Caribbean Cruise part 5

Just realized I spelled 'cruise' wrong in the last 3 posts. I feel awesome.
The last couple days we were cruising back to Galveston. Not gonna lie, I got pretty moody and cabin feverish the last day on the ship. I'd cruise again, I'd just make sure I had plenty to do for consecutive at sea days!
The boys kept themselves busy with a 3-on-3 tournament



The second team they played had a guy on it they called 'old stockton'. He was wearing khakis and a cruise shirt. They didn't take him that seriously at first. He didn't appreciate being called old, so he let loose the wrath on them.
The guy running the tournament came up to Brian after playing against 'old stockton' and said
"Do you still have your wallet?"
"uh, no...but-"
"Cuz you just got robbed son!"
It was cute.
They came in 3rd! (out of 4) We were so proud! We came to watch after playing a round of mini-golf.
Picture taken while waiting for people to decide on which cruise pictures they wanted.
We all started getting pretty weird by this point. John was licking Annie's head, I was not approving of it, and Holly was shrinking rapidly


Then it took too long to get into the dining room and I got hungry and Holly was just right there...I have no explanation for this picture. I just know that no alcohol was involved, which I think makes it a little more confusing since there's not an excuse for it

Like I said, we were all losing it
Then we went ice skating! My favorite part of this picture is the girl who turfed it in the right hand corner. Shes got her cheek to the ice and everything
and by 'went' i mean most of us sat and laughed at the people trying to skate
Brian is pretty pro though
Our last dinner on the ship - Holly showed us her napkin/towel folding skills. It's a bird :)
Our waiter, in a last ditch attempt to be the favorite did a pull-the-paper-out-of-the-wine-bottles thing. I was his assistant. It gave me some anxiety.

I was not happy about Brian's shirt choice.
Then he leaned back and sipped his water like he owned the place in his ugly cruise shirt
and i had to hide my face in shame
Our table and our waiters. They told us to do the peace sign, except our palms couldn't be facing out because that apparently means something bad in his country. I was not listening to instructions
This is us leaving the port :( back in the cold and sad the vacation is over

Back at the Houston airport - we had a while to wait and we used to catch up with all the facebook/texts/calls/life we had missed while our phones were off
Others of us chose to cover our heads and stretch out on the dirty airport floor
Grant and Sandra got to skype with my their daughter and see her cute new twins that were born while we were gone.
So there it is! 5 mostly picture posts about our super fun vacation! We want to go again really soon!!!
Special thanks to Jenny/Lloyd for keeping me company on chat while I posted. It wouldn't have been possible without you. Also thank you for the awesome certificate of achievement which helped convince Brian that I hadn't wasted an entire day doing this. You are the wind beneath my wings ;)

Caribbean Cuise Part 4 - Jamaica

Our last port was Jamaica. We climbed Dunn's River Falls (along with the rest of the world) and floated the White River. At the falls we had to all line up and hold hands as we climbed, which kinda made it harder. Not sure why we had to do that but whatever


We got to take pictures at a couple points and go down the 'jamaican water slide'. Not the best water slide, let me tell ya.

Holly, me, and Brian. That water was icy cold!

It was dicey, and towards the end we completely stopped holding hands and probably lost our tour guide, but we made it!
Tubing the river was so much fun!
Brian pulled my hair
So he got the back-handed splash wave to the face. He deserved it.
It was the perfect lazy river with a couple rapids.
The only issue was that we kept floating into low hanging rocks or beaching ourselves on the river banks
My problem was that I was always way behind everyone else, so our little jamaican river guides always had to swim back and push me into faster flowing water

Our excursion didn't take as long as we thought it would, so we asked our driver to take us to a good restaurant to get some authentic jerk chicken. Sooooo good. We were also introduced to festival bread which is kind of like biting into happiness.
Some one needs to open an authentic Jamaican Jerk place around here. I need this in my life. That and those tacos from Cozumel

We were all pretty beat after that so most of us fell asleep on the ride back to the port. Looks like someone woke my dad up to take a picture

We shopped at the port then somehow made it back to the boat.

After a quick nap we were ready for dinner and I was delirious enough to allow our server to give me a giant napkin bow
Then he turned courtney into the statue of liberty. Our two waiters were having an undeclared war to see who could come up with the most creative way of entertaining us. It all started when our larger table's waiter had better stories to tell, so the waiter at our smaller table had to one-up him of course
The culmination of their battle was this - two forks balanced on a toothpick, balanced on another toothpick stuck into the cork of a wine bottle. Gravity was defeated that day.
Our group on the staircase
We spent most nights at the hot tub. Our preferred hot tub was next to this waverunner that was on display for no apparent reason. We decided that if our cruise ship went Concordia on us, we were heading for the waverunner.

Caribbean Cuise Part 3 - Grand Cayman

Our next port was beautiful, wonderful, sunny with a slight breeze Grand Cayman. I would live here. In a tent. On the beach. 100% serious. We took a catamaran out to a sand bar to swim with sting rays, then went snorkeling, and ended up on 7 mile beach (where i would live)

We took some pictures while we waited to go ashore. ( i feel like a pirate saying that)

The water was beautiful and warm
After we dodged overeager pirates posing for pictures we made our way to a fun candy shop.
Holly found a pre-packaged pan sized rice krispies treat, for the lazy man in all of us who's unwilling to melt some marshmellows and butter.
Waiting for our tour to start
My mom made a friend while waiting.
Some decided to buy ridiculously good/expensive ice cream. We were too cheap, so I stole a taste from Holly
Once we made it out to our boat, they gave us flippers to snorkel with

Then we started out for the sand bar. Best seats on the boat! though brian claims he kept getting splashed by water...never splashed me so...Once we dropped anchor sting rays began migrating to our boat. This picture makes them look small. They are not small. They are massive, slimy, and red-eyed.

So we each got our turn to hold the sting ray, kiss the sting ray, and get a 'back rub' from the sting ray. I was holding it together pretty well


Until the thing started rubbing my back, then this face happened. The cute camera girl kept saying "ok, now your pretty smile sweetie" Clearly this woman has never experienced a back rub from a sting ray. It is not something I could just smile through.Holly did a lot better with the ray than I did
This sting ray got a lot of action...later on the guy in this picture licked the sting ray. LICKED IT. gross.
They told us to gather round for a picture. What was I looking at?


oh right, these 3 creepers taking pictures and laughing at us from the boat because they didn't want to get wet.
And thats why this happened after we all got on the boat. My poor mom has never been able to sit anywhere near a pool or body of water without getting a wet butt on her lap. Thats what you get for never getting in!
Mostly i was preoccupied with watching the tail. I did not want to get skewered

Us doing the 'sting ray shuffle' back to the boat. They told us not to pick our feet up so we wouldn't step on a ray and get attacked by a barb
Then we took a short ride over to the reef where we snorkeled!
Holly was really good at it


I snorkeled for exactly 3 minutes before getting back in the boat. I never really mastered the breathing thing.

Brian and Annie

Then half of us went to 7 mile beach to relax a bit before we had to head back to the boat. It was heaven

Holly took this picture, then got some unwanted attention from a local.Later that night we played more games


Grant and Dustin figured out how to play dominion while brian, holly, and john sat there trying to be helpful. They ended up playing this game the rest of the trip.