(early) Anniversary Trip to Mexico!

Lance and I were able to take a much needed vacation! We took a 5 night Caribbean cruise! The only way were able to do it was my mom flew in from Utah and stayed with the kids the whole time---I can't thank you enough Mom!! It was amazing to get away. We actually have never been away from our kids for more that 2 days, and we have never taken any kind of trip like this before. We left from New Orleans and went to Progresso, Mexico and Cozumel. We chose Carnival Cruise lines and were quite pleased with them. I can't even begin to say all the different things we did, but I'll highlight a few. Some of the pictures may not mean a whole lot to you all, but they hold a lot of memories for Lance and I:

We had many a bets during miniature golf---I have to say that I punished Lance most every time!

We played in scrabble tournaments, charade matches, beanbag tosses, and Lance did a few 3-point shooting competitions. But, our favorite thing to do every evening was definitely going to karaoke!! We loved sitting there and listening to some great and some super-aweful people karaoke. We could sit there for hours and be entertained--I even got up once!

They had an enormous outdoor movie screen that had movies playing at night. The first night we went to bed at 9pm and woke up at 11:45pm for the midnight showing. It was a weird feeling. We watched The Proposal one night, Land of the Lost another---which was a super fun movie to watch that I'm sure would have been totally dumb in any other setting--, and we watched This Is It like 5 times-it was always on. I can't hear a Micheal Jackson song not without thinking our cruise.

We definitely did a lot of dancing!! There was midnight dancing on the deck under the stars one night--soooo fun--and another night they had Micheal Jackson night in one of the clubs. (another reason why his songs will always remind me of our trip) I will have to toot my own horn and say that Lance and I were the stars of the floor. People actually came in and sat and just watched us. We let loose and danced like no one else was around. An unforgettable night!

This is us stopping in Cozumel; we just stayed at all the shops that were connected to the deck. You had the option to take a bus out to the city, but all the shops kept us busy enough. It was so beautiful and we actually didn't mind all the locals stopping us and trying to get us to buy things.

The places we stopped were so beautiful, but we really loved the view from our ship too. Looking out at endless ocean what such a unique feeling. It was like you were literally worlds away from any care.

This is me in a super-rockin' congo line with a bunch of old ladies. Love it! This is another one of my favorite memories about the trip.

The is the only picture we got of Progresso. Please excuse the not-so cute sunglasses. It's actually a sad story. When our luggage was delivered to our room my sunglasses were broken--not good on a Carribean cruise to be without sunglasses! They had a little shop on the ship with sunglasses that were around $160 dollars! Yikes. I found a random ugly pair for $30, but was just grateful to find something. Ironically when I got home I bought my now-favorite pair at Aldi's for $2.99--go figure! We planned on spending the on-land day just bumming around the beach in Progresso. It was so relaxing and fun. Although there we endless all-you-can-eat buffets on the ship, we decided to pay and eat at our very first authentic mexican restaurant since Lance and I love Mexican food. Umm,...let's just say we realized we love americanized-mexican food.

This is our ship!

We had a formal night where we had to dress up for dinner--I love getting dressed up for dinner--and we decided to play a round of mini golf afterwards. Lance obviously wasn't doing so well.

The formal dining room always had yummy food; but by far Lance preferred the soft-serve icecream machines placed around the ships. I think he ate some 300 cones during our stay.

It was just a fantastic trip!! We did get really homesick for our kids. And by the last day it was like we couldn't get home fast enough to see them! But within the first 24 hours of being home I was like, "Now why did I miss this???"

I really have to give a big shout out to my mom--she was amazing with my kids and that allowed us to really feel relaxed to enjoy ourselves. I know from obvious first hand experience that it is draining and hard watching 3 little one by yourself day in and day out. I am so grateful for your unselfishness Mom!