The sunset on our last night could have not been any better. We stood at the top of the ship and watched the sun go completely down..while eating a bowl of ice cream...it couldn't have been better!
Our last couple of days were spent on the ship out at sea. We did lots of relaxing, sleeping in, gettting room service, attending shows, and eating lots of ice cream and hot chocolate. We weren't outside much because the weather had really cooled and it was very windy. There were many activities going on inside that we were able to participate in and watch. One being horse racing, this was hilarious! Each horse had a name, there were 6 horses. The funniest name was hoof-arted (you would think Ryan made this is, but I am proud to say he didn't:). Everyone put money down on which horse they thought would win. Every round the horses were worth a certain dollar amount. The main guy "Stew" (who did an awesome job directing ALL of the activities) was the one who rolled the dice and called out which horse moved up one line. Whichever horse got to the finish line first one. It was so loud and people were screaming and yelling for their horse. We sat back and watched and laughed our heads off, it was great!!
Here we are in the dinning room. One of the activities was to take a tour of the kitchen...let me just say that that was amazing. I cannot believe how much food they make for one day! They said they prepare about 10,000 meals a day, yes a day!!!!!! That would be 80,000 meals for our 8 days!!! Oh my gosh! They gave stats on how much alcohol they have on board and that was a rediculous amount, the number of pounds of meat, how much water, everything...it was just amazing!
Here they were preparing for dinner. Look how BIG there pans are!
This is the soup. Can you believe all that...I sure couldn't...crazy
Well, this was my favorite guy. He is the one I looked forward to seeing everyday at 3pm...He was the ICE CREAM MAN. This is where you got yummy delicous ice cream with all sorts of yummy toppings and was simply delicious!!!
This needed to be a post all by itself. The sunset in Manzanillo was beautiful to say the least!
Manzanillo was our last port in Mexico. We arrived on Wednesday morning and spent all day here. For our excursion we did an outdoor tour, shopping, plantation and lunch at a resort. This was a great tour! We first stopped in downtown Manzanillo and did a little bit of shopping. Then we were on our way to the plantation in Mexico. This was amazing! We went off on a dirt road and were able to see where the banana's are grown along with coconuts, sugar cane and papaya's. We have never seen exactly how banana's are grown and here there were acres and acres of bananas. These banana's are the best banana's we have ever had!
The banana tree. The banana's are covered by newspaper and a blue bag.
Following our plantation visit we headed to this nice hotel where we lounged out on the beach and were served delicious guacamole and chips. This was so relaxing and I could have sat on the beach all day long.
Ixtapa-Zijuatenejo, Mexico. I can honestly say that this was our favorite port. The little city was beautiful, everything was so green and lush.
On Monday we pulled into Acapulco Mexico. It was beautiful being in the front of the ship watching us come in.
In the evening we were walking along the beach and came to a bunch of men, boys pulling this big thick rope out of the water. We weren't sure what it was until we started talking to someone else from the ship. Every evening these men go way out into the water, in a small fishing boat, and drop the gigantic net. They pull the ropes in with them and continue pulling the rope in while the net is picking up fish. This is how they get their fresh fish everyday. It was a lot of work and took them a little about 2 hours to pull the net in and there were 12 guys pulling the rope...6 on each side! After watching this and thinking all the work they go to to feed their families you become very humbled and really see how blessed we are. There were kids running to get small fish and the mother's were standing behind the men with their bags. It was very interesting to watch how the people "live". 
And here was our home away from home. I have to say, I felt a little guilty getting back on this ship.
Our first two days were spent at sea. Being on a HUGE ship was like a city on water. We were never board. We enjoyed relaxing, reading, people watching (always entertaining), eating non-stop, having ice cream at our fingertips, attending events that were planned while at sea, miniature golf, sleeping in and being waited on hand and foot! The list could go on and on, it was a blast. We were both so amazed at how a ship this big could float and have ALL that it has...AMAZING!
Ryan and I went on our first cruise the day after Thanksgiving!! To say the least it was FABULOUS and I recommend everyone go on atleast one. All I know is that we are now set on cruising...it IS the way to go. We took the cruise down the "Exotic Mexican Riviera". It was 8 nights and absolutely FABULOUS! Our ports were Acapulco, Ixtapa-Zijuatanejo, and Manzanillo, Mexico.
We bravely left our kiddos and went on a vacation all by ourselves. It was hard leaving the kids, but we knew they would be just fine. It wasn't hard for them to leave us, because Hollie kept telling us it was time for us to go. (I think she was a little too excited :))
We left from Arizona and headed down to San Diego. The drive was great, but felt like forever! We got to Ryan's parents house, dropped off the car and they took us down to the port. Everything went great until I slammed my finger in the door of the car!!!! Can I tell you how bad it hurt? There are no words to describe the pain. The door was all the way shut and there was my index finger in it!!!! Aaaah just thinking about it makes it hurt. Ryan quickly came to my rescue and wanted to look at it. I didn't want to look because all I wanted to do was get down to the ship! I was in such denial that this happened and I wasn't going to let it interupt our vacation. It looked terrible, bruised pretty quickly and I still don't have feeling in my finger where it was cut. Oh well, I atleast had a fabulous trip with my wonderful husband.
Here are a few of our first day highlights:
Too cute! I love my wonderful husband
So, this year I decided to try and take our own pictures for our Christmas card and was pretty impressed with how they turned out. Remind you, they are not professional, but maybe if I practice LOTS I can one day get a really nice Nikon camera.
We had a great surprise show up on Halloween day and that was PAPA!! We love papa and were so excited to have him drive out for one of his 24 hour trips to be with us on Halloween.
Hollie loved having her Papa here. She wanted to trick or treat with just him and he was the only one allowed to go up to the door with her. It was cute watching them walk down the street and enjoy their time together...she is definetly papa's girl!
