A cruise. 4 nights to Cozumel, Mexico out of Galveston, Texas. Basically a trip with no kids, cool experiences, interesting things to see and lots of laughs. First order of business- find our friends!
We felt blessed Aaron's eye surgery went well and we flew to Houston on Wednesday May 5th. The girls stayed with Barbara and Kevin while we headed to port with old buddies from law school. Left to right- Adam and Jaime Peterson, Chad and Amy (with baby girl debuting in Sept) Hatfield, Bryan and I and the parrot named Eduardo. Oh wait, that was our scuba instructor. I don't know who that parrot belonged to. Maybe to the funny-smile-grandpa we loved.
{Just writing about our cruise makes me start smiling.}
Food- the endless yummy buffet.
Bryan and I each weighed 3 pounds heavier on the cruise scale than at home. Maybe it was the humidity? or different gravitational pull while in the gulf? wonky home scale? Or the yummy pizzeria? And a 6 p.m. snack followed by 8 p.m. dinner of bread, two appetizers, one entree, and two desserts followed an 11 p.m. snack? Hard to say. My favorite was a dessert called melting chocolate cake. It was warm chocolate cake that when you poked your spoon into it, you found a fudgey sauce underneath. Put that into the vanilla ice cream and it was so heavenly!! We tried to eat two in one night- too much. But man they were good!
Next up sleep
And lots of it. Notice Bryan on the bed with the window shades drawn tight. Well actually there is no window behind there, just a wall. So we slept a lot in our den. We even had one nap from 6:30-8 p.m. Now I am a big fan of napping a lot but a nap at dinner time? Well on a cruise there are no rules and we loved all our naps.
Boating Fun
We danced hip-hop, sang, water slided, played cards, danced country, played shuffleboard, played 2 rounds of mini golf, read, gambled, made silverware art, played sodoku, hot-tubbed, made new friends of some staff, enjoyed Mother's Day, laid out. Here Bryan and I volunteered for a impromptu guitar/ dance at the karioke bar. 
Discovering Mexico
This was a litte slice of paradise on a gorgeous beach with the tiki huts. We also watched a sea lion show and saw a bunch of dolphins and a manatee. Very tropical. Also a few wild huge lizards.
Bobbing Along in the Beautiful Sea
We went to Chankkanaab State Park and got a pass to do some snorkeling. The water was gorgeous, the fish touching me was unpleasant, the stuff to look at was cool. We had a snorkel tour guide show us the ropes and then offer us scuba if we took a short 30 minute class. We took the opportunity and later went scuba diving. I got certified back in 2000, but everyone else was trying something new. It was a cool reef and we even did a cave dive. The cave was crazy scary cool with a cloud of sardines and a fish the size of a man and a funky fresh water/ocean water cloud we swam in. There were a few minor jelly fish stings and I actually got sick and threw-up while scuba diving. Overall a cool underwater day.
Saying Goodbye
On the bus ride back to the car; a little tanner and fatter than we were before. It was great to get back to our kids, but after the first 30 seconds of Ashley screaming in my ear I started dreaming of when we could do another get-away. Thanks friends for a fun time!
This part is for everyone who asks me- "How was the cruise? Was it just the best ever?" Actually we figured out that the cruise while really nice, it not our dream vacation b/c we are into 'doing' more than 'being'. We hope to see the world and though a cruise is very relaxing with good food and great peeps, we would rather sign up for great food and fun peeps in a tropical location and play there the whole time.
