Anniversary Cruise: Day 8 - Nassau, Bahamas

that's our ship in the background

Well after our wonderful relaxing day, we were ready to go again.  What's nice though is that we had no plans for this island.  We just got off when we were ready (after breakfast, of course), and took lots of pictures.  We wandered off the boat and down the long docks.  The view from the ship before we even got off was amazing.  I especially liked the light house.

we passed this on the way in-so beautiful

The view out into the harbor was amazing.  It was so nice to just walk slowly and talk about what we were seeing and how much fun we were having.  We eventually made it into the main building on the docks.  It was like a tourist info stop.  It had booths for the locals to sell things like AWESOME smoothies, nick knacks, adventures like parasailing (Chris decided against it), and cash machines and other places to eat.  We had a lot of fun hanging out learning about Nassau.

in the distance you can see where everyone stays when visiting the island

After wandering the tourist section we headed into the city proper, mostly so I could grab some Tylenol and swimmer's ear that didn't cost a fortune.  (Something to remember: on board the ship, there are medical supplies, but they cost a lot).  After getting my OTC meds, we headed to, of all places, a McDonald's.  I know, why would we go there?

I just loved the colors of the water and this little sandbar

Chris wanted to make some phone calls using there wifi.  We called home to both sets of parents to find out which families we had for Christmas.  If you remember Chris mentioned the idea to buy our gifts while we were traveling and so we decided to do it all the way.

apparently the locals liked this sandbar too!

Anyway, so we spent the rest of the time hitting shops that we had seen on other islands.  Shops like Cariloha (things made out of bamboo) and Del Sol, where every item does something fun in the sun.  We loved the Del Sol store most of all, but I got a great skirt from the Cariloha store.  We also wandered into some of the jewelry stores (just to look) and in the main streets looking at the stalls the locals had set up.  My favorite stall was one of the older women who made baskets and purses from bamboo strips.  Reminded both Chris and I of our missions.  (His in the Philippines and mine in the Dominican Republic)  We so enjoyed it.

this was from one of the festivals they'd had recently

We did not enjoy the people scrounging or cornering us for money/donations.  One person hurriedly put necklaces around our necks and told us they cost so much money.  We were obliged to either pull them off or pay the person.  We chose to purchase one for less than they had required.  He gave us a dirty look, but Chris is really good at not feeling bad for giving money to people.  I have a hard time sometimes (I'm too much of a softy I guess), but Chris lived among people who were much worse off than anyone we've come across together so he is better at recognizing those who are really in need.

isn't he so cute?  the exact same posture as his mission pix!

Anyway, so after we'd made our purchases we headed back to the boat.  We wandered down the long docks again, taking pictures and sitting on the side next to the water.

After we eventually made our way back on board we relaxed some more.  We hung out in the sun and had lunch.  We played and relaxed and, I know, took naps!!!  It was a great way to have fun on our last day.

these little animal creations were on our newly made bed 

every afternoon when we came back to the ship!

(top: seals, elephant, dog - bottom: rabbit, snake, bulldog, heart)

That night we decided not to eat in the regular restaurant.  We ate at the Sun King upstairs.  It's an exclusive restaurant, but so affordable.  We dressed nice and sat in the beautiful restaurant.  That's when it began to pour outside.  It was so fun because we were sitting right next to the floor to ceiling windows.     We ordered our dinner and then sought some sparkling cider for a special treat.  It was, after all our 10th anniversary!  The funniest thing happened then.

this was so much fun and reminiscent of our dinner 10 yrs ago!

Our drink guy (I'm sure he has a special title) wanted to try the cider.  He was used to things like really good wines and such so this order was new for him.  He tasted it in his little dish on a silver chain (I'm sure to check the goodness of the wines) and said he liked it.  Chris and I giggled to ourselves, knowing that it was an unusual request for someone like him.  Anyway, after the sparkly drinks were served we ordered.  The menu and style of the restaurant reminded us so strongly of the Aerie, another fine dining restaurant, where we spent our honeymoon.  The courses were very good, some new tastes to try, and the main course was so generous.  We loved every minute of it.  The best part was that it was all so romantic.  We had really enjoyed ourselves as far as adventures and seeing new things, but the romance part wasn't as easy to find on our cruise.  (isn't that an odd thing to say?)

Soon we were on our way over the ocean again and heading toward Florida for our debarking situation the next morning.

Anniversary Cruise: Sea Day 7

Well how are we doing?  I know, I get all excited, make a goal and wow, y'all just have to keep up.  (yes, that's how they write it down here.)

So by the time we hit our last sea day, i.e. travel the ocean day to the next island, we were so ready for some more of the relaxing part and less of the adventuring part.  This is honestly the only day I can say I really remember hanging out by the pool.

We ate a leisurely breakfast and then hit the sundeck.  I loved it.  Whenever I'm at the beach or a pool, I'm worried about drowning, predators (human/other), and sand in all the places I can't use a wipe fast enough like up little noses. This time I got to actually feel the sun warm my skin instead of realize too late that though the kids had plenty of sunscreen I petered out and forgot myself.  I got to drink a nice cold cup of water without having to worry about what the last "sharing" episode did to it.  And I even got to take a quick dip in the water to cool off without someone crying because I was going to be more than 2ft away from my last location.  Honestly, I think it was one of the best parts of the whole cruise.  I love to play, but I love to do nothing in the sun even more sometimes!

Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE to hang out with my family.  My kids are fantastic and so much fun, but the exhaustion factor after a day like that is killer.  This last sea day, I did pretty much nothing and never once did I feel guilty about it like I should've done something more productive with my time.

With this being the last sea day and all, it was also the last formal attire night at dinner.  We dressed up without going super formal and still had so much fun.  The dinner staff in the restaurant was in rare form with jokes, dancing around the tables, pulling us into the longest conga line I've ever seen live, and just basically making it a great time for everyone.  The food was great, the lack of clean up on my part was better, and the entertainment was worth watching.

gave them to my kids for dress up when I got home!

After dinner we went to the last family show of the cruise.  This one was done with the theme of Mardi Gras with smooth jazz and beautiful dancers.  The set was constructed to look like New Orleans and the costumes cracked me up.  The most fun was the great music (Chris and I are huge jazz fans) and the streamers and necklaces thrown over the audience at the end.  I so loved these shows.  Some people criticized the lack of professionals in the cast or the kind of music or theme the show focused on - I just really enjoyed a free show, well done, without having to find a babysitter, drive for an hour, stuff down dinner from a fast food place, and then hopefully find our seats and hope they were good.  I guess my expectations are just too easily met compared to some.

hanging out on deck at night

After the show, we wandered the decks some more, watched the black ocean pass below us, and watch the moon cast an almost mystical look to the waves.  I know it sounds like I'm making it so "over the top" as Chris would say, but that's what it was really like.  Not every moment feels like a movie, but there are some moments in life that you're sitting there thinking how beautiful and romantic it all is and why isn't there music playing to this scene?  Can't help it.  My life just has movie moments like that so it's how I describe them.

The point is, we used our last sea day to it's fullest advantage, enjoyed each other's company and the company of our friends and really just relaxed in a most relaxing atmosphere.

Anniversary Cruise: Day 6 - Tortola, BVI

This was one of the most fun islands for us.  Like I said in the previous post about Antigua, we chose to do something on each island we visited.  This island was so full of things to do ~ thankfully we took pix!

Unlike St. Thomas, we chose to do our excursion in Tortola earlier in the day.  So early actually that we almost didn't eat breakfast.  Good thing we decided to anyway, we had a major work out.

We chose to do the snorkeling and kayaking trip.  I never would've done the kayaking except that it is a fun Fosburg activity that I've become really fond of.  At this point where I wasn't pregnant for the first time in three years during our anniversary celebration, I was super excited to do this.

We jumped on the boat after taking a few pix at the port.  It was a bit nerve wracking because when we jumped on we were immediately given snorkel gear.  Unfortunately, they didn't have all the necessary gear so they traded with another vessel.  It was quite interesting to see how the crew handled the boat so easily doing such interesting maneuvers.  Anyway, so we were off.

can't hear much, but the guy with the dreads was the "lore master" who shared so much

What always cracked me up - even now- is that while driving out to the locations for our activities the crew always seemed to feel like it was a great time to inform us of the local history, customs, or funny stories.  There was only one problem - the motor on the boat was always so loud we only caught a bit of all the amazing things they had to tell us!  We did catch one great thing though, apparently all the islands we could see were the base for the pirate tales we all know, including Black Beard.  The best part is that Tortola is actually the famous "Tortuga" of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  They actually filmed parts of the movie there.  I love pirates for those of you who don't know.  We revelled in all the pirate lore and mythology.  So it was super fun to get to land on one of the islands.

Once we landed we were given the gear and the kayak and pointed in the correct direction.  Guess what made me laugh the most?  Chris and I started out doing really well and I sat there slipping my yellow plastic paddle into the beautiful turquoise waters when all of a sudden I noticed that we were outstripping most of the other kayak teams.  This worried me for a moment until I saw a blow up speed boat heading our way and then past us!  I cracked up when I recognized the crew in the boat.  Apparently they don't lead by example on that excursion.

on our way to the "other" island

Anyway, so we landed at this beautiful other island, very famous for rich people's houses (like Bill Gates).  The fun part though was meeting the original owner of the island.  This little barefoot, blind wrinkled old man with a huge grin and a very personable disposition was the actual owner of the island with all the famous people's houses on it.  He was so cute.  He'd sold the land with the provision that the developer was required to take care of him for the remainder of his life.  He has a small stone hut-like house at the back of the island with lots of conch shells outside the door and beautiful tropical flowers hanging at the window.  He loved fish and the fruit of the island.  Basically he just wanted to be left alone to enjoy the island he had lived on for so long.  So the people make sure he has what he needs and then leaves him to live his life.  Not a bad setup for either party I guess.

after all the work it was fun to swim for a minute

After the little tour to the back of the island we kayaked back to the other location for snorkeling.  Many of the people took conch shells off the beach.  Really, they were so pretty, but I couldn't figure out what I was going to do with it when I got home, so I left my share there.  Maybe someone else will get the one I would've taken and do something cool with it.  I just took pix and enjoyed the whole thing.  It was a great adventure and the snorkeling was fantastic!

the exercise and the sun felt so good on this day!  

almost forgot I had kids at home!

We got back to port just in time for lunch and holy cow, we were starving!!!  We hopped a taxi into town asking him to drop us at a local place to eat.  By this time we were more brave in choosing to do our own thing.  Myra and Jason did it all the time and we didn't go too far from the ship.  Well the guy took us to this great little shop, but it was all vegetarian type stuff.  We had amazing mango smoothies made from ones we had picked out.  Chris even purchased an extra for later.

the water was so salty getting a person underwater in a picture was really hard!

Then we headed into the main part of town alone.  On our way back to the ship we found the kind of eatery we'd been looking for.  We walked in, grabbed some awesome sandwiches, and sat down to listen to the locals talk.  The whole time we'd been in the Caribbean I couldn't tell what locals were saying.  Chris insisted it was a foreign language, but I wasn't sure.  Then a very pregnant woman came into the shop.  Considering all my previous experience I figured this would be a good conversation to see if I was right or Chris was.  You'll never believe it ~ it's English, sort of.  The alteration of the words and tones is pretty pronounced, but gets easier once you know what they're discussing.  It was so fun to listen to.

not a lot of fish, but it was so pretty we didn't care

On the way out of the shop, I got a bit nervous because I couldn't see our ship.  I didn't want to get left behind because we got lost.  Luckily many other guests had wandered from the ship and we found that all we had to do was follow the white people!  Being a minority in a location never bothered me so I found it funny to use my color as a trail marker.  (If it had bothered me at some point, being the only white girl in a large neighborhood of the Dominican Republic would've cured me before this.)

Eventually we made our way to the ship bypassing all sorts of tents with touristy stuff in them.  Chris got it in his head that we could buy our family Christmas presents while on vacation and I thought it was a great idea.  We found some really fun things on this island and the last one for our family and friends.  It was great to have a reason to be sifting through all the interesting things the locals were selling.

this was so much fun together!

Finally we made it back to the ship for a good long hot shower!  Then we made our way to dinner to share the day's adventure stories with our table companions, Myra and Jason.  They had a great camera.  It was a digital that went underwater!  I so want one next time we do something cool.  We all shared fun anecdotes and experiences of the day.  They always had a good time.  They were less into the structured activities, but it was our first cruise so they understood our desire for more set times and less wandering.

This was my favorite island, but they were all so much fun!

Anniversary Cruise: Day 5 - Antigua

Port of call

So originally I had planned to relax between major excursions in order to maintain the very comfy-like type of cruise we were going for, but Chris got too excited and we ended up booking excursions for all but the last island we stopped at.

I wandered here.  

Found a beautiful painting that Chris helped me bargain for!

This island was soooooo much fun and we didn't even go in the water!  Imagine that!  We got into port really early in the day (like 6am - ok, early for us) and knew from experience the previous day in St. Thomas, that we would be leaving port around 8pm, but we had to be aboard by 5:30pm.  So we had scheduled the excursion for a little later in the afternoon.

So relaxed, haven't zip-lined yet

That meant we got to watch the water, eat breakfast and relax on land for a bit before we went out for our adventure.  It was nice.  Chris found some wi-fi to make him happy, though it made him more upset than anything due to the speed or lack thereof and the fact that a cold soda cost twice what it would in FL he was not a happy guy.

See? Not happy husband - it was a rare moment on the cruise

We had just enough time to grab lunch before we hopped in a few taxis with our group.  The "adventure" was zip-lining over the jungle pretty far inland on the island of Antigua.  We got to see so much of the island!  I loved it.  The taxis weren't like in NY or even in DC, they were like upscale third world taxis.  Of course, Chris and I having lived abroad when we were younger as missionaries for our church, we had a lot of fun on the ride.

After a long trip we finally made it to our destination.  I was unsure when we chose the excursion how it was going to work out, but the fact that for the first time in three years there wasn't a possibility of pregnancy to keep me from doing what we wanted, made me go for something I am so glad I did, but wouldn't have attempted without some strong Chris encouragement.  Zip-lining across the tops of the jungle trees sounds and looks really cool, unless you're the one who goes through the brief safety meeting and has to get all hooked up in a mass of gear.  Of course, flying through the air at high speed with only a tree and a guy looking entirely too young to be helpful at the other end is a great way to gauge how brave you are.

this was at the very beginning - he was actually going really fast!

The safety meeting where we were all geared up would have been pretty boring except for the other military wife gearing up next to me.  She was so funny.  We apparently had similar senses of humor and got a good laugh out of watching both our husbands (hers a bit large, mine a bit skinny) gearing up.  Beyond the obvious wifely humor and mother humor, there was the fantastic military wife/mother crack ups too.  Like I said, not boring.

I was really having as much fun as it looks!

So we are BRAVE!  I know because the tree I spoke of earlier comes really fast!  The guy is entirely too young!  Our hands were our best brakes to slow us down before we hit the football pad at the end of the zip-line.  Sometimes we stopped too early (nerves sometimes gotcha) and had to pull ourselves to the small platform.  Other times we stopped just in time, but almost flipped around funny (Chris).  And by the end of the whole zip-line system of platforms, we stopped appropriately and didn't need either the pad, the tree, or the guy (who seemed to improve in years and experience as we moved from the earlier platforms to the latter ones!  Maybe it was just me.)

so serious - how did I do?

The best part of the zip-lining was the view.  I know, totally obvious, but looking down from that height with the warm wind whipping through your hair and around your body, it just added something amazing to the whole experience.  It didn't feel so scary or intimidating by the end of the zip-lines and just so you know they got longer and steeper the further we went.  By the end we were shouting silly things at each other as we crossed the valleys and gorges.  It really was the other people who helped make the trip so fun.  We would've had fun regardless, but good company while you hiked to the next platform or waited in line for your turn was invaluable.  I sure felt like we got our money's worth.

so NOT serious - don't care what you think!

And then, we did the obstacle course.  The course was kind of silly, but still fun.  It reminded Chris of the improving working relationships course he had to do in training.  I remembered a similar set of exercises in girls camp when I was a kid.  Anyway, we skittered through tons of ropes, ladders, platforms, and different types of challenges with the help of our "other" to get to the end.  I really enjoyed the hike at the end.  Gave us that nice - wow, this could be considered exercise - feeling.  

"Wow, I did that so well.  Not so hard."

We had so much fun.  They even talked Chris into getting the dvd with video and pix (we weren't allowed to take our cameras or phones).  Thankfully, with the military discount they grudgingly gave Chris (he's very good at talking to people) we didn't spend too much.  Just look at our pix!

"Soo glad I didn't run into you!  Both feet on the ground - whew!"

We even got certificates of completion for doing so well.  It was fun.  Chris is such a goof sometimes, but oh, how I love my goof!

I took the few minutes after all the exercise to rest and take some pix of the all the pretty flowers.  I'm a sucker for flowers.  Then we took the same long ride back to the docks. By the time we got back on board we were ready to relax and eat the whole ship.  I think this was the night that both of us ate the most!  Lots of meat, veggies, fruit, and of course... dessert!

In the evening as with all the evenings on board, the night had lots of events.  We chose to participate in the cruise's "Gender Showdown" with Myra and Jason.  I never thought this activity could be as funny as it was.  Some of the guests got so involved they actually de-volved in their participation.  Women were hooting and hollering, running around and griping.  Men were yelling and some were cussing, laughing their heads off and even booing in some cases.  The best moment of the whole event was when a little old man (and I mean, I think I was taller than he was) scurried down from the balcony seats to let our male representative know the answer to a woman's cosmetics question.  Oh, how funny it was when the host got to tell the very smug woman on stage that the little old man had stolen the point!  Even I was thrilled to see him get it!  We had so much fun doing it, the host decided to finish the game the next night!  

Before we left however, we watched men, women, and children get into the music learning Michael Jackson's "Thriller".  The girl teaching was one of the main show's dancers so it was hilarious to watch the regular folks try to keep up.  The best was seeing how the younger kids picked up on it so quick they could've been in the original video that was decades older than they were.  (Oh - how old I felt just writing that!  I saw the original and all the back story to creating a living werewolf.  Had no idea how long ago that was until just now!)

The rest of the night we wandered, ate at the snack places and generally just lounged.  Every now and then at the end of our longer days (excursion days) we ended up in the adult's section in the hot tubs or lounging in a hammock, or just gabbing on a couch.  The breeze was always so nice since the ship was always traveling, and the company couldn't have been better.  Thus ended another day in the Caribbean for the Fosburg pair.