Ok, back to vacation:
The cruise was wonderful. We had a great time. I was a little nervous about cruising with Collette, but she really did great! We got a room with a balcony, so that LL and I could be outside enjoying the beautiful weather while Collette napped or slept-- I highly recommend this if you want to cruise with a baby! (Especially since Collette started pulling up all the time, she would just stand up in her crib and bounce and look at us if we were in the room with her while we were trying to get her to sleep). Exhibit A:
We had TONS of great food. And I do mean TONS. My oh my is it easy to overeat on a cruise! But how could you not when you have dishes that look like this?!?
(I tried to combat all of that eating with going to the gym, but unfortunately I did something to my foot my last run before we left. After 5 minutes on the treadmill, I literally couldn't put any pressure on my foot and couldn't walk.... and it was the first day of the cruise!! So for the past two weeks I have been icing it, taking alleve, and staying off it. But it still hurts to walk, so today I'm going to the doctor... hoping it's NOT a stress fracture so I can still do my race at the end of the month!)
Our ports were great. As always, LL and I looked in our favorite travel book, 1,000 Places to Visit Before You Die and used that to plan our shore excursions. Our first stop was in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We did a walking tour of Old San Juan (recommended in 1,000 Places), which was really neat. We saw a lot of structures that had been there since the 1500s, including this church,which is the oldest one in the Americas:
and this huge awesome fort, El Morro:
Collette really enjoyed seeing the sights:
And we all had a nice dinner of traditional Puerto Rican food at Barrachina's:
The next day we were at St. Thomas. It was soooooooooo beautiful! We took an open-air bus like this:
up to Magen's Bay (another 1,000 places spot). The trip made me just a little nervous since we were just holding Collette and driving on the opposite side of the road (like the British) up teeny tiny roads, but it was beautiful. Here we all are at Drake's Seat on the way to Magen's Bay:
Which, by the way, is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been! I think I could have stayed there for days!
Baby C was a totally fishy and LOVED the water:
After Magen's Bay we also took a skyride to Paradise Point, which was also beautiful:
Our next day we were in Grand Turk. We actually didn't do any shore excursions there, because it is a tiny island (about a mile long and wide) but it has beautiful beaches, so we just had a beach day, which was great:
On the boat, Collette spent a lot of time in the baby pool:
And met "Funship Freddy," and she actually thought he was pretty fun!
We were also able to get our first official family portrait. We have never had a professional picture of our family or Collette, but Carnival has free sittings for portraits so we decided to give it a try. And then we found this seashell background and couldn't resist:
So we now have our first family portrait :o)
After we got back from our cruise, we left the next day for our old home town in New York for the weekend. We were able to go to my old church and visit with my friends Dawn, Paul, their new 2 week old baby Maddie, and Dawn's mom! She is so precious! It also happened to be my birthday on Sunday, so we were able to celebrate together. So sweet.
Now we are back home, working through piles of laundry, and I'm getting ready for my next big adventure-- my class at Messiah College starts Thursday!
No comments:
Post a Comment