Day 4 The Bahamas!!

As we sailed into the Bahamas, the first bit of land that we came to had this little lighthouse on it. As far as I could tell, it doesn't work, but I love this shot.

This is our ship, The Carnival Imagination!

And these are the water slides on the back of the ship. They were a lot of fun, but very high up!

A picture of the kids at Sr. Frogs

More Sr. Frogs

Les

Amber

This is at the Hilton Hotel in Nassau.
It is where we found the charter for the snorkeling that we did
They had a private beach and gardens that were gorgeous.

Some funny guy that was in the tourist entrance to the city in Nassau, Bahamas.
There were several of them. I don't know their meaning or history.

We found a private charter to go snorkeling. All of us were able to go.

And Brian's sister's family joined us. Bruce, Sarah, Wendi, and Stephanie.

We had so much fun with them. We wish Shelli would have come.

Sarah, Wendi, and Steph ready to go into the water. Cute girls.

Even Zak snorkeled. He had a hard time trusting the life jacket and snorkel, but he did pretty good. I'm glad he decided to come with us. He almost stayed back with Grammy. If we had done the excursion through the ship, he wouldn't have been able to come.

Brian and Les. Les didn't trust the life jacket. He was very nervous.
But once I held his hand so that he knew I was right there with him, he did better.

They insisted on a picture of me. Not so cute!

Amber was also a little nervous, but she knows how to swim a little better than Les.
She finally got the hang of it, and had a great time, and saw some cool things.

Because the skies were getting kind of dark where they usually take snorkelers, they took us another direction. We went past some really big and beautiful homes. Oh, to live there.

And some colorful ones...

And Atlantis. It is an amazing site to see on the skyline.

There was also this house. It was right out in the water. They must use a boat to get to shore.
It looked like it was about to fall down.
But there is a lamp in the window, and I could see other things,
So, someone must live there.
I can't imagine that it could survive a hurricane.

This is Bernice. She is the girl who took us out.

We really had a lot of fun. I wish I had taken my camera in a ziploc bag. The fish were amazing.

This is the view from our table at dinner.
Again, that same stretch of land that the lighthouse was on.
These houses were beautiful.

Brian's dinner on Captain's night.
He had shrimp and lobster.
The waiter somehow ended up with an extra plate, so he asked Brian if he wanted seconds.
He asked the right person.
Brian loves seafood. There is never enough.
And I don't know how to cook seafood, so he only gets it when we eat out.
And eating out that fancy rarely happens around here.

My dinner. Eggplant Parmigana. It was OK.
I've never had eggplant before.
The parmesan breading made it edible, but it looked beautiful.

And last but not least....Romeo. Our waiter.
He was so cute with the kids. But that story is on another day

Tonight was formal night on the ship.
After we put the kids to bed, we took some time on the Serenity deck for some quiet time.
It was a beautiful sunset after the gray skies we had that afternoon.

More sunset, and the point where the lighthouse was.

We only had 24 hours in the Bahamas. And we wanted to be back on the ship for the formal dinner, and to sleep. I wish we had been able to get away from the tourist district, and seen more of the Bahamas. I guess we'll have to go back someday. Wishful dreaming.....

Day 3

Boarding the Ship

View of Miami from the Ship

First family picture on the cruise...waiting to set sail.

(notice the blue skies!)

As we were on ship getting ready for our lifeboat drill, a storm started moving in. We didn't think much of it.

For the lifeboat drill, we were the only group with our muster station on deck.

I couldn't believe the storm. It went on for about an hour, with lightning all around us and very loud thunder (the lightning was very close). It rained, and rained. There was a full waterfall coming off of the deck above us. I wish I knew how much rain that we got in that hour. If I had to guess, I would say between 8-12 inches. It was unlike any storm I have seen before. Nothing like what we get here in Utah.

The palm trees were blowing in the wind.

I wish that I had my good camera with me, but it was too much to carry most of the time. There were some great photo-ops during the storm.

We set sail a little bit late, because visibility was low, But it was a fun storm to be in and get a little wet. What an experience

Dinner

Dinners on the ship were so yummy. After I ate my dinner the first night, I wished that I had taken pictures before we ate. But I did get pictures of the best part.....Dessert!

Chocolate Melting Cake Strawberry Cheesecake I had no idea how much food was available on board, so the first night, I couldn't choose which dessert to get, so I got 2! Boy was that a mistake. They were so good, but I was already stuffed. After dinner this night, I knew that I had to use some self control in the future.

Karaoke
The first night, everyone wanted to go do karaoke. Since I don't sing, I wasn't really interested, but Amber wanted to do a Taylor Swift song, so I went. I am always reminded what amazing voices there are in Brian's family.

Kate sounded amazing. She did a song that I didn't recognize, but she started the night off right.

Shelli also brought down the house with her performance. That picture ended up too dark, but what I really needed was a video of all of the songs. I missed part of Sarah, Wendi, and Steph's song, but again, they were all blessed with an amazing talent to sing, and I was so impressed.

I love that Davey loves to sing.

I love that my boys see that it is OK for boys to sing, and enjoy it.

And at one point, Sydney started off with Celebration, and all of the cousins joined in.
Even Grammy and Gramps got in on the action. I was also surprised that Les went up on stage. He is usually too shy to do anything like that.

They didn't have any songs that Amber knew well enough to do in front of an audience. She was really dissappointed. I was too. I would have loved to see her give it a try. Maybe next time.

Ocean View

This was the view from our hotel balcony in Miami Beach. Grammy found an awesome hotel for us all to stay in together before the cruise. Right off the hotel pool was the boardwalk, and then the beach. From our room it was about a 2 minute walk to the ocean. The kids loved it. We loved it.

The kids on the balcony.
Brian & I on the balcony
We could see the ships from the Port of Miami all day and all night. They were huge.

The South Beach area is beautiful. And they do an incredible job keeping the beaches clean and safe. Davey was smashing a coconut against a pole, trying to open it, and a bicycle officer was there immediately to make sure he wasn't hurting a person. We never felt unsafe, even at night.

Miami-Day 2

On Thursday, we spent the morning on South Beach. The water here is so warm...not like the cold west coast ocean that I have been in. Brian's sister and her family were here with us, along with his mom and her husband, so it was just some fun time to play with loved ones we haven't seen for a while.

Brian bought the kids a Boogie Board, and Les figured out how to catch a wave and ride it in to shore. They were all in heaven.

Thursday afternoon, Grammy & Gramps took us to a fun place called Flamingo Gardens. It has local plants and animals all in one place for us tourists to see.

First thing we saw was a peacock. At first, I got excited just for the kids to see the tail feathers. I had no idea that he would open them up and show them to us for a half hour. It was amazing.

This bird was right inside the main entrance, and it fluffed it's feathers and showed off for us too.

This is a lizard of some kind up in the tree. He was huge.

These little lizards were everywhere. The boys pointed out every one of them.

This is the big Banyan tree.

Me, Les, and Amber across the Flamingo pond.

The Gazebo surrounded by beautiful foliage.
These are roots of a tree in a swamp"coming up for air."

Amber didn't see this lizard, and nearly set her hand right on it.
Florida Gator
Amber in the bamboo. I love this picture.

Cousin Davey was determined to get a picture "riding" something. He was too chicken to actually get in with the tortoise though. All the boy cousins in the shade of the tree. Half of them are mine!

Hayden, Davey, Zak & Les

The turtles.

This gazebo was so pretty. The kids wanted to take a picture!

The kids in the Banyan tree.

A flamingo

A Pelican

A Rosiette Spoon-bill
Les learned about these birds in school this year, and was so excited to see one. When he found out that grammy and gramps were near the Everglades where these birds live, he has talked about it and wondered if they would see one. He never dreamed that he would see one!

The story behind this picture is hillarious.

When we first got to the Flamingo Garden, some of the cousins found a palm tree with some coconuts that had fallen off. Les was so excited, that he came running across the parking lot with all of the coconuts he could carry.....2......can you picture it?

All the adults and older cousins were doubled over laughing at the site! The younger ones (including Les) just didn't get it.

Nice coconuts Les! This spider was huge. And they were everywhere that we wanted to crawl into for a picture, including the bamboo.

Another Rosiette Spoon-Bill
This picture doesn't do this tree justice, but it was so beautiful.
After the Flamingo Garden, we met up with the rest of Brian's family for dinner and a night on the beach.

Flight to Ft. Lauderdale-Day 1

On Wednesday, we headed out for our big trip. We were so excited to finally be on our way.

We flew from Salt Lake to Chicago, and then on to Ft. Lauderdale. Zak loved to help his bear (who is also named Zak) look out the airplane window.

When we got to our hotel in Miami's South Beach, we took the kids out to dip their toes in the ocean before bed. They were in heaven. It was dark, so they couldn't even see it, but they managed to get soaked anyway. I knew at that point that is was going to be easy to get them in the water.