Good morning ladies!! I am glad to be back - ish!! I loved the sunshine, the naps, food, black out curtains, seeing new places, but missed my bed, my daughter and just my space in general. I could very well live on a cruise ship though. I don't like cleaning up after myself now though. Blah!!
So, I'll tell you about my trip briefly. I will be blogging and putting pics up on FB in the next day or two so watch for that. So, we went to 3 places out of Miami. We took the red eye, which totally sucked and I wouldn't suggest that to anyone. It throws off your first day. But it happens when going from one corner to the other of the US. So after a couple of days at sea we got to Cozumel. We did zip lines there at a resort, so it wasn't going through the trees or anything. If and when I go back I want to zipline through the jungle. It was a lot of fun though and we got to snorkel, which I have never done before. I saw Cynthia's resort, although we didn't have a chance to go check it out. Lots of shopping to do in a short amount of time and I wanted to get away from the dock to do it so we went downtown and had some horrible mexican food. I was bummed about that. DH wants to go back for some scuba diving, so I think he is officially sold on a future trip. I do have to say, Feb/March is also a great time to go if anyone wants to rethink October.
Next we went to Grand Cayman. That ended up being awesome. I set up a private charter, not through the ship. All the boating tours through the ship were cancelled because of a storm and we tendered on the opposite side of the island because of a storm that had made the waters really choppy. Because it was a private charter it wasn't cancelled and we ended up being the only boat in the water. The water wasn't ideal for snorkeling but it was still gorgeous and the sail boat was awesome. We did get to play with the stingrays. I found out they can't sting when they swim. Good to know. The sandbar was closed so we went to an area that was about 8 feet deep instead of 3. It made it harder to swim with them and they were freaky. One of them decided it had a crush on dh and sucked onto his back and gave him a little hickey. Ethan thought it was cool that the captain said they felt like and looked like portobello mushrooms. He wouldn't get in the water but touched on with his foot. I swam with them a little but they were freaky. I've decided that they are aliens from another planet. Then we went to a coral reef. I tried really hard to snorkel but because of the rough water and my inexperience on snorkeling I got a little ways from the boat and said no way, along with another girl in our group. So the guys all went together instead. Next time we will be getting the good snorkels. So I didn't get to see the coral reef so I plan on it in Cozumel. Now I have to decide if I want to learn to scuba dive. that would be even cooler. The water was nice. Later when we asked Ethan his favorite part, of all things he came up with drinking a soda. He's such a goober.
Our last stop was Ocho Rios, Jamaica. I love Jamaica and would live there forever if I could. It is gorgeous and they sound so cool when they talk. We went to Dunns River Falls with Ethan and did the hike up the falls. It was awesome. If you ever go there definitely do the falls. The one thing I didn't like about Jamaica were the vendors. I would have loved to walk through the craft market on our way out of the falls but the vendors are so agressive. One of them was trying to sell ethan a turtle, but when I asked him if he wanted to spend his only money on the turtle he said no way. We left all of our money on the bus so we couldn't really buy anything, but of course then we had no tip money for our falls guide, oops. We got her some though, so that was good. Then we headed to a beach and drank lots of mojitos and ate jamaican food. The water was gorgeous and we had a great time.
So, that was my trip in a nutshell. There was lots more, like me wearing goggles to the dinner table (I had to finish the alcohol we had on the last day), fancy dinners, hanging out with friends and family, etc. I'll put more on my blog, like I said, when I have pics to go with it. I'll let you know when I do that.
Getting home was great and horrible. Our house was all painted and looks awesome, although there are a few things I'm not thrilled that he didn't finish, like filling in holes and stuff. But our cat also has been sick and our house was nasty to say the least. There was poo everywhere. So our first 2 hours home we were taking care of that. I have a vet appt tomorrow and we're getting the carpets cleaned next week. It is long overdue.
I am super excited today because my dh is finally working again at a 2nd job. He doesn't work a lot but enough to help us out on some things, and pay down our debt. Can't wait until all we have is a car payment and my student loan. Step one of debt payoff.
Okay, I have to head off to work. I'm glad to be back. I've missed you guys.
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