Winter Getaway

Before Christmas, Phil's parents took the whole family on a cruise to the Caribbean! It was a blast! By far, the most fun trip I have ever had. Most of us, including myself, had never been on a cruise, so it was a lot of fun, not only to be going on a cruise for the first time, but to be going with the whole family! It was more fun than I ever thought it would be! We went to Grand Cayman, Honduras, Belize & Cozumel. At every stop we had a new, unique experience. Like swimming with sting rays, going on a zip-line jungle canopy tour, snorkeling on the 2nd largest barrier reef, visiting Mayan ruins. It was crazy fun! I loved going out to all the different stops and then coming back to a 3-course meal. Ahh! I was in heaven! Usually, when Phil & I travel, which has been pretty non-existent in our marriage, we try to eat really cheap. We don't have the money to go to nice restaurants or really enjoy the nice food. I guess that speaks for us when we are not on vacation as well. I long for the day when we can go out to a nice dinner and not feel guilty about it. When we were on our honeymoon, we bought a cooler to put in our hotel room, so we could have cereal for breakfast and make cold sandwiches for lunch because we couldn't afford the price of food at our resort. So, to be on vacation and not have to worry about spending money on food was awesome! It really was one of my favorite things on the trip. So sad that one of the highlights of the trip was food! I ate a lot; i admit it! But, I didn't care. I have not eaten that good in a long time! Because, this is like my electronic journal, I'm going to post some highlights from each stop, so don't be bored with below, no need to read, but I do want to keep a memory of the trip.


GRAND CAYMAN

I think everyone would say this was the highlight of the trip. My boss went to Grand Cayman this year for vacation and he had told me his favorite thing of the whole trip was swimming with sting rays. I was pretty curious and had wondered about the stories he told me about the sting rays. So, when I heard we we're going to Grand Cayman, I knew this is the thing I wanted to do. We got off the ship and booked a trip with a lady holding up a sign for Sting rays. It wasn't until we gave her our cash, we wondered if we cold trust this lady & if this trip would even happen. Phil & Blair kinda kept a watch on her until it was time to go. Luckily, everything worked out just fine.

hey loaded us up into an old, ghetto school bus and drove us to the opposite side of the island. We got on a small boat and went about 45 minutes into the ocean at high speed. We were going to a place they call "Stingray City." It is a sandbar in the middle of the ocean where you can stand and where lots of stingrays live. I don't know it they originally "lived" there, or they learned after 30 years of tourists visiting and feeding them shrimp, they should stay there.

We arrive to this sandbar in the middle of the ocean and as we look down at the crystal clear water we see gray, large shadows everywhere. Huge stingrays were swimming all around the ship. Fear started to set in thinking why are we going out there and wait wasn't the Crocodile Hunter just killed by a sting ray? Is this a smart idea? But, then, I saw other tourists out there already and it seems like this has been done many times before, so why not?

As we get off the ship, we couldn't touch the bottom. I started to freak! Not just me, everyone started to freak! Here we are swimming, we can't touch the bottom and we know huge alien-looking animals are in the water with us, that we can feel brush up against us! Ahhh!! The first initial 10 minutes in the water was CHAOS! It was a mixture of emotions I have never felt before. We we're all scared, but then we were all hysterically laughing because it was just right up there as one of the weirdest things we had ever done. Usually between Phil and I, I'm always the one who is more high-strung. Phil is always laid back and calm. I, and all of Phil's family for that matter, had never seen Phil act like this. He was probably the most hysterical out of all of us. It was hilarious! He would not stop laughing, but then a sting ray would would come up to him and he would freak out. This is the first and probably only time I will ever have to tell Phil to, "Settle down!"


I've never walked on hot coals, but if I could describe when we finally got to where we could touch, it was like that. We were all scared we were going to step on one and make the little sucker mad and he would shoot out his stinger. It was so funny to see how everyone acted. We were out there with people we didn't know, but it was like you would push someone in front of you if a string ray was coming by or cling on to someone else. It just didn't matter who you were. Just a riot!

After some time, we finally got a little more comfortable. Comfortable enough to touch them as they swam by, take pictures kissing them with the tour guide, have them crawl up your back and feed them. Except for Phil. He was given a shrimp to feed them and then five on the biggest ones (in Phil's words) started swarming him. It is weird. Somehow they use their motion to climb up you. So, he didn't like them being all around them, and he tossed it to his dad, after which they all started swarming him. I got a sting ray hickey from feeding one of them. They suck up their food like a vacuum and I guess I didn't let go of it soon enough and it sucked up my hand. It kinda hurt! One time Rob was swimming around with his snorkeling gear on and as he came up out of the water, a stingray was right on top of his head. It was hilarious!

The stingrays were actually quite beautiful creatures after you got used to them. They were beautiful to watch. They swim so effortlessy through the water. They were very friendly as well. It was about the weirdest, funniest, craziest things I've ever done. It was wild!