They taught us this move, which we thought was funny!  (This picture was taken BEFORE Jeremy dipped my head right into that big pole you see on the left.)

The view of the cathedral from our salsa place.

Then the next morning we woke up at our next stop...Cozumel!!!

I just had to take a picture of the coconuts...we just don't see these in Dallas!

This was the highlight of our trip!  We spent four hours here:

This huge dolphin facility is basically an enclosed part of the ocean.  The small pool you see behind the trainer in the picture above is the only one with a net to allow fish swim freely in and out of the ocean.  They have a group of sting rays in that pool as well, but they belong to the facility (they have their barbs removed so they can be cared for by the trainers).  There are four other pools (which are all connected through little entrances where the wooden bridges are between the rocks in the pictures) in which the dolpins swim, play, train, and socialize.

This is Joanna, our trainer.  The first hour was spent inside where she taught us about what they do, how they train the dolphins, how they feed them, and even how they transport the dolphins when hurricanes come.  She trained us so that we could help train the dolphins!  Then they took us outside and let us practice with the two youngest dolphins, teaching them to sing, clap, jump, and swim fast!  It was SO cool!

Here are two dolphins doing a trick, saying "hi!"

After that, they let us spend another hour with a trainer and an older dolphin IN the water!  It was so awesome!  He let us pet the dolphin, swim with the dolphin, and even ride the dolphin across the pool!  Dolphin skin is so smooth...it was surreal to be so close to one!  At the end of our time in the pool with the dolphin, they took each of our pictures as the dolphin gave us a kiss!

The last hour or so, we got to snorkel in the sting ray pool!  It was awesome!  Eels, star fish, and all kinds of fish were there!  We even saw one of those flat fish that have both eyes on one side and they camouflage themselves into the sand (I have no idea what it's called!).  They let us hold fish pieces in our hands and the fish swam right up to us and ate it!  The trainer picked up a sting ray and let me pet it under water...it was soooooo creepy and slimey!  But very, very cool.

Then it was time to shower off and come back to the boat for the ride home to Galveston.

Somehow we signed up for dining with only one other couple, which could have been extremely akward...and it was at first...but we ended up having a good time meeting this other couple, and eating every night together.  Every night the food was excellent!  We got to try lots of new, interesting things!

These sweet guys waited on us every night.  They knew our names, knew that Jeremy would want to drink tea, and that I would want coffee every night (I was so cold!)...they were the sweetest people.  I have to say, it was a little sad to say good-bye to them!

But this little face was a welcome sight to see!  We drove as fast as the law would let us so that we could see our Sweet Hattie!  It looked as though she had grown 3 inches in the six days we were gone!

All in all, it was a wonderful vacation with lots of fun memories...and yet it's so good to be back home!