Cruising in the Caribbean
So, the fam flew me home to CO on Friday after work. When I arrived in Denver, the whole clan (even Baily!) picked me up and we made our way to visit my Grandpa Joe who was in the hospital recovering from a heart attack. It was really good to see him after such a scary situation. We are so blessed to still have him here with us!
The next morning, I had the opportunity to see my brother Chase play church basketball. In between games, Collin, Chase, Kira, Grandma Jeanie, mom, and me went to Big City Burrito, a local food joint that I've been missing since I've been in Omaha. My gigantic potato burrito was delicious, as usual! After we had all eaten our fill, we went back to the church to watch more basketball. Laura and Quinn were there too, so I got to hang with them a bit as well. Kyla happened to be rehearsing for her high school musical (Miss Saigon!) at her school which was right across the street, so Laura and I snuck away from the basketball tournament to watch for a while (but not before visiting the boxer puppies that I spotted on the corner... don't worry...I didn't bring one home, although I seriously considered it!). Of what I saw, Kyla's musical was awesome! I was so impressed with how well a bunch of high school students were able to take on such a challenging show! I'm totally disappointed that I wasn't able to see the final performance, but at least I got to see a few snippets here and there.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I was all packed and ready to go so there wasn't much for me to do, but the rest of the family frantically scrambled to get everything together before our flight the next morning. Since we needed to leave the house for the airport at like 3:00 am, the whole fam (minus Kira who couldn't manage to stay awake) decided to pull an all nighter. I think we were all zombies by the time morning came, but it made for some good sleep on the plane, which was good considering we were flying almost all day. When we finally arrived in San Juan, we boarded the ship and started exploring. It was a beautiful ship, as you can see.
This is a picture of our very first night on board. I think we were all pretty darn excited to finally be on the long awaited cruise!
The places we visited include San Juan, Barbados, Tortolla, St. Lucia, St. John, and Antigua. We got to swim with sea turtles on 2 separate occasions, chase after wild iguanas, do lots of snorkeling and shopping, eat fresh coconut, hold a monkey, and swim and relax on a bunch of different beaches. Talk about an awesome trip!
Our first stop was Barbados. We took a tour where we were able to ride a glass bottom boat out and do some snorkeling and swimming with sea turtles. Below is one of the beaches on Barbados.
St. Lucia is probably the most beautiful place that I have ever seen. The water is an amazing crystal clear, blue color and the whole island is covered with lush, green vegetation. We took a boat around the island and got to see some beautiful beaches, amazing land and water formations, and the famous Pitons, pictured below.
The boat dropped us off so that we could see some of the island's volcanoes...
...and trudge through the rain forest. On our short hike, we ran into this gorgeous waterfall. The water was FREEZING, but Mom, Kira, Chase, Collin and me couldn't pass up the chance to swim underneath a water fall in the rain forest! How many times in life do you get a chance to do that?
Another shot of the Pitons taken from the rain forest. SO pretty!!!
I took a ton of pictures of the interesting plants we found in the rain forest. This is one of my favorites.
We took kayaks through the swamps and lagoons in Antigua. On our little adventure, we found a gigantic snail in a pretty brown speckled shell, a baby crab that was nice enough to hold, and tons of conch shells. Here's Chase and I heading out!
The one and only day out of our entire trip that the the weather wasn't perfect was the day that we were in Tortolla. It wasn't terrible weather by any means, but there were spurts of rain and wind throughout most of the morning. Because of the undependability of the weather, we decided to rent a car and explore on our own. We saw more beautiful sites, met an adorable puppy (that, again, I wanted to bring home with me), and hung out on some nice beaches. At one of our stops, we even got to try some fresh coconut from a coconut vendor who used a machete to open the coconuts. The coconut water was really gross, and the coconut meat wasn't much better, unfortunately, but it was fun to experience. We saw some incredible sites from the mountain peaks of Tortolla.
See! I told you I thought about my babe back at home!
I can't remember where the next two pictures were taken. Everything has kind of all blended together, but I really liked the pictures and wanted to share.
In one of the markets of St. Thomas, Chase had this guy make him a necklace. He was quite a character.
When we weren't off exploring the different islands throughout our cruise, we found lots of fun things to keep us occupied on the boat. Eating was one of our favorite pass times.
We also played a little hacky sack, which was always entertaining... ha ha!
The ship library had games that you could rent, so we took advantage of those as well.
Aside from those things, the crew did a very good job of keeping their cruising guests entertained. Each day there were different song and dancing shows, comedy acts, dancing parties on the deck, movies under the stars, live bands, fun competitions, and more. There was even a "Princess Popstar" competition that was just like American Idol, except on a much smaller scale, of course. Funny story about that... First, let me begin by explaining that I have been a performer my entire life, yet have always been terrified of it! You'd think that stage fright would be the kind of thing you'd get over after 20 years of doing it, but that definitely has not been the case with me! I'm still just as scared of it as I ever have been in the past! Anyway, our 2nd night on ship, we decided to go watch Princess Popstar. The first few performers were absolutely terrible! It was funny to watch, but then my mom and the rest of the family got it in their heads that I should get up there and show them how it's done. Mortified, I told them that there was no way that I was gonna get up and perform in front of all those people! Long story short, they talked me into it, and it wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it was going to be... that is until the end of the show came and the host announced that I had been voted the winner of the 1st heat of Princess Popstar... uh, excuse me? The FIRST heat? You mean, I have to do this again!? I shot a terrified look at my mom and noticed the guilty look on her face. Apparently, she knew the whole time that this was going to be a week long competition, while I thought it was a one evening deal! She thought it was hilarious... Well, to wrap up my story, I survived and ended up in the top six on the final night. I'm actually kinda glad that I did it...but don't tell my mom that :)
I want to say a BIG thank you to my mom and Kurt for taking us all on such a fun vacation. Although the cruising part was an incredible experience, the best part was getting to spend a whole week with my family. I love you guys!!
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Someday...:)