To follow up on my previous posts (read Part 1 here and Part 2 here), I wanted to share with you our experiences at each of the ports we stopped at on our cruise.  It was a "7-Day Western Caribbean" cruise through Carnival, with four stops along the way: Cozumel, Belize, Roatan and Grand Cayman.  We only opted to do shore excursions at two of the ports (they're expensive!!) and were left to our own devices at the other two.  Here's a breakdown of our itinerary and what we did:

We got home last night from a wonderful 10-day vacation.  I'm calling it "Summer Vacation" even though it isn't really summer yet, because it sure felt (and still feels!) like summer...and, "Late Spring Vacation" just doesn't have the same ring to it.  At any rate, we started out our trip with a wedding in Key West.  My brother and his new bride decided to have a destination wedding.  It's the first one I've ever been to, and it really was very nice!  We had a little trouble getting there, however.  Because we don't live in a big city, it's harder to get direct flights to anywhere, so our travel plan was a bit odd to begin with.  We flew into the St. Petersburg airport on the night of May 31st along with my dad and his girlfriend, and the plan was to fly from Tampa to Key West the next morning, and have a full day there before the wedding on Saturday, June 2nd.  Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate and the airline didn't help matters.  Our flight was scheduled to leave at 9:30am, and it's just a quick flight on a puddle jumper to get to Key West -- but it was raining that day, and as soon as we got to the gate we discovered that the flight was delayed due to weather.  A while later, the flight was delayed again.  And again.  And again.  It started out as a weather delay, then they had a hard time getting a full crew together to fly us, and then the Key West airport closed for a bit.  We waited at the airport for EIGHT hours before we finally gave up and decided to rent a car and drive ourselves down.  At that point they were talking about canceling the flight, though it wasn't fully decided; they also talked about getting a bus together, but didn't have a driver.  Enough of that.  We drove the 7ish hours from Tampa to Key West.  It would've been a nice drive, especially through the keys, if it hadn't been rainy and dark.  By the time we got to the keys it was quite late and hard to see much.  We finally made it to Key West at about 12:30am.  Everybody else was already there -- most had traveled earlier in the week.  So, we ended up missing the big dinner with everybody on Friday night, but I was just thankful we made it for the wedding!


The wedding was simple and beautiful, along the beach on the south part of Key West.  And the reception?  Hard Rock cafe!  Very fitting for the bride and groom, and we all had a great time.  But all of that was just the start of our journey.  From there, six of us (Tom and I, plus my brother and his new wife and my dad and his girlfriend) all went on a cruise through the western Caribbean.  Thankfully, most of our travel issues happened on that Tampa-to-Key West leg of the trip, and we managed to get back to Tampa and to the cruise ship with plenty of time and without a problem.  


I'll give you the overview of the cruise here, then break apart the trip in a separate post.  The cruise stopped at four ports in four different countries: Mexico, Belize, Honduras and the Cayman Islands.  We were on a Carnival cruise ship called the Legend, which had enough activities within itself to keep us busy!  Tom and I did ship-coordinated excursions in Honduras and Belize and decided to do our own thing in Cozumel and Grand Cayman.  We did not have nearly as much downtime as I expected, and consequently I didn't get any actual reading done.  I did finish my audio book -- 11-22-63: A Novel, by Stephen King.  It was interesting and different and listening to that was basically what I did in the free time that I did have.  The cruise offered lots of games, shows, comedy and activities.  We got into the trivia and other similar games and early on got on a quest to earn as many trophies, medals and other prizes as we could!  I think we did pretty well: 5 trophies, 3 medals and a bottle of champagne between all of us.  


The week went by far too quickly, and I couldn't believe that it was already time to come home!  It was a great relaxing and fun break, and we really enjoyed spending some of it with family -- both in Key West and on the cruise.  That's our kick off for summer!  I don't think we have as many travel plans this year as normal, but I'm sure the summer weekends will fill up quickly.  I hope you take the time to do something relaxing, fun or adventurous, too :)

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been a full 10 years since I first met Tom.  We met on January 20, 2001.  A brief history: I was in high school at the time—a sophomore, 16 years old, and on the cheerleading team (shocking, I know).  Tom was in college at Cedarville University in Ohio, and his roommate was a friend of mine (Rick) from summer camp.  Rick wanted to come up and visit for a weekend, but he did not have a reliable car.  Turns out that Tom grew up about 20 minutes from me, so he knew the area and offered to drive Rick up to Michigan for the weekend.  That Saturday, January 20, 2001 I had a cheerleading competition.  My friend Kim and I came back to my house afterwards and shortly thereafter Rick showed up at my house with his roommate, Tom.  The boys slept in the basement of my parents’ house that weekend, and we all hung out, watched movies, and went to the Detroit Auto Show.  From that point on, Tom and I became friends and communicated via e-mail and AOL Instant Messenger (remember those days??) on a semi-regular basis.  Two years later, Tom moved back to Michigan and we started dating.  Four and a half years after that, we were married.  Now we’re three and a half years into our marriage and a decade into our friendship!  It’s been an amazing 10 years, so I thought I’d share a bit of it with you:

Tom’s third visit to my house – we had a fun bowling outing.

Everyone loves the Big Boy!

Our first Christmas as a couple

Goofing around on the playground at Petoskey State Park

President’s Ball at GVSU; I salvaged my prom dress from 10th grade!

Colorado Ski Trip – we had such an eclectic group; it was great fun!

Wedding day!

On the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, Honduras

Cherohala Skyway -- North Carolina

Manistee, MI – our yearly summer vacation destination

If you've never been on a cruise, I'll tell you that it's a very different sort of vacation than anything else I've done.  Last week I went on my second cruise.  The first time I was twelve.  So, needless to say, this experience was a bit different, but every bit as much fun as I recalled having as a kid.  This time around, we did a 7-Day Western Caribbean cruise through Carnival, leaving out of Tampa, FL and stopping at four ports along the way: Cozumel, Mexico; Belize City, Belize; Isla Roatan, Honduras; and Grand Cayman.  I did far less laying by the pool and reading my book than I expected, but that's okay, because we were busy having fun!  Here's a breakdown of our experiences on the cruise ship itself.  I'll follow up with a subsequent post about the different ports we visited:

On top of the world -- or at least the tallest mountain in Wales

Tom and I decided to do a big trip this year -- the biggest we've ever taken: a two week trip through the UK and the Republic of Ireland.  I'm not exactly sure what spurred on this trip, but we've talked about going to Europe for some time.  I've always wanted to explore the lands of my heritage. I've already been to Honduras (and have been able to visit family there on more than one occasion), but the rest of my heritage is from England, Ireland and Wales.  I did a bit of genealogy research  before the trip and traced my family back to a town in Wales called Merthyr Tydfil -- so that was definitely added to the itinerary, along with London, another (beach) town in wales called Tenby, and a week in Ireland including Rosslare Harbour, Kenmare, Dingle, Doolin and Dublin.  It took a ton of planning (some of which was probably not necessary), and we were constantly on the move, which didn't end up being too stressful and allowed us to see quite a bit of these countries in two weeks' time. We rented a car in Ireland, but we wanted to take public transportation (mainly the Tube [subway] and trains) in the UK.  We also wanted to stay at primarily Bed and Breakfasts -- which we did in every town save London.  As such, we decided that we should really try to pack everything we needed in backpacks so that we could more easily make the trek from train station to lodging, etc. It was difficult (for me), but we did it!  I first pulled aside everything I wanted to bring, then separated out everything I thought I could bring -- packed it all in the bag, and then got rid of a few things to ensure that my bag would suffice as a carry-on.  Tom had no issue packing everything in his medium-sized backpack.

The picture above is from a Mission Trip that Tom and I went on to Honduras in 2008. The picture is of teenagers at an "orphanage". I put it in quotes because it is nothing like what comes to mind when I think of the word "orphanage". It was a dorm-style home built by one woman -- I believe a former nurse from overseas -- for those without families or with families unable to care for them. But it's not a sad place. It is a place of hope. In fact, the orphanage is called "Renacer" -- which means "rebirth". It was a new beginning for the kids there and when I asked one of the teenagers how he liked living there, he replied "me encanta" -- "I love it."  This orphanage is a very large undertaking, but is a huge example of providing good from those who are deserving and those who are most on the heart of God: orphans.  The whole trip served to remind me of how I should be. I hope I was able to help the people in the communities we served in some small way, but I feel like I had some big missed opportunities even on this trip.

Teamwork gets the job done! (Tegucigalpa, Honduras - 2008)