Our Caribbean Cruise - Mar/Feb 2010!

What an anticipated vacation! We always escape in February from the cold, dreary Utah winter. But this trip was extra special. With the twins on the way, we knew it would probably be our last "big" trip for a few years. I was finally over my morning sickness and very much looking forward to a warm, relaxing vacation! And it was everything we anticipated and wanted. We had a WONDERFUL time. Our ship, the Crown Princess, was the nicest ship we have ever been on. The food was wonderful and I (and everyone else) ate to our heart's content! The babies loved all the fresh fruit (especially the watermelon). The weather was perfect; we just had a fabulous time! Why does it have to end???

We always carry our bathing suits onto the ship in our hand luggage so we can immediately hit the pools and hottubs (it can take hours for your luggage to get delivered to your room). How wonderful it was to get into a bathing suit after months of winter!

Brady and I on formal night.

On formal night, they had a champagne waterfall and invited the ladies to come and help pour the champagne! Too bad I couldn't drink any of it!

Brady and Gibson swimming in the pool (1 of 6!). I was sitting on the deck watching a movie - there's a huge movie screen outdoors above the swimming pool. What a fun ship!

Gibson in the kid's area. It's about 10:00 at night and they were relaxing and watching a movie.
He absolutely LOVES the kid's area. They do so many fun activities: Pizza parties, crafts, pajama parties, face painting, Spongebob day, etc.

On a side note - we sailed out of Ft. Lauderdale - home of the Oasis of the Seas. It's the world's largest cruise ship that just set sail in December. It's HUGE!!!!!

Grand Cayman

Our first, and most favorite stop, was Grand Cayman. Next to Arches National Park, I think it is one of the most beautiful places on earth! There's nowhere else where the water is so blue and the sand so white. The sand is smooth and the beach is perfect! We went to the public beach area of 7-mile beach and just had a blast. It was SO hot that day and there was no wind. Even after religiously applying sunscreen all day, we all got really sunburned (it was Gibson's first).

The waves here are awesome to play in!

Gibson kept trying to build a sand castle - but the waves kept coming up higher and higher!

Gibson and I in paradise!

Playing in the ocean with dad!

Gibson loving life in the water! Look how beautiful it is!!!

Gibson and I playing in the ocean - riding the waves!

Gibson made a "sand angel"

Gibson and Brady dug a really deep hole - maybe if Gibson had stayed in there all day he wouldn't have gotten sunburned so bad!

Gibson posing with a pirate. There are a lot of fun stores in Grand Cayman - it's where we did most of our shopping on the trip.

Brady's not the best cameraman - but here's Gibson and I riding the waves! One minute you could touch bottom, and the next you were 4 feet higher! SO FUN!!!!

This video gives you a small idea of how much Gibson loves playing in the ocean!

Roatan, Honduras

My most anticipated stop was Roatan, Honduras. It's a new stop - the cruise line just started stopping there about 6 months ago (instead of Jamaica). I had heard that the beach was one of the best in the world with some of the best snorkeling. But it was actually our least favorite beach of the trip. And with such big waves, it was hard to snorkel. Brady and I did do some awesome snorkeling and saw incredible stuff, but we couldn't get over the large reef to the deeper part of the ocean, because of the large waves.

The island was pretty, though. Very green. But very poverty-stricken. I called it the "poor-man's Mexico". We had a long cab ride to the beach and saw a lot of the island - most of it very poor.
Mahogany Bay is very nice - it's new and was built just for the cruise ship that stop here. It's also deceiving because it is nothing like the rest of the island.

Our ship - the Crown Princess.

There were so many beautiful flowers in bloom - a sight for sore eyes!

As always, Gibson is as happy as a clam just playing in the sand and ocean all day!

Brady and Gibson playing catch with a coconut. Here's a video of the same:

Cozumel!

Our third stop was Cozumel, Mexico. Gibson was very excited for this stop because he loves Mexico (especially the junk trinkets you can buy from vendors). Fortunately, it was a beautiful, sunny day. But, unfortunately, it was windy. So while our plan had been to take a tour out to sanddollar bar and do some snorkeling, we couldn't. No boats were in the water that day at all.
But we went down to the southern end of the island to Albertos. It was a great beach - the best seashell searching of the trip!

Me - relaxing on the beach in the sun. Does it get any better?

Gibson and I sharing a VIRGIN margarita. :)

Having our usual Mexican beach lunch of quesedillas and nachos. The food on the west coast is better, though (maybe because I always have a bucket of beers to go with it).

Brady and I - Gibson's not a bad photographer!

Gibson and I!

Brady and Gibson - my two wonderful boys!

An iguana! We saw them all over the road that led to the beach!

Our ship is the one on the left. They park so close together at the port - it's cool!

Princess Cays

Princess has their own private island in the Bahamas, Princess Cays. It is one of our favorite spots. Brady and I did some great snorkeling here. We even saw a huge jellyfish! I'll post the snorkeling pics after I get the underwater camera developed.

It was an absolutely beautiful day! Notice the beautiful blue skies and water and the white, sandy beach - PERFECT!

This time we were smart and brought our own $1 disposable inflatable rafts, insteading of renting their rafts for $8 a piece. This picture is one of my most favorite pictures from the entire cruise! Gibson had so much fun playing in the ocean here on his raft!

Gibson and Brady built a turtle in the sand.

They also built an alligator!

Gibson and I on the beach. That's our ship, the Crown Princess, in the background.

This is a great video of Gibson playing on his raft - love it!

The Florida Everglades

After getting off the cruise Saturday morning, we had a lot of time to kill (our flight didn't leave until 6:00 pm!!). So we booked a tour for the day. Our first stop was the Florida Everglades for an airboat ride!
Brady, Gibson and I on the airboat!

Towards the end of the ride, we finally got to see an alligator (1 of 2 we spotted)!

If you ever wondered what the Everglades looked like - here they are!

After the airboat ride, we watched an alligator show. This man is an alligator wrestler. He was getting ready to compete in a national competition. When we arrived, he was scrubbing down and rubbing his alligators (there were probably about 10 of them) - you could tell they were his babies!

Here's some of the show:

Flamingo Gardens

We ended our trip with a visit to Flamingo Gardens. It wasn't really filled with flamingos (but there were some), it was just the name of this nature preserve. It was really fun. There were a lot of animals and sub-tropical plants and fruit trees. It was a rather large place. We first took a tram tour and then walked around by ourselves for awhile. It was warm and sunny, too (and it wasn't the airport) - that was the best part!


The few flamingos that they had.


Some otters - they were really cute to watch!


Gibson and I standing by a really large tortoise!


Gibson and I standing in front of a HUGE banyan tree!

A beautiful bald eagle. He was fun to watch - he was playing and splashing in the water. One of his wings had been amputated, so that's why he was in the preserve.

Gibson sitting next to some sort of large pelican??

This video was taken inside the aviary. It was a large, completely open space, covered with a net, so the birds could be right in the open with you. Some of them were rather noisy, as you will see!

And, sadly, we went to the airport afterwards, and that's the end of our cruising days for awhile!

My Computer is Finally Fixed! Update on our Last Month!

So I have been without my own computer for about a month. Fortunately I had Brady's to use for e-mail, etc. But without my own, I couldn't do my pictures, update my blog, etc. After replacing my motherboard, memory and hard drive (yes, I lost my hard drive), Brady finally got my computer working again! He is a hero in my eyes!

So here is an update on what we've been up to this past month.
Gibson joined a bowling league in January. He is a REALLY GOOD bowler. He would score at least one strike and a few spares during every league. Unfortunately, the other people on the league were a little odd (to put it nicely) and mom and dad just couldn't stomach taking him anymore.

Gibson lost his first tooth the first week of February! He had it in his mind that the tooth fairy brings $5, all in silver and gold dollars. Well, the tooth fairy that visits our house brings $3 in bills. Fortunately, he was just fine with that!

My company, ARUP, sponsored a family tubing night again at Soldier Hollow. We started out the evening with dinner at Tarahumara in Midway. Mmmmm! And then Gibson and Brady bundled up and went tubing while I sat in the lodge and drank hot chocolate! It was a really fun night out with the family!

And throughout all of this, I just continue to keep getting bigger! Here I am at 13 weeks. I was this big with Gibson at 5 months! Can't wait to see how big I am at that point! And these 2 are busy babies! Already kicking mom all the time! FYI - we find out the sexes on March 9th. Stayed posted for the news!