Heaven

It's hard to be sitting here in the cold and wind and think back about our vacation. It was a piece of heaven so relaxing and so much fun.

We dropped the kids off at my parents and headed to the airport. Our day was very long and we ended up making an unexpected stop in Chicago. While in the airport we ran into some longtime friends of my parents. They ended up on our flight on the Chicago segment but it was good to see them. From Chicago we flew to Orlando, and played quite a few games of UNO. I won't say who won more of the games but we had lots of fun. We made it to Orlando and Jason was able to see a few minutes of the football game, and then we got on our plane and flew to Ft. Lauderdale. We got our luggage and our rental car and headed to get something to eat. Found our hotel and watched a movie and went to sleep. Monday we got up and got ready to head down to Miami. It was Jason's birthday so what better way to celebrate than to get on the ship. It wasn't the warmest day but we spent some time exploring the ship and of course ate some food. Jason did ask that I didn't make a big deal of his birthday I wanted to get some of the waiters to sing for him but I did respect his wishes. I do love this guy though! Hope he had a great birthday!! We decided that on this cruise we weren't going to have anything planned and just decide what to do when we got there. We got off the boat and headed towards the beach in Freeport. Unfortunately a cold front was moving through and the water was anything but nice. It was super windy and all the snorkel places we tried had canceled all tours that day. It was a bummer, we were going to rent bikes and go for a ride, but seeing how people were driving we quickly decided it wasn't the best idea....unless we wanted to leave our children parent less. So we just walked around the island and came across this ship, which we were told was used as the Black Pearl in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. We explored and took a few pictures, then went and had fun walking through the market.

Wednesday was probably our most favorite day, we went to the cruise lines private island and went and did some snorkeling. The water was cold and the first place we went snorkeling was a disappointment. So we spent some time soaking up some sun on the beach. Jason sure loves the sun! I sure enjoyed it unfortunately it didn't last long. It was nice while it lasted. After spending some time in the sun we hit another spot snorkeling. It was amazing and we saw so many fish, a stingray and quite possibly an eel. We never found out what exactly it was because I made Jason stop poking it with a stick. He is such a kid....one of the many reasons why I love him! I got super cold while I was watching Jason try to coax whatever animal it was curled up under the reef. So I headed out of the water while Mr Fish continued to explore the reef. In fact he was having so much fun that he just snorkeled all the way back to the main beach while I hiked back.

Our last port was at Nassau. It was overcast and not that warm. We walked around and found some gifts for our kids, and then decided to go try to find a snorkel trip. We succeeded and got a little boat and headed for a spot by Athol Island. We saw all the famous houses on Paradise Island on our ride to our snorkel spot. We jumped in the water and wow it was chilly. But it was a great spot to find some sea life. We saw lots of fish and were successful in seeing something we haven't seen before. We could only handle about 45 minutes in the water and then headed back to shore.

We had a great time people watching on the ship, and still am amazed at how much people like their drinks. They sure are fun to watch, although can be really loud.

This vacation was so relaxing and much needed, can't wait till the next one.....guess I should start planning now!