Cruisin' With Family

My grandparents on my mom's side, Gardner & Dorothy, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary this year. Two years ago they took a bunch of us on a cruise and we had so much fun, my grandmother thought it would be a great way to celebrate their anniversary with as much family as could be there. In total, I think there were 23 family members in our party on this cruise.

And what a party it was!

These are my grandparents 60 years ago on their wedding day!

And this is them earlier this year at a fundraiser.

Aren't they the cutest?
The best time that worked out for the majority of us fell during Thanksgiving so we spent a wonderful 10 days aboard the MSC Poesia, an Italian cruise line.

This is actually a shot of our ship while docked in Cozumel.

It was big but not too big.

We left from Ft. Lauderdale on November 20th.

This is my my younger sister, Jessi and her three kids: Sara (4), Taylor (10) and Evan (8).

Taking a tour the first day, we were happy to find a mini-golf course on board! Too bad most days were too windy to really play but I know Matt and the kids had a lot of fun on the course!

The first two full days on the ship were at sea so we found lots of ways to occupy ourselves.

This is my youngest sibling, Jeff and my sister, Jessi. They are both goofballs but the best siblings a girl could ask for!

Matt and two of my nephews enjoying some fresh air after the breakfast buffet.

He is with James (5) and Evan.

Matt with a bunch more of the gang, Taylor, Sara, James & Evan.

My disco diva older sister, Alyee and her cutie, Winter (3).

Matt enjoying some lunch in between pool times.

The food surprisingly was not spectacular. It wasn't too bad but when we went on Royal Caribbean 2 years ago, the food was a lot better. Oh well! One good thing about that is I don't think any of us put on weight. Especially me! I spent about 3 days out of the 10 sick to my stomach because of motion sickness combined with pregnancy hormones. I was fine as long as I could be on non-moving land but more than 24 hours at sea and I found my body did not agree with the motion of the ocean!

Our first stop was Curacao. I guess it's a pretty small island but the beaches we went to were fantastic! Matt, Quinton and I are on the bridge to the touristy side of the island in this picture.

On this leg of the trip, Matt ended up hiking up to a radio tower on a tall hill while the rest of my family and I went to a private beach and spent the day getting crispy! Unfortunately, the majority of us live where we haven't seen the sun too much in a few months so that much sun, all in the first day, proved to be a bad combination!

My mom will probably shoot me for two pictures on the blog and this would be the first one...but really...Why do you need to advertise a dancing pole inside of your tour bus???

Our second stop on the cruise was Aruba.

We were so burnt from the previous day that we decided to spend the day touring on a nice air-conditioned bus with my family and Grandparents.

Apparently, Aruba is not a big island because we were able to see it pretty quickly. Our tour took us to the lighthouse on the island which afforded us some magnificent views of the surrounding beaches and clear waters.

Jessi, my Granddad and me posing in front of the light house.

This is another stop in Aruba...some big rocks.

Seriously, in Moab, these rocks might be considered "pebbles" but in Aruba, they make up one of the higher point elevations of the island.

That night, we had one of the 'fancier' dinners. Matt, Quinton and I didn't make it to the dining room for dinner every night because the service was SO slow which is not great for a 4 year old with a normal four year old attention span!

But here we are one night, with my younger sisters, Melanie and Jessi. Melanie probably won't love this picture of herself but it makes me laugh! Thanks for the giggles, Mel!

Sara and my brother, Jeff. Sara used to tell her mom all the time that she wanted to marry her Uncle Jeff and you can see she is still a big fan of his these days!

Our third stop was in Cartegena, Colombia.

It was kind of a gray and rainy day which was fine because I don't think Cartegena is known for it's beaches. Instead, after a LONG haggle between my mom and some bus drivers, we ended up in 'rented' cabs for the whole day for only $40! What a deal!

This is our cab group with our cab driver. He'd been studying English for a couple of years and chatted with us non-stop! At one point, though, I think he asked me how much I would sell my sister, Melanie, for...maybe my Spanish isn't too good, though!

Another cool stop in Cartegena was the old fort. It was really cool but it was SO hot and SO humid only a few in our party of about 25 people decided to climb to the top.

Quinton enjoyed climbing the part of the ruins that didn't cost $14 to go up!

Instead of the fort, my family's priority was finding some GOOD Colombian food!

Some good friends of ours in Florida are Colombian and they make the best food and have the best fiestas at their house. So of course, we HAD to have good food, especially since the food on the ship was nothing to write home about!

Our driver took us to this GREAT restaurant and we had the most delicious Colombian food. Below are Melanie, Jessi and Jeffrey looking like they just won the lottery because my grandparents didn't want their tostones (fried unripened plantains) and these three snagged them.

That night, when we got back to our cabin, our WONDERFUL steward, Ricardo, made Quinton a cute towel elephant!

Our fourth stop on the cruise was Panama.

Luckily, my grandparents had us pre-book on an excursion that included a nice air-conditioned bus with a friendly tour guide.

First, our guide took us into a tame area of the jungle where we saw howler monkeys, the coolest leaf ants I have ever seen and some gorgeous blue Morpho Butterflies.

While in Panama, we also got to see the Panama Canal and learn more about how the system works. It's an amazing feat of engineering that I never really contemplated before seeing them in-person. Unfortunately, around the time we saw the canal and then a trip to a really cool old fort, my camera battery died. so this is the last pic from Panama..

Sara and Jessi exploring the Panamanian jungle.

And our last stop, Cozumel!

Originally, we were supposed to go to a smaller island off of the coast of Cozumel, Playa del Carmen, but the winds were too strong for it to be safe for us to get there so our boat went straight to Cozumel.

None of us minded the change in plans and ended up having a great time!

My mom, always the tour guide haggler, haggled us a great rate for a tour guide. My family and my grandparents took a mini-tour of Cozumel including these ruins which I guess the term is used very loosely when it comes to the ruins we saw!

Matt and Quinton channeling their inner Chupacabras in this picture!

One of the two best parts of Cozumel was going to this private resort beach with TONS of toys!

This is my Granddad enjoying the sand and surf!

And this is the second picture my mom my shoot me for posting but she looks so YOUNG in this picture! She had a lot of fun in the kayak and then some snorkeling.

You can barely see them but at the top of the mammoth slide are Quinton and Matt inside of the netting. I don't know who was braver but they both went down and had a great time!

After playing at the beach, we found a nice taco joint and had the yummiest tacos, guacamole and chips on the trip, YUM!

And on the finally evening of the cruise, Matt and my brother, Jeff decided to be in the talent show! Jeff played his bee video which can be viewed here and Matt performed an amazing magic show. This was his outfit. I'll have to obtain his permission to post the video of his magic show and then figure out how to post it!

Needless to say, Matt had the WHOLE crowd laughing and cheering by the end!

We all had a great time, even with motion sickness and not-so-great food.

At dinner the first night, 21 out of 23 showed up in bright blue shirts that said "Rockin' Russell 60th Anniversary Cruise" and presented my grandparents with a photo book with photos of all of their kids, grandkids and great-grandkids and almost everyone of us wrote them a letter in the book, too. My grandparents LOVED it!

Another evening, my brother, Jeff, surprised our grandparents with a 20 minute video of their 60 years together with still photos and old home movies dating back to their wedding day! They were so shocked and happy! It was such a fun way to celebrate two of the greatest influences in my life!

Thanks Grandmother & Granddaddy for a wonderful time and for all of my family members who made it memorable!