Our 2011 Cruise to the Caribbean!

Can you believe that it is already February?  This winter has gone by so fast that I think summer is just around the corner!  Time has gone by so quickly that we haven't had time to stop and even look at our pictures from our lovely cruise that we took clear back in December.  Finally we slowed down Sunday evening and looked through our cameras.  We are excited to share them with you.

Jason and I wanted a way to celebrate moving to California and to celebrate us doing so well down here.
Jason has been a rock star in his classes and he has had to spend countless hours studying.  I have never seen anything like these law students with their noses glued to a page of a book for several hours.  He applied to be a part of a 3rd year law student program, which is usually never given to 1st years, but he got in.  Because of this he is having to take extra credits and do extra work on top of being in law school.  He has also been an amazing husband and still finds time to spoil me.  He is the financial clerk in our ward and he never complains if he has to go in during the week to do some extra work.  I also claim that Jason is the unknown counselor in Young Women's because he is always helping me with my projects.  As if he weren't busy enough, Jason has been busy writing a book that he has been thinking about for a couple of years.  He's gone through the laborious editing process and he is now in the final stages before it becomes available.  I am so proud of him!   

I have a great job that keeps me busy and I am constantly learning knew things every day.  The job is so flexible that it allows me to take time off whenever I need it but also pays enough that we didn't have to change our lifestyle at all, even though Jason is doing school full time.  I have been given several responsibilities in my district, including starting a district Assistive Technology team and website.  This requires a great deal of work and coordinating, especially since I am brand new to the district.  I am also the districts specialist on Apraxia of Speech, which means if an SLP is working with a student with that then I get to go train them on how to assess and treat the student.  I have put so much effort into this area that I have about 60 pages of materials and text that I am thinking that I will look into publishing it soon.  I work so close to Disneyland that we spend every Friday there enjoying the weekend and each other.
Life is so great that we just couldn't resist spoiling ourselves with a little trip before Christmas.  This cruise left from Fort Lauderdale, Florida and traveled to the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, and Haiti.  It was the longest cruise we have ever been on since it was 7 days and 6 nights.  We thought after a while we would get a little homesick for California, but what were we thinking?  We were on a cruise!

Here are some lovely pictures on the beach.  The sun was shining and the breeze was flowing through our hair.  This beach is in Haiti.  The way I will always remember Haiti was how the beach was gorgeous but then suddenly it turned into a mountain.  It was such a different terrain than what we are used to here in Cali.

We need to take you on a tour of our room.  As I mentioned earlier, this was a celebration cruise, which meant that we wanted to do a little something extra.  Normally we just get an inside cabin and spend all of our time out at the pools or on the decks.  This time we wanted some privacy so we splurged and got a suite with a balcony.  We got a balcony that faced the stern of the boat, which was amazing to do because we were able to see the best sunsets in the world!

Here is our little sitting area.  Most cruise rooms do not have extra space, let alone a chair and table.  

Our bed and window.  It was a temperpedic mattress so we slept extra wonderful.  

A view from our balcony before we left port.  We are still in Florida at this point.  

Jason showing the room.  Isn't he a doll!  

We were on deck 9.  This is near the elevators so you don't get lost on the ship... okay so I got lost a few times.  

Jason is standing next to this map of the ship.  This was the largest ship we have ever been on.  

Us waiting for the elevator.  

This was the chandelier that hung above us in the dining room.  

Of course there were a million things to do on the ship.  Every evening they would have a big performance by the dancers and singers at the main theater.  We went and saw them and they were amazing!  Also they would bring on comedians, jugglers, and impressionists.  There was always something to do every night and we went and saw all of them.

We are waiting for one of the evening performances to start.  Jason and I got our own little balcony  area to ourselves.  It was so nice to cuddle while watching the shows.  

Here is Lisa going for the win on this last putt.  

Can Jason do it?  Can he sink the ball in the hole while the ship is rocking?  He did it!  

There was a part of the ship called "The Dungeon" that was a cool place to go hang out and play games during the day.  

Here is Jason standing in doorway leading to the Dungeon.  

This is a picture of the chandelier thingy that hung in the middle of the ship.  As you can see, it is HUGE! It went up for about 6 stories of the ship.   

This is the ice skating rink that was on board.  That's right, an ice skating rink.  How awesome is that?  When we got too hot, we would just run downstairs and cool off for a bit.  Have you ever gone ice skating in your bathing suit?  We have.  Of course we got cold pretty fast and would throw on more layers, but still it was so much fun to have this as an option.  

Here we are outside the casino on board.  Thank goodness we like to keep our money.  

This is the main shopping area on the boat.  There was also an ice cream shop with free ice cream on board and a little cafe that served cookies, cake, drinks, and pizza 24/7.  It is so nice to go have a slice at 3 am in the morning.  

Here are some views from our balcony.  We woke up to find this sunrise greeting us.

This is a good picture of the trail that the back propellers left in the water.   

Gorgeous cloud formation!  

Sometimes the ports required that we would take a shuttle boat and tender to the dock that way.  Here are a few pictures of us doing that very thing.  

There's our boat in the background.  

One of the stops we made was in Grand Cayman and was called "Hell."  It's not a nickname or anything, the towns name really is that.  Naturally our tour of the island stopped there so we got out and had to see what the fuss was about.

Welcome to "Hell."  

Here is the scenery that gave the town its name.  These are rocks that were underneath an old swamp.  Apparently what happened was the rocks were stained this black, charcoal color and then as the swamp drained the rainfall slowly eroded the rocks to these pointy spikes.  So people began to claim that the devil would find it very comfortable here and so they called it "Hell."  The funny thing is that Jason and I thought that it didn't look any different than in St. George with all of the volcanic rocks out in Snow Canyon.

I must say that for "Hell," it wasn't as hot as I thought it would be.  Actually it was quite nice there.  

Just a quick stop by the ocean.

Now on to one of my favorite parts of the whole trip: The Turtle Farm.  This is a place on the Grand Cayman where you can go and view the turtles as they raise them from sweet little baby turtles to huge ones.  It was so much fun to get to go and swim with these amazing animals.  Here are some pictures from there:

The turtles lay the eggs in the summer and fall months, so we didn't see any turtle eggs but we did get to play with newly hatched babies.  This one was 3 weeks old.  They were so cute but so strong for their size.  I named all of the baby turtles that I saw and even thought through how I could put one in my pocket and bring it back home so it could live in our tub.  

We were able to go into some of the smaller tanks and swim with the turtles or even pick some of them up.  Be careful, because when you pick them up they flap their fins together as if they were clapping.  Yes, it's all cute but you don't realize how powerful and hard their fins are.  You just need to be smacked in the face one to realize this.  Not that we are speaking from experience of anything!  

Obviously we weren't allowed to go swimming with the snapping turtles or the huge ones.  This is a picture of the tank where the largest turtle lived.  Here we are next to that tank:

Aww, the turtles are cuddling.  

These next pictures are of us trying to take underwater pictures of the turtles.  We were allowed to go swimming with the smaller turtles that didn't bite.  We kept trying to take pictures of them but, go figure, the turtles are fast swimmers.  We would try to pet them and they would swim away like it was nothing.  So here are few of the pictures that we tried to get with the turtles.  

Prepare to view one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.  Jason and I had heard about 7 Mile Beach and how it was amazing, but we didn't think it would be that great.  Do you see that blue water and that white sand?  It was so quiet and peaceful there and the water was so warm.  We are bound and determined to go back to that beach and at least stay there long enough to consider it a residence.  

Jason Loves Lisa!  

It was such a romantic beach.  I could have kissed Jason all day long!  

Here is a view of our cruise boat next to two other boats.  

As always, they make animals out of our towels.

Here is a rainbow over the City Hall building in Jamaica.  

We loved looking out from our balcony.

We loved going up a level to go swimming and then we could come back and dry off on our balcony .  Don't mind my whiteness in this picture.  

(Chorus of angels singing) Isn't that just a gorgeous view!  

Here are a few different views of our lovely boat.  

When we were in Haiti we thought we would try to take pictures of each other swimming.  The water wasn't as clear and blue as it was in Grand Cayman.  It was green and kind of murky, so the picture didn't turn out as well.  We were both not to thrilled about opening our eyes under water.  I love the picture of Jason.  Of course I put up that picture of him with his permission... eventually.  :)

Here we are next to the map of Labadee and Haiti.  

I loved this sign because it is a bit confusing.  Basically anything that had to do with the beach  was left and anything to do in the mountains was right.  

Heading back to the boat.  

Another view of the beaches and mountains in Haiti.  

Finally, we thought we would talk about the food on the cruise.  Who could forget about the food?  Supposedly, the average person gains 2 lbs on the cruise... per day.  The food is always amazing and we loved eating dinner in the dining hall.  We sat next to this family from Dallas and they were really fun to get to know. 

Our last dinner together on the cruise.  

The coolest family ever sitting next to us.  

Overall we had an amazing time together.  I think we would have an amazing time if you stuck us together in any situation, but by being able to go on a cruise just allows us to completely relax and focus on what's important in life: each other.  We love that we have worked so hard in our lives to be able to take this amazing vacation and to make these memories that will last a lifetime.  I can't imagine my life any different and I am so grateful to have an amazing husband who holds my hand through everything.