A Few Days of R&R

The last post announced our 20th Anniversary. For a little celebration, we took a western Caribbean cruise for 5 nights. It was such a nice time!! We liked having the time alone, but at the same time, we wished we had our kids along. There are so many things they would like to see. We also would like to have friends along. So, we hope to go again in 2 years and if you want to come, let me know and we'll keep you posted!!

So here we are on the first night at sunset. It was just beautiful out there! I love being out on the ocean. It is so peaceful. On 2 occasions, the captain got on the loudspeaker and announced dolphins and so I went to look. They looked like they were having such fun out there "performing" for us!
Our 2nd day on the boat was a day at sea. I spent time at the pool. Travis and I both had books to read. That night was the formal night, so we got dressed up for dinner. I really liked the furniture on the ship. This little sofa was unique. A picture of our boat docked in Grand Cayman. It is Royal Caribbean's Enchantment of the Seas. I was happy to go to Grand Cayman. In my senior year of high school, some friends invited me to go to GC for spring break but my mother, in her great wisdom that I didn't understand then but see so vividly now, said "no." I was excited to have a chance to go there and I was not disappointed. It was a lot quieter than the other Caribbean islands we have visited.

The beach was nice a quiet. We rented a scooter and went to 7-mile beach. We had no trouble finding a spot. No naked people either. Here are my tootsies enjoying the sand.

We liked the Guy Harvey store. His artwork is very popular. Mostly we see it on tshirts which are very popular here. I got Travis a t-shirt and he wore it at home and the girls immediately made note of dad's Guy Harvey shirt. I got a book of his artwork that he did for "Old Man and the Sea" which I am teaching at school. I plan to make copies and having the kids color them to decorate my room. We also ate at the Guy Harvey restaurant.

I took a lot of pictures of the water because it is so unnaturally blue! I plan to do a digital scrapbook and want to use the water pictures as background papers. Anyway, I spend most of the time on the boat marveling at the water.

After leaving Grand Cayman, the boat had "Caribbean Night" with a midnight buffet. We were not impressed with their fried plantains, but the food art was amazing.

Next day was our stop in Cozumel. We actually purchased an excursion to see the Mayan ruins at Tulum. We got off the boat and got on a ferry and rode 45 minutes to the mainland where we got on a bus for an hour. I was nervous about going that far away from the boat, and taking a Mexican bus, and what about the food they would serve us. But I kept telling myself that Royal Caribbean would not sponsor this excursion unless it was on the up and up. It was really nice. I was pleasantly surprised. The food was great. The beach was beautiful. The ruins were fabulous. I have been to a few places that boast iguanas but I have never seen one. Tulum was teaming with them!! I was thrilled.

This picture is nice because not only do you get a beautiful picture of me, but you also get the temple in the background and the ocean!! The whole place was so interesting. A bunch of the workers at the site were wearing BYU hats and had names like "Mosiah" and one guy told us his name was "Luis" but his middle name was "Abinadi." So that was fun. We spent that day with a couple we met from Alpine, UT. We met them because both Travis and Randy were wearing BYU shirts and BYU had just beaten Oklahoma.

Here is another shot of us with the temple.

I thought this was funny.

This is just a nice picture of us on the boat in the central atrium. This part of the boat is new. Apparently, they cut the boat in half and added this middle section. Sounds impossible to me!

So that is basically our trip. I love sitting at the pool, reading my book. I got some knitting done as we listened to music in the evenings. It was so relaxing. We had a 5 hour drive home and found the house clean and the girls happy. It was great to be back with them and they had lots of questions for us and adventures of their own to report.