Some fun with Old Time Cruise Photos

Here are the group photos we took! We were having so, so much fun!! This is the before picture...

And the after. Poor Dave and Greg...

Look at these cute boys with their mustaches...

Um...uh...I think your mustaches are a little bit crooked...

Ava is 5!!!

Ava turned 5 today! My little one isn't so little anymore. I told here she could pick whatever she wanted for dinner (either at home or going out) and that she could choose a birthday treat. She chose ramen noodles for dinner and wanted me to make ice cream sandwiches out of cookies with chocolate around the sides. Her birthday wish was my command!!

Here is the birthday girl blowing out her candle and getting ready to eat her treat!

Yum! If you notice, she used her new tea set to eat part of her dinner. My parents sent it to her and it was a BIG hit! She filled it right up, served all of us and then used a plate to eat a tiny portion of ramen noodles! So cute.

And here she is blowing a kiss to Grandma and Grandpa Craig in her new princess pajamas. She loved them! She was a happy girl when she went to bed tonight.

We are doing her birthday party on Saturday afternoon - a gardening theme! More pictures to follow!

We love our Ava and can't believe how big she is. She is such a great girl and we couldn't be more proud of what a great little girl she is. We feel very blessed to have her and enjoy her each and every day! Happy Birthday Ava - we love you!

Cruise gifts!

I love to do a little craft project and bring a gift for the girls on the cruises. Last time I made beach bags and this time I did these necklaces.

Each of the coins is from one of the 3 countries we were going to visit (Mexico, Honduras and Grand Cayman), then I made a few little bobbles, made the cabushon with the map of the Caribbean in it and then added the little sailing charm and a few little finishing touches! I was really happy with how they turned out and it was really fun to give them out and see everyone wearing them different times during the week!

Here they are...all ready to go!

Nope, it's not a necklace...it's a speedo. I was so amused with myself (not too unusual) when I ordered these for the guys. I gave them out at dinner the first night...the same time I gave the necklaces out. Greg Porter jumped right up and and tried his on...needless to say there were a few good looks and laughs!

He came back on the last night with it on one more time! Love it. Love it!

My Greg actually tried his on as well (I think all of the men tried them on in the privacy of their own rooms), but I had to swear not to post my Greg's pictures...those will be blackmail for another day!

Cruise 2012 : The Mega Blog!

This is where our vacation really started...in the airport! We started having a great time right away. We did a little shopping to kill some time during a layover and I loved these glasses that Greg found. We were ready for some fun in the sun! We arrived in Miami on Saturday night and met 3 of the other couples there. We all stayed at the same hotel and went out to dinner and then stayed up talking. It was a perfect start. Sunday we boarded the ship, got settled and let the fun begin!

Here we are in the sing along piano bar. The player was really amazing and we had a great time all sitting around the piano and singing. So fun.

Here's a little view of our room. They aren't big rooms, but they are perfect for us. Since we are cruising with friends, we spend almost no time in the room!

Monday was a day at sea and it was also Dave's birthday. Here is the serving staff singing to him. We had a little fun with him on his birthday and he was a great sport about it...you have to be to survive in our group!

On Tuesday we arrived in Cozumel, Mexico. Greg and I decided to try a helmet dive.

These are the helmets you wear. They weigh 75 pounds, but are perfect under the water. We started down a ladder into the ocean and then they placed the helmet on us and we went right under. It is an odd sensation to be underwater walking around and breathing. We had a really awesome experience and are glad it was our first step on the road to scuba diving. We were surrounded by fish and got to hold rays, starfish and sea anemone. We were under for about 30 minutes!

Here's Greg just outside of the place that ran the dive.

And a little self portrait of us...happy in Cozumel!

And here we are at the Puerta Maya sign!

This is the Glory...our home away from home for the week.

Each night we had the best time at dinner. It is an event! I think we were at dinner for about 2 hours each night. Here we are with Christina and Cam...

This picture really doesn't do it justice, but we had the most beautiful views in the dining room. The sun was so bright and orange this night. Just awesome.

I had to take a picture of this wild chandelier. It was just outside of the dining room...

On Wednesday we were supposed to stop in Costa Maya, but the water was too rough to dock and so we ended up spending an extra day at sea. Lots of games were played, metals and trophies won and we made the most of the new plan! Nothing could really stop our fun...definitely not a day at sea! That night we went to see a magic show. Afterwards, Greg (Porter) went to talk to the magician to suggest he start doing this trick where he pretends his finger is pushing into his arm. We were laughing so, so hard watching him talk to Justin Illusion. I don't know that Justin was quite as amused...he should have been, it was really funny.

Here's that night at dinner. The staff had a little dance and song most nights. Here we are enjoying the wildness with them!

And what cruise would be complete without a little karaoke? Greg Porter, Ken and I were the only ones who made it up this time, but we all make it count! Prince, Bon Jovi, and Young MC would have been proud...well, maybe...

On Thursday we arrived in Roatan, Honduras. Greg Porter went on a shark dive (and talked the people into letting him put on the chain glove and feed the sharks - a shark literally bit his underwater camera and bent the metal and cracked the lens...crazy!!!). The rest of us went to this dolphin experience. A kinder, gentler ocean experience!

We all spent about a half an hour learning about the dolphins, getting comfortable being around them and then holding them, kissing them and watching them do some special tricks.

Cam made this great face and I just couldn't resist posting it!

This dolphin isn't jumping out of the water, it is "standing" on its tail and moving backwards in (kind of on top of) the water. It was so incredible.

Afterward, we were able to spend half an hour snorkeling with the dolphins. It was surreal. You could hear the dolphins coming before you could see them and then they would just blaze by! They would also come and "play" with you. They would take sea grass out of your hand, come and check out what you were doing if your decided to dive down to the bottom and really loved Cam playing with some rocks. They are amazing animals and the snorkeling really brought that to life. It also let me know just how quick they are...I was glad more than once that I knew it was a group of dolphins coming up on me and not a group of sharks!!!

This was the view coming up to the beach in Roatan.

Here is another view of Roatan.

Here's the gang riding back from our excursion. I just love these guys!

We went shopping after we were done with the dolphin dive. We found a great taxi driver who took us to a few great places. This was my favorite stop...and what a view!

Aren't these little shops great?

On the way back we asked the driver to stop so we could get a picture of this sunken ship in the bay in front of the cruise ship. Our guess is that is was there so that it created a great dive area, but who really knows?

This was the view of Roatan off of the ship...

And the view of the sunken ship from our ship!

Here was our wonderful head waiter Cedric. He was a lot of fun and took great care of us!

This is a picture of Zoran, the Serbian. He was very stone faced with us one morning at breakfast until I "broke" him. That's what the group called it! He was all smiles and laughs after that morning. We found him and sat in his section most mornings and then he came over to our table at night. He was a fun new friend!

Robyn got her name drawn and was chosen to compete in the ship's Minute to Win It competition. She rocked it. Crazy rocked it.

Here she is in the grand finale. She completely stole the show!

And here she is collecting her prizes...the biggest prizes given on the ship all week long. It was a couple hundred dollars of prizes!

She even won a bottle of champaign. I had won a bottle earlier and traded it for a medal...she won so much stuff this night that there was nothing to trade it for. We ended up going outside, shaking the bottle and shooting it off the side of the ship. I love this picture. They joy of victory!

We couldn't resist the chance to dress up and take an old time photo...and then Ken and Kim busted out the fake mustaches! Who travels with an arsenal of fake mustaches? Ken and Kim, that's who...priceless. Here are the Porter brothers...Ben and Greg!

What a handsome man...

Dave and Robyn...serious...very serious!

Emy and Greg...

Cam and Christina...

Kim and Ken...

And the whole wild gang! We bought this picture from the ship and I'll post a copy of it as soon as I get it. These pictures turned out so fun!

Later that night we went to an up close magic show. Paul, the magician, is in the middle of our group. We are surrounding him with our own amazing tricks! Notice that Greg Porter is doing his finger/arm trick again? That one never gets old!

Friday we arrived in Grand Cayman. Here we all are waiting for our driver to pick us up and take us to our private sail boat that we chartered.

This was the view of our ship from the church where we were waiting...postcard perfect!

The sail boat was truely amazing.

I love this picture.

We went out to where the sting rays live. Greg and I have actually been to an area in Grand Cayman where you can stand on a sand bar in the ocean and be with the sting rays, but this time we went to a different area and snorkeled with them. It was crazy. Crazy. They are so huge! This one was 5 to 6 feet across. Let me just say that when this big mama comes wrapping around your waist, it takes everything in you to fight the instinct to freak out...I mean freak out! It was an unbelievable experience and as you can see, the water was as clear as a swimming pool. Unforgetable experience!!

Can you believe this water?? It didn't even look real.

Such a cute picture of Robyn and Dave!

My Greg, relaxing on the boat!

Look closely at the boat in the middle of these boats. It has a port hole as an "eye" and the opening beneath the two floors has a jagged cut out like a mouth. It was a really fun boat!

On the way back to the cruise ship we stopped and got a fresh coconut.

How very tropical of us...

Saturday was our last day at sea. We played every game we could get our hands on. Trivia, movie games, and here we are in a basketball shoot out tournament! So fun.

This was the last night at dinner. For some reason they were a little slow in clearing the dinner plates and when we noticed the table, we just had to take a picture. This does not include our appitizer dishes!! This was just our dinner entres...we ate a crazy amount of food! It's one of the really fun things about cruising. Trying everything that looks good and enjoying new, fun foods.

Ken was pretending to shed a tear at the dinner table as the evening was wrapping up. He's definitely not one to cry...I on the other hand...really was a little weepy on Saturday night - and again on Sunday!

And then here we are back in Miami!

It was an amazing week with the most wonderful friends. I can't even begin to capture all the fun we had and all of the amazing experiences we had. I really do cherish these times with all of them and can't wait until the next reunion vacation in 2 years...let the count down begin!!