Graduation/10 year anniversary trip

I'm sorry if you were expecting to see pictures of our cruise to the Mediterranean. Apparently I forgot to mention that our plans changed a little. We didn't save up enough for that one, and we couldn't justify taking money out of savings so we decided on a cruise of the southern Caribbean. Check back in about six years for pictures from Europe.

So if you are still interested in hearing about vacation, he it goes.

Getting to Puerto Rico was quite an adventure in itself. While we were going through security in Tulsa I noticed that the lady in front of me wearing a skirt was getting a pat down. So I was prepared for it as soon as I went through also wearing a skirt. I made a mental note of that.

Then as the flight crew was getting everything ready for take off, they discovered that one of the overhead bins wouldn't stay closed. I was so sleepy from getting up at 4:00am that I didn't really see everything that happened, but I do know they had to call someone in to fix it which delayed us for a while.

Fortunately we made our connecting flight, but some time into it (once again I was sleeping) An announcement came on that there was a medical situation and they asked if there were any nurses or Doctors on board. We were pretty far back though and about 10 nurses jumped up to help so Josh just stayed in his seat. We never did find out what was wrong with the old lady, but we had to sit tight once we landed so a medical crew could come on board and whisk her away.

We didn't have any problems getting to the ship, thank goodness.

On board was pretty cool. There was tons of stuff to do. This picture was taken at our first stop, Curacao.


The indoor pool where Josh and I spent a lot of time after getting burned the first day at the outdoor one. We even went tanning the whole month before to prevent that.


The food was all fantastic, but my favorite part was the deserts.

Every night they had a different chilled fruit soup option on their appetizer list and I am hooked. Watermelon was my favorite, but this strawberry one came in a close second.

Josh made me take this ridiculous picture.

An island shot of Curacao. They had this really neat floating bridge that they opened and closed when boats came through. Of course I forgot to take a picture of it.

I don't remember what island this was at, but that is our balcony that Josh is standing on.

My favorite island was Dominica. Pronounced Domineeka. It is a jungle island, and is absolutely beautiful. We took a tour up into the mountain, and then hiked a little ways up to some waterfalls. Dominica is a volcano island so it has cold springs and waterfalls and hot springs and waterfalls

There were a bunch of land crabs on the hike up.

The steam is from where a hot sulfur spring comes up and mixes with a cold stream.

The boiling sulfur water

Bananas grow abundantly there. As do avocados and nutmeg.

I don't remember the name of this cool tree

These African tulip trees were my absolute favorite.

Wouldn't you love to have this in your back yard?

A view of the city

Josh kept taking pictures of me so I snuck one in of him.

Our last stop was at St Thomas and we spent the whole day at Magen's bay. Apparently it is one of the top 10 beaches in the world and I have to say it was gorgeous. The perfect setting to sit and read

More of Josh's picture taking.

We both had a fantastic time, but like always I was ready to get back home by the end. The return trip was excruciatingly long. They dropped us off at the airport at 9:30 in the morning, but our flight didn't leave until almost 4:00. And, by the end of the week I had completely forgotten about not wearing a skirt to the airport, so I got anther pat down in Puerto Rico.

There weren't any broken overhead bins to delay us on the first flight, but there was some stormy weather heading into Chicago so they wouldn't let us land for 20 minutes, and we only had 30 minutes to catch our next flight. Fortunately though our flight leaving Chicago was delayed a little bit also due to the weather, so we didn't miss it. Our luggage missed it though, which is the second time in a row that has happened to us.

I didn't really care about the luggage though, I was just so happy to be back with the kids. I missed them so much the last couple of days that I went in and woke up Samm and James just so I could get a hug and kiss. I didn't dare wake up Macy at midnight, because I wasn't sure if she would go back to sleep, but I did pick her up carefully so I could rock her for a few minutes. The next morning was like Christmas for me. I could hardly sleep, waiting for them to wake up. As soon as I heard Macy making noise at 6:30 I ran into get her, only to find out that she was calling for Grandpa. She changed her tune once she saw me though and has been attached to my hip ever since we got back.

Now we are leaving tomorrow morning to drive up to Michigan to find a house. Macy might not forgive me this time.

PS. Josh and I just celebrated 10 years!