Absolute Heaven

WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD! :)
Paul's company ran a contest earlier this year and the prize for qualifying was a FreE CRuiSe! So he worked really hard and won us this wonderful trip. When he first told me that we were going, I said there was No WaY I was ready to leave my sweet baby for a whole week. So tell them thanks, but No tHaNKs we won't be going. I have never left Dylan for one night, let alone a full week. I didn't even care that this was a free trip - I didn't think I was ready to do that. After a few arguments and LoTS and loTs of convincing by Paul, I finally agreed to go. It was definitely not easy to leave Dylan behind, but we had such a BlaST on our trip!
Paul's parents came and stayed at our house with Dylan. So he had fun here in the snow with Grandpa and Grandma while we were off basking in the sun!
After a tearful goodbye at the airport on Saturday (I am SUCH a wuss!) we flew to Miami. We stayed in a beautiful hotel right in the heart of downtown Miami. We had a corner room with a gorgeous view of the city on one side and the ocean on the other. We slept in on Sunday (I haven't done that in WAY too long) and got on the cruise ship later that afternoon.


Our room on the boat was awesome! We had our own private balcony and we had chocolate covered strawberries waiting for us when we arrived. We spent Sunday and Monday on the boat and when we woke up on Tuesday morning we were in the Cayman Islands. We took a 40 minutes boat ride out to Sting Ray City. It is so cool - it is a big sand bar out in the middle of the ocean so the water is only about 4 ft deep. There are hundreds of sting rays that come swim all around you. I was a little nervous at first but got used to them and really loved it! Our friend had an underwater camera and got some good pictures of us with the sting rays, but I don't have them yet. So I will have to post them later. Here we are on our little Cattamaran boat.

We woke up in Cozomel Mexico on Wednesday. Here we went on a snorkel trip in the morning and then in the afternoon we rented a little scooter and drove clear around the island. It is pretty small and only takes about 1 1/2 hours to make the full circle. The beaches on the other side of the island were GORGEOUS and after seeing them we wished we would have skipped the snorkeling and just spent the entire day on the sand. It was the beautiful soft white sand and clear blue water like you see in pictures. And the best part was they were completely deserted! There is nothing on that side of the island but miles and miles of these beautiful beaches. No hotels, resorts or anything. So we had the beach all to ourselves. On our way back to the ship we rode our scooter through the little town that is on the island. Paul LOVED that. He was so excited because it reminded him so much of his mission in Chile. He said that was his favorite part of the whole trip.




Thursday was our last full day on the boat and the entire day was at sea making our way back to Miami. We were lazy and just hung out all day playing games, taking naps, singing karaoke and of course eating.
Friday morning we got off the boat and had a 6 hour wait at the airport before our 4 hour flight home. Can I just say I was DYING to get home and see Dylan!! That day alone felt longer than the whole week combined. We tried to occupy ourselves in the airport playing anything we could think of with face cards. But we eventually gave in and sprawled out on the floor to take a nap to help pass the time. When we finally got home we were greeted by snow on the ground and temperatures in the teens. So our few days of warm sunshine were over.

It was nice to escape the cold for a few days and relax in the sun. We had a really fun time and did lots of cool things. We decided we always need to take our vacations in the winter so that we can get away from the cold when we go. We are already dreaming of our next trip next year. . .anyone want to join us???