A Vacation of her Own

I wanted to keep up my post of our cruise, because I like looking at the pictures (not of us, of the scenery). I am still walking on cloud nine. I might have to make prints of some of our pics and hang them in our house for us to look at all time ;) I also want to briefly mention a couple of things that happened on the cruise:
1.I told a friend before I left that my 3 biggest worries were 1)having my stuff stolen 2)getting murdered (the Bahamas and Carribean rank the highest in tourist murders) and 3)missing the boat at one of the ports. Since none of those things happened, I'd say it was a successful trip!

2. Did you know that banana trees are actually banana plants? The plants only produce one bunch of bananas per plant and then it is cut down. Isn't that crazy? You would think bananas would be a lot more expensive than they are.

3. Our friends TJ and Katie are from North Dakota from a town of only 200 people (and I thought my town was small!) Anyway, they have very thick accents (think the movie "Fargo") and one person even asked them if they were from Ireland. What?! Too funny!

4. We did a couple of excusions through the ship, but they are pretty expensive. So most days we would try to find taxi's or local companies to take us places and do activities. We were standing in line for a taxi to Cane's Bay in St. Croix and we paid for a round trip ticket. The lady at the front table said to everyone, "We are not responsible if our drivers leave you, or don't come back to pick you up" Blake and I just looked at each other with wide eyes. We get up to pay for our ticket and Blake says "Oh please come back for us! We don't have enough money to pay for another ticket!" They did indeed come back for us, for which we were very grateful!

5. There was a sign on one of the beaches that said, "No You Litter!!" Being the English nerd that I am, I got a good chuckle out of it.

6. Dominica has active volcoanoes so they have black sand beaches.

7. Nowhere on the boat, or on a any of the islands were there Pepsi/Dr. Pepper products. I was dying for one.

8. We got to try some interesting foods on the boat like lamb shank and escargo (Both were yummy by the way!)

While we were gone, though, Brooke had a vacation of her own with Honey and Pinch:

Cousins Jack and Isabel came to play:

Brooke got to ride the tractor with Pinch:And help plant a row of peas

She helped Honey wash dishesAnd did lots and lots of crafts...She watched "Nemo" and "Inc" (Monster's Inc) and they even braved taking her to a movie at the theater. Blake and I haven't even done that yet! They said she did great until the last 15-20 minutes.There was lots of chocolate...

And some outdoor time... Of course when we got home we couldn't wait to kiss and hug our Brooke trout!Thank you, thank you for taking such good care of Brooke while were gone and taking all the pictures too. We couldn't have done a vacation like this without someone to love and care for B. as much as we do!