VACATION!

If your name is AMIE and you are bitter about missing your cruise, skip this post of mine! :-)

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Jeremy and I just went on a great (much needed) vacation with some awesome people. It was a rather random mix of friends, but we had a great time. We wish that some people....Amie....my sister Kayla.....and others didn't have to miss, but that just means we'll have to plan another cruise. It was so fun having my mom and Kelsey on the trip with us. Vacationing with my mom is a trip in itself!

This was how the majority of our time was spent while we were at sea. The weather wasn't the best on our trip, but our sea days always managed to have some sun!


Cheyenne proved to be the "entertainment" each night at dinner. He would play "Where's the bread?" every night with Jonathan.

This, combined with the night that David felt like a giant with his demi cup (a whole other story), we were constantly rolling with laughter in our chairs. Our fabulous friends, David and Jodi.

Oddly enough, this is the one picture I have of them. A cruise with my BFF and I have no pictures of us. Oh well, we'll just have to go on another!

Formal night picture.

You can see I got a little sunburned the first day!

*Jamaica*

A group of us went from Montego Bay to Negril.

Our first stop.....

Margaritaville in Negril

Mom in the pretty water....her first time in Jamaica.

Next stop:

Rick's Cafe in Negril

(Famous for their cliff jumping)

My husband was CRAZY enough to do it!
He's the blue trunks walking up to the edge.....

Did I mention it was a 40 foot jump???

Safely back on the ground!

Kelsey and I opted for the less daring 10 footer!

Kelsey wanted to do the big jump, but smart mom was there and convinced her that a person that just broke their neck probably shouldn't risk it!

A view from another cliff

Our group:

Cheyenne, Kelsey, Kendra, Jeremy, Kathy, Shelly, Jonathan

*Grand Cayman*

We were supposed to swim with the sting rays again, like we did last September. The weather wasn't cooperating. It was rainy and super windy, so they completely closed the sting ray reef to everyone. We hopped in a cab and decided to go to Hell instead. Yup, you can even get your passport stamped saying you've been to Hell. They have a post office and a couple of souviner shops. Other than that....it's a really big tourist trap of.....

.....nothing!

A field full of lava rocks?!

A genius called this place Hell and is now making a fortune off of:

"I've been to Hell" t-shirts, hats, mugs, and Christmas ornaments!

Smart person!

After Hell we went to a turtle farm. It was pretty cool. Probably not worth the almost $100 for us to get in, but still fun. There was lots to do, including....

holding turtles!

This is actually one of my favorite pictures. I've cropped it for a fram at home, but thought I'd leave it un-cropped for you to see how excited David was! Seriously, his face cracks me up!

Turtle Lovin'

This may have been taken once the turtle started flapping his wings(?) / fins(?)

More turtle love!

The cool part of the turtle farm was the lagoon you could snorkle in. There were lots of fish to swim with.

And there were sharks!

There was piece of glass between our lagoon and their tank, but still, it was cool to swim up to the glass and see sharks swimming right in front of you!

Mom

Me and Jeremy

That night we tried to take a picture of the three of us.

That one was good of the two of them.....

Then we all started laughing....

Mom finally gave up!
Sisters with sunburns!

*Cozumel*

Worst weather day!

Despite the rain, we had fun. We decided that we were going to get wet regardless, so we went to the beach to have some fun!

We snorkled....

Jumped on the trampolines in the water.....

Tried running from one tramp to the other....

Kelsey made it.....

I didn't. :(

We slid down the water slides....

And Jeremy, Shelli, Chey, and Jon rode some rocket thing. After seeing Jeremy get launched off, I didn't even try!

It was pouring, but we had so much fun!

Mom and I kept saying, "Atleast we aren't at work!"

There was putt-putt on board. With the rocking boat and wind, no one did too well!

I did get a flower balloon hat thing in Cozumel....what every 31 year old wants. I was going to bring it to Cass, but Jeremy convinced me that it wouldn't pack well. Here's her picture instead!

All in all, despite friends not getting to come and bad weather and rocking boats, we had a ball!!!

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The only thing that made it okay to come home, besides my own kiddos, was this sweet thing!

I got to keep her one day last week and she was fantastic!

She loved talking to herself in the mirror and taking a bath with Cassidee.

I have a picture of all my kids wrapped up in a towel after a bath, so I thought I'd take one of her too!

Here is Cassidee at two months.
She and Blayze don't necessarily look alike, but they sure are cute all wrapped up like that!