Cancun

Tyler and I decided to prolong the summer, and go to Cancun in September. We were a little worried about the hurricane season, but it turned out beautiful. It was just like summer. Very hot. And I got a sun rash, again, ouch! But it was worth it.We stayed at the ME Hotel, the one that the Real World Cancun was filmed at. So glad we did, it was my most favorite hotel I have ever stayed at. It was very contemporary. The food was spectacular, better than the cruise. We had sushi, and the Hibachi grill, and they had a restaurant like Rodizio Grill, and kept bringing you skewers of food. YUM. We basically ate, drank, and sat in the pool every day. Some fun things we did, were, the first 2 nights we liked to walk down the beach. We saw a group of people standing around, so we walked up to them, and then these guys handed us baby TURTLES!!! We got to set them free into the ocean. They had just hatched from their shells 30 minutes prior to this. It was an amazing experience. We both got to set free about 10 of them, both nights. We never did see the mother tortoise, but the babies were so cute. I will never forget that experience. We also went to Tulum, the ancient Mayan ruins, and Xel-Ha, the natural aquarium. It's basically and inlet of the ocean, with shallow waters, where you can snorkel, or dive, and see tons of tropical fish, which we did. We also cliff jumped, zip lined into the ocean, and floated down a river in our life jackets. I don't have pictures of that because I didn't buy the under water camera, I wish I did. But I would recommend this place, it was one of a kind. Like a water park, but nature made!!! It's easy to say, this was one of our favorite trips ever. I want to do this every year.

Cruise 2011

We have been back from our cruise for several weeks now. And WOW! This is the longest post ever. What an amazing time we had. We first stayed in Puerto Rico our first night. It was a bit rough because it had been a long day of traveling. All we wanted to do was eat and go to bed. So we went to Denny's across the street. Yuck! That was a terrible dinner for everyone, except me. And then, Cameron lost her beloved blanky. I even called the cab company on a whim they knew where it was. Ya right. Well, Tyler found it in the lobby of our hotel. Thank God, it would have been a miserable trip without it. The next day we went to Old San Juan, and just toured the city and saw El Morro, the old fort. And it was mothers day, so here's all of us moms!

All Aboard! It was time for a toast...to Christy for graduating Nursing school!

 

St. Thomas/St. John

 

The first day we went to St. Thomas, and took a ferry to St. John, to go to TRUNK BAY! Christy has only been talking about this for like 7 years since the last time we went there. This is the most beautiful beach in the world...my opinion. Take a look at these...

 

 

Camerons first beach. Can you say spoiled?!

 This is prob my fav photo of the whole trip! She got a tad bit sandy, but didn't mind one bit!

Barbados

The next day we went to Barbados. It was a beautiful place. We looked in a tour guide book for some good beaches, and found Payne beach. It was a nice white sand beach with cushioned chairs and umbrellas.They had a hostess come around and take your order for food, and brought it right to your chair. You didn't have to do anything but relax!

Then our taxi tour guide asked us if we wanted to go on a ride to see some famous peoples homes and to the mountains to see monkeys. Of COURSE we did. We saw Tiger Woods vaca home, and Ricky Martin, and Oprah's. Then, the monkey...well that was a monkey in a cage with a cash box for tips. LAME. Whatev. But the view was spectacular. You could see all the way to the west coast, which is where I wanted to go.

The next day was a day at sea. So we slept in and then just hung out at the pool, ate ice cream, drank beer and played cards. That night was the 'Formal' night, so we got all dolled up. The girls loved to dance every night at dinner when the waiters danced and sung. We had wine every night, and Tyler and I went to a comedy show one night with my mom. It was really embarrasing, let's just leave it at that!

 

Some other photos of us on deck

Me, my Mom, my sisters Christy and Mindy

Jeff, Mindy and Jack

Christy and Hailey

St. Lucia

The next day we went to St. Lucia. It was prob my favorite place of the entire trip. We knew that we definately wanted to see the Pitons, after watching the Bachelor last season! So we got a boat and driver for the whole day. We rode over to a beatiful bay, which was famous, and a lot of people have homes there, high up on the cliff, including Oprah, again (I think we saw one of her homes in like 3 of our cruise stops!). We rode by a hollow cliff, that was where they filmed the first Pirate's of the Carribean, where the skeleton is hanging down. And then we saw the Grand Piton and the Petite Piton Mountains. BeAuTiFuL! The photos don't do it justice. It was hard to get a good shot since we were on a boat, and the humidity fogged up my lens. After that we docked and went to a small resort to eat and snorkel. There was a good variety of colorful  fish and coral. This was a little inlet of the ocean and so there were no waves, which is so peaceful.

St. Kitts

St. Kitts didn't offer a lot, so this was the perfect day to go to a hotel resort. We joked the whole time before the trip that we were going to sign my parents up for those time-share tours, so we could use the hotels facilities...we did this on our last cruise in Mazatlan. My poor parents took a tour for several hours while we laid at the pool and racked up a large bill on food and daquiri's! We were nice this time, and paid for our entrance. Haha. It was the warmest pool, and so kid friendly. The beach was nice too.

St. Maarten

We hired a taxi driver (uncle Jeff duh) and we just drove around the island. We didn't do much our last day, we were all sun-ed out and tired. We went to one nudist beach, there was one topless woman, that's all. And looked at some cute shops which were way expensive because it is a French territory.

Puerto Rico

We stayed one last night after the cruise in Puerto Rico. This resort was so amazing. The pools and cabana's were so comfy, I finally fell asleep on one, which is what I had been wanting to do the entire trip. It was a rainy overcast day, so it wasn't too hot. We had fun for a bit before it rained.

We ended the trip on my mom's birthday. It was a trip full of memories, but it feels like a dream. It went by too fast. Now what am I gonna do the rest of the summer!