Final Cruise Post

Thursday and Friday were spent sailing back to California.  We did a lot more just relaxing in the room and out on the decks. 

I believe this is Cabo as we passed it on the way back.

We thought this was cool.  We could see where we had been and the path the ship had taken

Thursday was another formal night.

Our table for 2!

Every night there was something on the menu that was a little crazy.  One night we tried escargot and it was a lot better than it looked and what we were expecting.

This was Thursday night's crazy option.  

Frog legs.

Not yummy. 

Thursday night's manta ray, wearing Aaron's sunglasses!

There was another comedy show so we decided to go to that.

Waiting for the show to start.

My virgin Pina Colada. Oh my, it was so YUMMY!!

This comedian was different from the 1st one we saw and he was not funny.  All he did was have kids come up and did "kids say the darndest things".  Only it wasn't funny at all.  You could tell that he didn't like having to do a family friendly show.

Friday was our last full day. :(

We lounged on the decks.  Too cold for swimming suits,  Warm enough to relax and take a nap though!

We had to get 1 last ice cream cone!  I don't think we got enough of these.

This was our last towel creation.  So sweet!  Those are chocolates inside the heart. Yum.

Saturday morning we had to wake up early in order to finish packing and get out of the room.  We went up to the buffet for breakfast.  

We got to watch the sunrise.

Then we wandered around the deck before went and found a place to sit while we waited to get called to get off the ship.

They put up the flags once we were in port.

Last picture on the cruise ship.

We got off the ship and got a taxi to take us to the Long Beach Airport.

We now LOVE the Long Beach Airport.  We had about 3 hours to hang out there before our flight.  It is a small airport and wasn't very crowded.  We had to get lunch and ate at their burger place.  It was really yummy and not that expensive(surprising since we were IN the airport).  Our drinks came with free refills and they had the fancy Coke machines.  Anyone who knows me can imagine how happy that made my 3 hour wait.

Yum!

I also had my kindle to read on, so it was basically heaven.

We got on our plane and of course had to take a few more pictures out the window.  Poor Aaron was stuck between me and a Tongan man who slept or pretended to sleep the whole time.

That is our cruise ship in the picture!

And we came home to snow. Boo.

My dad came to the airport to pick us up and he ended having all the kids with him!  We thought they were going to be at our house with Aaron's parents.

Our kids are crazy.

Also, Aiden seemed to be talking so much more and so much better.  It was crazy.

When we got home we gave them their gifts.

This is a little turtle we bought from some cute Mexican kids.  We bought the other kids each an animal too.

Here is the dress that we found for Brooke.

We got Dallin some shells on the beach in Puerto Vallarta.

We also got the boys each a tshirt and we bought some of the colorfully painted wood fish that are everywhere in Mexico.

The kids were excited to see us and we were excited to see them.  It was an amazing week and it was so nice to have so much time to spend with just Aaron.  We still can't believe that we were able to do this.  We are so blessed.  We also can't believe it is already over. :(

Cruise Part 2

When we woke up Tuesday morning we could see Cabo San Lucas from our balcony.  We went down to the dining room for breakfast because we knew we had a long wait to get off the ship.  To get to Cabo they had to tender us to the shore, and that was such a pain.  It took us over 2 hours to get of the ship by the time they started actually letting people off the ship!  And then they said we had to be on the boat by 3:30.  Ridiculous.

Here is the view of Cabo when we woke up.

A little bit closer!

Us on the balcony with Cabo behind us.

When we finally got of the ship we only ended up staying on Cabo for about an hour because we didn't know how long the tendering process was going to take to get us back to the ship and we didn't want to get left behind, which they made it seem like there was no way they were going to wait for anybody.  Well, they ended up leaving an hour or two after and the whole time we were watching the tender ships coming with more people, so obviously they did wait, so we could have stayed out a bit longer.  We had fun for the hour we were there though.

This is the flea market that we did some shopping in.  It was really intimidating.  The people don't want to take no for an answer!  We found Brooke the prettiest dress though.

Here are some pictures from the little bit of walking we did.

We got back on the tender and saw lots of sea lions on the way back.

This sea lion looked like it was getting a ride from this boat.

We ended up having to eat lunch back on the cruise ship.  After lunch we found some lounge chairs and relaxed until it was time to get ready for dinner.

Laying out in the Mexican sun!

Here is the rock formation that is pretty famous in Cabo.

Sunset over Cabo San Lucas

Here is our creature that greeted us after dinner.

The next morning when we woke up we were almost to Puerto Vallarta.

This was fun to wake up to.  I thought the clouds looked awesome with the sun coming through.

I loved reading on the balcony!

Puerto Vallarta!

Fun to see the Mexican flag as we pulled in!

We ordered room service for breakfast and got to eat it out on the balcony because it was so gloriously warm outside!

It took a little while for the ship to dock, but we had a fun view!

This port was SO much better!  We were able to walk right off the ship and we had like 11 hours before we had to be back.

This mariachi band greeted us as we got off!  It was so cool!

We looked at a map and could tell that if we wanted to go to a beach we were going to have to take a taxi.  So, we found a guy and got in his taxi, and oh boy, this was way more scary than the taxi in California.  There are no lanes or anything!  The taxi driver just went where ever there was a space for him!

Picture of a building out of the taxi window.

The taxi dropped us off right by the beach and we were able to hang out on the beach for a couple hours.  It was so nice!  I am a beach girl.  I LOVE the beach!

The water was so blue!  And so much warmer than I was expecting it to be.

I loved seeing all of the buildings and palm trees.

Me out in the water

I got to read my book on the beach.  The ONE thing that I absolutely wanted to do.  And it was lovely!

After awhile we decided to go and find a place to eat.  We ended up eating at a restaurant right behind where we had be sitting on the beach. 

See!  We got a table right on the beach!!

Yum.  Mexican Coke.  So good!

Best chips and guac I have ever tasted.  Nothing in Utah will ever compare.

The best tacos we have ever had!  Seriously so good.

After lunch we spent a few hours wandering around the city.  It was so nice to just wander and not be in any hurry or anything.

A school we found while walking

We turned the corner after the school to see this AMAZING mosaic wall.  I was mesmerized.

So many buildings all packed in together

A random alley.

I was surprised to see that people lived like right off the sidewalk and they would have their doors or windows open and were like a few feet away from us.  Also, where they lived made our house look like a mansion.

Bouganvillia! 

Flags over the street.  I LOVE how colorful everything was.

Mexican's version of Diet Coke.  Yum.

By around 3:00 we were hot and tired from walking so we caught a cab back to the ship to rest for awhile.

Random building out the window of the taxi.

We got changed and decided to walk over to this huge shopping mall to check it out.

Liverpool seemed to be their version of a Macy's or Dillard's.

There was another flea market right by the port so we decided to walk around there for a little.  I had to get pictures, because of all the fun colors.

We got back on the boat and had dinner and sat on our balcony for most of the rest of the night.

This pirate ship was one of the excursions.  It was fun to watch it sail around.

Elephant!

We had so much fun in Puerto Vallarta.  We want to go back to Mexico and stay for a week.  It was such a fun place.

Part 3 will be the rest of the trip!