Cruise Part 2

So finally, I will give you part 2 of our trip. So fitting seeing as the cold weather has arrived and I can dream and be reminded of the beautiful summer days and nights of our vacation spent on the beaches of the Southern Caribbean..

Gotta have a cute feet picture overlooking the waters... of Barbados!!!

Laura and I in the back of an open Land Rover, about to explore the island of Barbados.. "Off-Roading Style!"

My honey and me before we left for the off-roading trip with our funny islander tour guide!

Just a cool shot I happened upon as we sped through the town of Barbados..

A church at the top of a hill over-looking the back side of the island of Barbados.

The "back side" of the island, where the waves are so big that swimming is not allowed. It was beautiful with all of the huge rocks.

Another angle... All of the rocks are natural.

Teeny-tiny Laura and me underneath one of the rocks. We snuck over there bare-footed and nearly sliced all of our toes open. Because it is so rough on this side of the island, there is no sand, just broken up rock.

Us girls, before dinner one night. Kinda blurry of me, but perfect of Laura. Weird.

Caleb and me, blurry but a cool shot.

The next day, in St. Lucia. We went zip lining through the rainforest, which was an absolute blast! Plus, we got to wear really cool harnesses and hard hats!

Us in front of a MASSIVE tree.

The beautiful hills of St. Lucia as we took a gondola ride down the mountain.

Us.

Leaving St. Lucia... By the way, the "unleaded" beverages were cheaper than the "leaded" ones on the ship, and just as tasty. We didn't actually order both of those beverages, but apparently the waiter who didn't speak English didn't understand our English and thought we wanted two. Oh well. It's vacation and they were quite tasty!

A cool shot of the runway. I'm sure lots of very rich people fly in on their private jets to this runway. I can dream...

Shane and Laura.. so happy they decided to spend a week with us! =)

Us before dinner. Trying to get every couple shot possible. AND, we didn't have to bug a stranger to take our picture and settle for a mediocre one because we didn't want to offend said stranger because their first attempt at taking our picture stunk. Can anyone relate??

Ahh... MY FAVORITE... ANTIGUA!!!!

Just so beautiful. We did an all day catamaran trip where we cruised around the entire island, snorkeled, ate a fresh grilled lunch off the back of the boat, and baked quite nicely in the sun. Fabulous!

A boat slip on the island of Antigua.

Beautiful waves crashing on the rocks.

Us, well baked and tired from a long day of snorkeling and playing.

The mountains and beaches of Antigua. AMAZING!!

Sunset picture as we headed to St. Kitts. Sad to leave such a beautiful place.

The fake happy smile. Love it.

Us girls nearly getting blown over, and struggling for a good picture without our hair in our mouths. This was the best one of about 20. Love the husbands for enduring the photo session.

Us, burned, but dressed for a night of fun... The midnight buffet was this night!

Posey prom pic. Killing time until midnight when we can join the masses for the picture taking, dessert eating extravaganza... Well, we partook in the picture taking, but were still full from dinner and would have to wear a swimsuit the next day, so we abstained from dessert.

The midnight buffet begins. Our boat made out of cheese.

Incredibly artistry with sugar, butter and chocolate.

Watermelon Native American (I am so P.C.) =)

At St. Kitts, being silly girls in the phone booth. But it made for a cute pic!

More of us. We decided to forgo the beaches and just walk around town. We kinda wish we went to the beaches, but had a good ol' time just romping around town and not having a real agenda.

Token pic with the ship.

Our last night. Sunset picture. Memories. Ah.

A random island that is inhabited. It looked like a cool little island.

Enjoying the "unleaded" beverages one last time in the special cups. We saved them, and brought them home, only to find them broken. Oh well.

All in all, we had a most glorious vacation with our friends and are anxiously awaiting the next trip. We have tentatively scheduled our next big vacation. Stay tuned to find out... And I promise it won't be a month before I post again.

Cruise Part 1

Ok people. So here goes on the first half of the vacation...

SO, we knew that with all of the home renovations that we were going to need a break when it was all said and done. The timing of this vacation couldn't have been more perfect. We kicked off the vacation with the John Mayer and Colbie Callait concert at what is now the Super Pages dot Com center in Dallas. I blogged about that, so scroll down to find out about that. The next morning, we woke up super early (I think we got 3 hours of sleep) to catch our flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Our vacation was not just "ours", but was shared with our wonderful friends Shane and Laura, who decided they liked us enough to vacate with us for 8 days! So, off to the airport we went and after a 5 hour plane ride, a nearly finished book (Marley and Me- AWESOME), the movie "21" and our last Dr. Pepper for over a week, we arrived in PR ready to play!

Us in Old San Juan, posing for a cute pic!

Looking out over the graves and the deep blue yonder, salivating to start our cruise early!!

Another view of Old San Juan and some of the fort.

Vacation Day 2... Waiting anxiously to get on the boat and get the real party started!!

I just could not contain myself with excitement over dinner.

Ok, I got it together. Past the thrill of unlimited food options, momentarily.
At the "muster"... They are smiling because they DIDN'T get in trouble.
I'm smiling because TROUBLE is my middle name... notice the smirk on my husband's face?? That's because I just got a stern "talking to" (more like a yell, but whatev..) by a crew member for not taking muster more seriously. Apparently photos aren't allowed. That wasn't in my Carnival Caper SIR!
DAY 3... St. Thomas, USVI.. On a bus to Magen's Bay, realizing that this trip is going to cost us more than we thought. Mexico and the Southern Caribbean should get together and talk about the whole bargaining thing and what a novel idea it is in tourism.

View of the boat and the cruise terminal in St. Thomas. I think the big (small in the photo) white building behind the ship on the bay of St. Thomas is the Marriott hotel my parents are going to next summer... Can we come???!?

The couples in St. Thomas.

And here it is... (GASP!!!) Magen's Bay! One of the most incredible beaches I've seen. Plus, it was Caleb's first view of true clear blue water. His only comparison is Gulf Shores and Myrtle Beach.. A-MAZING!

In the water between frolicks.. hoping we get the nice "base tan" we forgot to get before leaving so we wouldn't burn.. woopsie!

Who's ready for some board games on board??

Posing before dinner and BINGO.. are we lucky??

That would be a no....

But we learned that Caleb isn't picky over boogers.. He'll take what he can get!

Our cute towel animal... Can you guess what it is??

DAY 3: Dominica, an island that is nearly 100% rain forest and quite lush... Smile if you're ready to hike 2 hours to a waterfall in the pouring rain!!!

In the bus to the hike and waterfall.. shiny!

A banana plantation, one of the major exports of the country. And to answer the burning question, NO there are no monkeys on this island. For real... they would eat all the bananas.

Just a pretty picture at the base of our hike.

We are ready for what was alleged as a 45 minute hike... that took more like an hour and a half! It was amazing, though and worth the yucky hair dos and drenched clothing.

Caleb hanging on to bamboo.. which grows at a minimum rate of 1 inch per day in Dominica.

My tarzan... Isn't he cute??

What our guide says was NOT a waterfall... Yea, he's spoiled.. and obviously doesn't frequent Texas, where the only waterfalls you see are in someone rich dude's backyard that isn't in my neighborhood.

The top of the big mamma waterfall...

The middle of the big mamma waterfall...

And the bottom of the big mamma waterfall, including the pool we couldn't swim in because there was too much rain that day. Sad, but really I'm glad because I lived to see so many other beautiful places on this trip that I may not have had I been pulled under by the current of the falls in the pool. Hm.

Us posing and trying to look cute despite the destroyed hairdos and soaking wet clothes. Oh well, just focus on the waterfall, ok?

Another photo of the "un-waterfall". Incredible, huh?

This is crazy... This is a picture of a Banion Tree, aka Strangler Fig, that grows from the tops of the trees down to the ground, strangling the "host tree" and replacing it once it has died and no longer can get oxygen to survive.

We clean up well after a 4 hour waterfall hike, eh?

Them too...

STAY TUNED... MORE TO COME SOON!!