For Garrett's birthday he got a basketball, new tennis shoes, and a watch. He was one happy dude. We had ice cream cake for his birthday dessert. No pictures-Yikes!
The day after school got out and Garrett's birthday, May 22nd, we drove to Utah to drop the kids off at my mom's house.
My mom watched them from Saturday until Wednesday and then Jenn and Ned watched them from Wednesday until Sunday while Denver and I cruised in the Caribbean!!! We went on a Royal Caribbean cruise to Cozumel, Mexico-Belize City, Belize- and Roatan, Honduras.
These pictures are from my camera. There are other pictures from Denver's parents camera that I don't have yet.
We flew into Houston Saturday night. First of all, let me tell you how NICE it is to fly without kids. It's easy, relaxing and actually fun. Sunday morning at Amber and Casey's house, there was a crazy storm. Denver got a tornado warning sign on his cell phone and the town lost power. We went to church and then after church, drove to Galveston, with all our luggage, to board the cruise ship.
Day 1 (Monday) was a cruising day. I ran my 5 miles that morning and then relaxed the rest of the day.
Day 2 (Tuesday) we spent at a resort beach in Cozumel, Mexico. We swam in the warm Caribbean water. They had canoes, paddle boats and this huge water flotation in the ocean. I felt like I was on Wipeout. It was hard. I realized then I could never be on that show. It's tougher than it looks.
Day 2 (Wednesday) we went to Belize City, Belize. There we saw the Mayan ruins. This is the excursion I was most excited about. I am so intrigued by these historical things. It was called Lamani ruins.
To get to our port, we had to take a ferry over from the boat. The boat couldn't port too close to land because, I think, the water was too shallow.
Then we took a bus ride to this location. The picture above is of a big house in Belize. I think the driver said a house like that would sell for $200,000 in Belize. The average home in Belize is $60,000.
Here we ate a snack and then loaded a river boat for an hour river ride.
Some of the foliage and things in Belize.
That's what the boat looked like that we took for an hour to get to the ruins.
See the iguana in the tree?
I thought these lily pads were so pretty.
Another iguana.
We saw this monkey in the trees. The boat stopped and the guide asked any one if they had a banana to share with the monkey. A lady had an apple so she handed it to the monkey, which he happily took and ate.
These little black things are called spider bats.
At the Mayan ruins. Because our group was late getting there, we didn't have a whole lot of time at the ruins. I think we got the quicky version of the tour, but I loved it!!! Denver and I climbed the ruins we were allowed to climb. It was humid and hot, but neat to learn about the ruins. There are even more ruins that haven't been excavated yet that they are working on. Neat.
Beautiful foliage!
At the beginning of this tour, we heard a howling monkey. I thought for sure it was a Jaguar or something big like that. It sounded like a big cat. It was scary at first. They are small monkeys, with a lot of bark and probably no bite :)
This was a neat ruin. On the side I'm on, shows a beautiful, young, rich face. On the other side of the ruin, which you will see soon, shows an ugly, old, poor face. Unfortunately, I waited too long to journal this trip so I forgot the meaning of the two faces, but I remember being intrigued ;). I guess you'll just have to go for yourself to find out :).
The other side of the ruin with the other face.
Denver and Casey at the top.
Our tour guide knew tons about the ruins. He also studied the hieroglyphics and knew how to read them! He read to us what they said and explained them to us.
Another ruin, this one was huge!
And, of course, we went to the top. The view from the top was amazing!!!
almost to the top.
At the top
The trees looked so small from up here.
a selfie, not taken very well.
Two other ruins. One was mainly a courtyard type thing and this other one was the same pyramid like kind.
At the top of that one.
Back to the boat for dinner. Our waiter and his assistant each night were great. We had the same ones each night. This is Indra (the assistant waiter).
And this is Mahendran, our main waiter.
Our seal towel in our room. We laughed out loud for this one.
Day 4 (Thursday) we ported at Roatan, Honduras. The water here was so clear! I had never seen ocean water so clear before. It was beautiful.
We started the excursion with a van ride to the ziplines. We went ziplining through the jungle, over the trees. It was thrilling. They didn't let us take our cameras. They took pictures for us, but charged $30+ for the pictures so we opted out of pictures.
Pictures of the amazing banana shoots and bamboo like shoots.
bananas growing in the wild.
More spider bats lurking in the ceiling above.
After ziplining we headed back to the boat and changed into our swimming suits, There, with Amber and Casey, we took a taxi to a beach. It was a soft sand beach (unlike the sand in Cozumel, Mexico). We swam and enjoyed the clear water. Denver and Casey went snorkling. It was a fun day.
When we got to our room, this stingray awaited us.
Day 5 and Day 6 were spent cruising on the boat. We entered a volleyball competition and won first place. We went surfing and boogie boarding on the flow rider multiple times which was a blast, we took our turn climbing the rock wall, we played some mini golf, went ice skating, went to shows each night, sat on the deck and played sudoku, which lead to naps on the deck in the beach chairs, and played games. It was such a FUN trip! It was super hard to come home and get back to real life because it was so relaxing and enjoyable. I told Denver we could never go again, because it's too hard for me to come back to life.
We flew into Salt Lake late Sunday night. Erin had had her baby while we were on the cruise so we got to hold him late that night. Monday we took off for home with the kids.
A HUGE thanks to my parents and Jenn who watched the kids for us and a huge thanks to all those who took them to their homes or to somewhere to play (Sandy, Lori, and Erin)
This is a picture of the kids on the drive home from Utah. We stopped at Little America in Flagstaff for some food and took a picture with this dinosaur.
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