Summer Days

This blog has been quiet for a while. I feel like singing that song "I'm on vacation far away...everything is cool, everything is fine..."

What can I say, school end madness turned into summer adventures and lazy days.

Another summer is almost over and it went way too fast this year! What did you all do this summer? Share some links in the comments to your adventures.

We had an awesome trip to South Carolina for a family reunion and most recently adopted a new son! Needless to say it's been a big summer for our family. Did you catch the last part of that sentence above, BIG summer is an understatement. haha

If you want to see more from our trip you can view pictures Here,  Here, and Here

But, here are just a few pictures from our trip and one sneak peek of our cute little boy who has been with us now for 2 weeks.

Tortolla

This was another favorite island of ours, so beautiful and full of pirate history. To get to any of the beaches you had to drive up and over the mountains. This is a grab shot out the window on the way to a different beach.

Once we got to our destination: Cane Garden Bay, Jeremy and I took a walk to photograph the detailed and brightly colored  buildings. 

The sun was in and out of the clouds all afternoon, but it was still warm and peaceful there.

Later that night we caught a show, played a crazy game of spoons (I'm sure people thought we were drunk), went to the chocolate buffet, and went to another late show. That was our busiest day on the ship! Here we are on our floating home.

St. Thomas - below the water

So these aren't my pictures, we bought the professional pictures and videos taken by the diver. Normally I would have taken my own, but we forgot our underwater cameras in our room that morning. Of all the days to forget. haha Our options were to pay $25 for a cheap camera or buy their picture package. I'm glad we did, all the images are HDR and so clear. Plus, we got to just enjoy the experience knowing someone else was documenting it. I have to be honest, we didn't even see half of the creatures the diver did, but we did see quite a few and we got to hold a lot of little sea creatures, too which was awesome.

This was a unique experience, a once in lifetime. You do a short training about the helmets and what to expect, but both Jeremy and I were still terrified before going in the water. The helmets weigh 75 lbs to keep you on the ocean floor, and they place it on your head on a ladder when you are neck deep in and help you down the ladder. Once down, there is a chain fence along the path to hold on to; without it we would have been swept away in the current. It took a while to get used to walking with the helmet on and figuring out how to look out of it. If you wanted to see something you had to turn your whole body and look straight out the front or everything was really distorted. A few times I reached out to touch a fish only to find I was way off.

You also can't look down, so I tripped a few times at first. Along the way Jeremy and I both had something cross our ankles, whatever it was left a big scratch on my ankle. It was pretty creepy, maybe it was this friendly looking fellow below??! : )

It was a really cool adventure, we were so glad we did it. The kids loved looking at the pictures of us in our helmets, and watching video of it, so I guess the extra cost was worth it in the end. If you're ever in St. Thomas, go check it out!

Also, if you'd like to see another view of St. Tomas or more cruise pictures, check out our friend's site too!

St. Thomas - above the water

St. Thomas was our second port of call on the cruise, the day after Samana. We were delivered right into a tourist trap in St. Thomas and I wasn't thrilled. Nothing authentic to photograph in any direction, but I did get a few nice shots of the harbor from our ship. These are all digital pictures since we had an under water excursion planned that afternnon.

Image descriptions from top left to right going down the rows:

*Coral World at Coki Beach. Debbie and Steve went snorkeling at the beach while we did a helmet dive in that hut. *Before our dive we got to tour the park for a while, meet mr. shark. * Me petting mr. shark, he felt like sandpaper! * Me petting the friendly starfish. * Me getting attacked by a nasty bird. Yeah, I like animal life, but sometimes, they don't like me! haha * The crew station. This little place caters to the asian workers on the ships, they can use the internet, make phone calls, and buy food they eat at home. Our waitress at breakfast was so excited to get off the ship and spend her day here. * This picture makes me laugh! This is supposed to be a postcard set up where you zoom in and take your picture, well, you never know what you'll get handing your camera off to a stranger! *Aboard the ship after our day on the island, ready for dinner. *Dinner at the mexican restaurant on board (thanks guys). We had a very messy meal, Jeremy dropped a rib right into his glass, Steve spilled salsa on the table. We special ordered dessert and when the head waiter saw the state of our table he wouldn't even lay down silver ware until someone came to clean it. I could get used to that level of service, we were so spoiled on the ship!

Speaking of spoiled...I guess that is a good time to add that Jeremy and I bought a week pass to the spa. It was heaven!! There were jacuzzis, saunas, a therapy pool, and hot stone lounge chairs.  Worth every penny for relaxation!!

 At Coral world. There were iguanas everywhere!! They were like seagulls here, they would sneak up to people and try to steal and beg for food. We saw one eating a napkin.

Some cute sea turtles hanging out eating their lettuce lunch.

This was a grab shot on the way back to the tourist trap. Some glimpse of real life here. I loved the school uniforms.

Another grab shot, some guy slicing a fish for sale on the side of the road. St. Thomas ended up being my least favorite stop. From the parts we saw, it was just like being here in the US, only dirtier and more run down.  Good thing we had an awesome dive experience!

Back on board and ready for dinner.

The beautiful sunset harbor

Samana

 Samana, in the Dominican Republic, was our first port of call on the cruise. I loved this place, my favorite stop of the whole cruise for sure. I would love to travel back here some day and just spend a few days on this island. 

We chose a speedboat excursion and got to cruise around the coast at high speeds. We stopped at Cayo Levantado for lunch then had to race back to catch the last tender boat. Our excursion took a lot longer than we thought it would, for a few reasons. First, no one on that island cares about time! haha Second, Steve and Debbie had some issues with their boat breaking down twice, once in the middle of the ocean where they had to switch boats with our captains. It took so much time that our guides felt they owed us all extra time cruising around.

Once we stopped for lunch we didn't know what to expect. The meals were cooked from scratch, it took about 45 minutes to get our food, and there was a lot of it. It was great food, but we spent all our cash on lunch and didn't have any left for shopping, which was so sad. I loved all their hand made jewelry, it was all so beautiful! We did manage to barter a small bracelet for $4, so at least we have something to remember. : )

Here is a sample of images from Samana from the digital camera (protected from salt water in a zip lock baggie, Yeah, I'm high tech! haha) Click to enlarge.

From top left clockwise around to the middle:

*Jeremy and I in front of the mini speedboats *Debbie and I on the tender boat over to the island *Our yummy food and pina coladas made in a pinneapple * Jeremy driving our boat  *Jeremy and STeve on the beach while we waited for the boats to come back from a previous tour, reason 3 ours took longer than expected *Everything you need to make a great pina colada *Debbie, Steve and I in front of the boats *Jeremy and Steve on the tender boat *Jeremy, the sunbaked lobster and the rest of us after a fun day in the sun, in line to go back to the ship *My bracelet *Beautiful ocean and bridge we got to cruise under * One of our Captains drinking the alcohol we didn't want. * Our new friends that joined us on this exciting excursion, Courtney and Neal.

Here are some film images from Samana: 

Jeremy, his head was fried...and a welcoming band

Some pretty dancers, too

One of the reasons I loved this place so much; It was sad to see these poor dogs everywhere, but it's just one example of how authentic and natural the island still is. It is not touristy or commercialized.

 Another band bumming money. Tip for a picture? ; )

A beautiful old dock

 Fishermen pulling in their nets and repairing them, just to the side of that pretty dock above. Yeah, they still fish with nets here, I love it!!

And back to digital... Our dress up night on the ship and a comedy show!

Caribbean Cruise Part 1

We began our journey flying into into Ft. Lauderdale (since it was so much cheaper than flying to Miami) with our friends Steve and Debbie. We spent the night there in Ft. Lauderdale and had dinner at a fabulous Cuban place: Padrinos.

I was a little skeptical at first, nothing on the menu seemed tasteful. It seemed like they took everything you wouldn't want to eat and tossed it all together. Example: everything had loads of onion, beef or dark meat chicken or liver, potatoes, and more onion! I was wrong though; The food was so good, I don't even know how to describe it. Very flavorful, a mix between island, italian, and mexican?? If you haven't tried Cuban food, you should, it's awesome!

I had lamb in a red wine sauce, Jeremy got a skirt steak. We tried plantain chips with onion salsa, stuffed potatoes, a wonderful yam-like vegetable (can't remember the name), sweet plantains, black beans, and Debbie had stuffed chicken. Image taken from Jeremy's phone.

Sunday morning before boarding the ship we went for a walk and found this beautiful church (see we even went to church). : ) All the images below were taken with my Holga film camera.

We had a short drive to the Miami port and began our journey. The image on the left is actually from one of the last days at sea. 

A beautiful mistake. The oversize chess set on the ship double exposed with two friends. ; )