Cruise Time

Jesse and I were able to go on a little getaway while my cute sister in law tackled 5 kids for a week. She's a rockstar. As well as my in laws and Brandi and Aaron who took over for weekend duty. We were gone for 10 days total and I sure missed those kids of mine. It was the longest i'd been away. It was a heavenly break from them though!

We started off the trip with a little stay in Key Largo. We went on an air boat ride through the everglades and saw a lot of alligators. We stayed 6 of us in a one room hotel and took the layout chair mats to sleep on. We are so cheap!

 Next we drove all the way to this farmers market to get really gross smoothies, eats weird and not yummy fruit, but we did get to see and hear turtles doing the naughty so i'd call it a fun success!

 The next day was incredibly cold so we tried to waste our time before the cruise at a state park walking around.

Entrance to the cruise ship! We finally made it, although we had to wait in line for a couple of hours in the pouring rain before we could get on. Quite the beginning to our trip!

 

 We went with a really fun, crazy crew. Elesha and Jason Wallace, Janiel and Mike Smith and Kristin and Jason Raleigh. We have been friends since Elementary. We are all so totally different which made it so much fun.

 The first day on the ship was pretty cold but that didn't stop the boys. They had challenges to see who could go down the slide the fastest and at times I was convinced one of the was going to fall out. They had an audience at the end! We did a scavenger hunt and totally should have won! We ate a lot. 2 or 3 ice creams per day! The boys weighed in the day we left and the day we came home. Mike won with a total weight gain of 10 pounds. Luckily Jesse and I didn't win!

 My hott husband!

 We went to a comedy show which I must have been tired because I thought it was hilarious, while the others weren't very impressed. The really funny part is that the next night we thought we were going to a different comedy show and ended up going to the same exact show!

 The dinners were amazing and it was fun to dress up. Although some nights I would have preferred not to shower and stay in my swimming suit.

 Day #1 we went to Dominican Republic which was my favorite. We rented a taxi and went to a 27 waterfalls hike. It was incredible and also kind of scary. We jumped off of waterfalls, slide down narrow water ways and had a beautiful hike. My water shoes that I hadn't worn for years but looked like they were in perfect shape fell apart halfway through the hike so I ended up walking on boulders in socks. Jesse tried carrying me but I didn't want to be a baby about it. The tour guide ended up giving me his shoes for the last little bit which was so sweet. We had a 30 year old German guy join us for the day and he was so nice. It was funny to have a little tag along. We felt like his parents the whole time although we were the same age!

The beaches were beautiful

                                                              Day #2 Saint Thomas
We took a 4 hour snorkeling excursion this day. The city is pretty but the waters just happened to be extremely rough this day. We went out on a little boat and half of us scuba dived while the rest snorkeled. They all joked that Jesse just needed to scuba dive because he would dive down with his snorkel right where they were and stay there for awhile. They were all shocked and surprised that he could go down that far. It was around 30-40 feet. He is a little fish! I snorkeled for a bit but was unfortunately very sea sick and ended up throwing up and still not feeling very well. We were able to see sting rays, turtles and lots of fish by the ship wreck and reefs.

We finally got off the boat and got to see a little bit of the city. 

                                                                   Day #3 Puerto Rico
I wasn't expecting Puerto Rico to be so cool, but I actually loved it. It was really pretty, unique and had that old town feel that I have learned to love. We went to an awesome fort with great views!

Luckily Elesha shares my infasination with cemetary's We were able to walk around this cool cemetery and there was a grave that had been crushed in and we could see the skeleton. CRAZY cool

We got caught in a storm and got poured on. It was kind of fun!

                                                                  Day #4 Grand Turk

Back on the boat for our final "at sea" day

 I have no idea who's strange idea this was to change husbands. They thought it would be so funny, but then it ended up being the cutest picture of us all and we aren't even with our husbands. haha

Jesse is awesome and would go crazy with me on the dance floor. He is my forever partner. We have so much fun together!