Family Cruise

Chris and I took a cruise with my side of our family this Christmas. We left on December 28, 2008 and we returned January 4, 2009! Our cruise ship was "The Voyager," which is the largest cruise ship ever built. We departed out of Galveston, Texas, and we traveled to Cozumel, Honduras and Costa Maya. It was great getting off of the ship and shopping, relaxing on the beach, and seeing the sight's, but there was a ton of stuff to do on board the ship. While on the ship I got a massage, Chris and I worked out in the gym, ate burgers and drank shakes in the fifties diner, shopped at the mall, went ice skating, watched a movie in the movie theater, went to a comedy show, ate delicious meal's in the plush dining room, played miniature golf, took walks on the jogging track, and the list goes on. It was great to spend that time with our family.

Even though we've had fun traveling, we made a vow to each other to stop all of the traveling in 2009. Since we met each other, it seems that's all that we've done. We have had some awesome experiences and traveled all over the place, from New Orleans to Houston, Dallas, Galveston, Blanco, and Fredericksburg, Texas to Noble and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Acuna, Playa Del Carmen, Costa Maya and Cozumel, Mexico, not to mention Greece and Honduras. We really want to take time to just be together, enjoy one another, and make time for thing's that we feel are important to us.

The wonderful thing about the cruise, (other than time with our family), was being able to do so many fun thing's all in a day's time. Don't get me wrong, we did our share of just hanging out and relaxing, but one of the most fun experiences for me was going on a tour through Honduras jungle by boat, as well as touring through the jungle by van. Honduras is a beautiful country. Costa Maya and Cozumel were beautiful as well, and we spent our time in those cities just relaxing by the beach, and enjoying all of the shopping that they had.

Our first stop on the cruise was Cozumel. Chris and I ate some yummy Mexican food at Senor Frogs. We had a great table right by the water, with the perfect view of the ocean and our cruise ship. Nothing beats eating greasy Mexican food with the love of your life, while listening to the waves crash right next to you! I drank an enormous coke that gave me quite a bit of a sugar rush, and we watched the people at the table across from ours take shot's. IT WAS ONLY 2:00 OR 3:00 IN THE AFTERNOON! haha Maybe we will go back there again one day.

After we stuffed our faces with yummy food, we walked around and checked out some of the shops in Cozumel. Of course, every shop we went to, someone was urging us to buy something...anything. "Let's make a deal," was the common phrase coming out of the mouths of the natives. At first I felt bad for them, concerned they may be struggling to make ends meet, but I realized after a while that they actually make a decent amount of money, with all of the tourist's that pour in multiple times a year. After we did some shopping, we did some relaxing! I think we layed in hammock's for the majority of our time in Cozumel. I took so many pictures of us just "chillin" that I had to delete a ton of them later. What was I thinking? lol

Our next stop was Honduras. Honduras is beautiful! The jungle is amazing. Shades of green strecth on for miles and miles in the never ending hill's and jungle. We took a tour and we really enjoyed ourselves. The tour began by bus, then moved to a boat, and we toured a bit on foot as well. We tasted native food, watched native dancing, and I even joined the women for a dance! We watched how food was prepared and cooked, we toured the jungle, and we even discussed taking a future mission trip to Honduras. Parts of Mexico and Honduras are beautiful, but if you open your eyes, you can see that these people are far less fortunate than we are, and they do need our help.

We spent New Years Eve on the ship, and we had a great time. We rang in 2009 with family and champagne, and it was a lot of fun. Our last stop was Costa Maya. We had to wait about two days (between Honduras and Costa Maya) before we stopped again, so Chris and I were ready to get off of the ship by the time we stopped there. More shopping, a cold beer on the beach and a puff of our new year cigar was how we spent our time in Costa Maya.

We had a wonderful time, but we are so glad to be back home in the beautiful hill country of Austin, Texas with our two dog's. We won't be traveling to Houston or Oklahoma for a good, long while, so we're hoping that our family and friends there will come visit us. The only trip's we have planned this year are mission trip's, other than our trip for our one year wedding anniversary, which we may spend in Cabo San Lucas.