"Cruising" right along!

Kiley & I spent a fabulous week in the Western Caribbean! We have been home now for two weeks & are ready for another vacation! Isn't that how it always goes? We missed our kids, but enjoyed the time away & the good friends we were with. My little sis, Ashely, came & stayed with the kids & my mom flew out midway through & helped her out. I think they had a great time & didn't miss us at all. I was really worried with leaving Liv, but she grew attached to Ashley & when we got home, she wouldn't come to me for over 2 hours! She cried & started shaking when she saw me. So sad! I didn't know if I should laugh or if I should cry! It took me blow drying my hair for her to finally realize that it was me & that I was home for good! She has been my little side kick ever since. Any how, back to the cruise....
I'll first start off with our port of calls (where we stopped) & the excursions we went on. The first was Cozumel. We went clear bottom kayaking & then snorkeling. I got terribly sick while we were snorkeling & my friend, Andrea also felt ill, so we hopped out & went & took a siesta on the beach! Our 2nd port of call was Roatan, Honduras. It was a blast! We went zip lining through the jungle. I nearly killed myself & one of the tour guides---I went way too fast down the one line they told us specifically how to stop on & I tried, but missed that we need to stop with 2 hands & I came in at full speed. Luckily, I wasn't hurt too bad, but I think he was in a lot of pain! We made sure we left him with a nice tip! After zip lining, we went to an amazing beach-the water was crystal clear & the sand was beautiful! Our 3rd port of call was Progresso. This was a very unique excursion. We drove inland for about 1 1/2 hours. Our tour guide really knew his history & so we learned a lot about the Mayan culture. When we got to our destination, we hopped on "trucs", which were little wooden wagons pulled by horses on a train track. We rode on those for a while & made it to the cenotes caves. We got to hike down into the caves & swim in the natural well water that the Mayans used to use as their drinking water. We went to two different caves. The 2nd one we had to climb down a latter straight down a hole. It was beautiful & definitely an experience we are glad we had!

I forgot to mention that the cruise line we were on was the Royal Caribbean. The ship was the Voyager of the Seas. It was AMAZING! It is the 3rd largest ship-so it was pretty big! We had just a regular stateroom-reminded me a lot of a cheap hotel room, but still very nice. There was a lot to do on the ship-ice skating, roller blading, mini golf, dancing, rock wall climbing, basketball, ping pong, arcade games, swimming, hot tubbin, & there was also an amaing work out facility! We did take advantage of the gym & enjoyed being able to look out & see nothing but ocean as we ran on the treadmills! We enjoyed dining in the nice dining room & had fun eating new things.

We did enjoy the entertainment, but now know what Simon Cowell means when he says, "That was like a cruise ship performance!" The iceskating performance was our fave! We did a little bit of country dancing & swing dancing. Lots of relaxing & reading books. We enjoyed being with good friends. Mafia was a nightly ritual (almost nightly), especially fun in the hot tub---we were all amazing liars! I did get a little motion sick the last 2 days! I took two dramamine & was OUT! We had to head back to our room & I crashed by 10pm! That was early for us! I tried to run on the treadmill the next day & had NO BALANCE what so ever! It was quite a funny sight! It is always nice to get away for awhile-thank you to those who took care of things at home so we could slip away for 7 days with no worries, thanks to great friends for inviting us to come along, & thanks to Kiley for working so hard so we could pay for this wonderful trip! Love ya Babe!