Well, I have finally sifted thru all my pictures from our cruise (which was A LOT) and it took me forever to do this post. Beware - this is a very long post, but I had a hard time not including everything (and this is only a
fraction of the pictures I took. For the complete work please see my Southern Caribbean Cruise scrapbook which is likely to be 2-3 inches thick. Ha!)
About six months ago, the Peart family decided it was time to book a family cruise. Book it! (It was a very long six months!) Casey and I, along with my parents, 2 brothers, and sister and their spouses embarked on a 7-day Southern Caribbean cruise that left out of Puerto Rico. Did I mention it was just the adults and no children? Before I continue, I have to give my wonderful in-laws who graciously took my 2 children for 10 days a HUUUUUUUGE thank you!!!!!!! We cannot tell you how much we appreciated it! (My kids have also not stopped talking about everything they did there and when I called on our way home and asked Caiden if he missed us he said "ummm......no"). Anyway, our trip started off with a BANG! Literally. As we were driving to the Seattle airport we came upon some
major road construction and the car behind us slammed right into us. Luckily the damage was not too bad, a little whiplash, but we were able to drive away just fine. However, with all the traffic I was starting to panick that we were going to miss our flight. Missed flight=missed ship. To top if off, the directions I printed off of mapquest were WRONG and we took the wrong exit. By the time we finally made it to the airport, checked in our bags, and got to the gate, our flight was boarding. We didn't even sit down! So when I say I was jumping for joy once I reached Puerto Rico, I mean that literally!
We stayed one night in Puerto Rico and then boarded the Carnival Victory cruise ship. I'm just in awe that something this big and huge and massive and HEAVY....can float! How do they do it???
We got a balcony room (which I
highly recommend to anyone considering a cruise. SO worth the extra money).
That teeny tiny little person is me. The boat is huge!
All our rooms were in a row and we had our room service guy take down the partitions on the balconies so we had one HUGE continuous balcony.
On the top deck of the ship with a view of San Juan, Puerto Rico....
ST. THOMAS
Our first stop was St. Thomas, which was probably the most beautiful island.
We took a smaller boat from there over to St. John and spent a few hours snorkeling at Trunk Bay - a BEAUTIFUL private beach. (Believe it or not, I am actually in this picture. What's with putting the short girl way in the back??)
We snorkeled all around the islands in the middle and saw some fish, sea turtles, a sting ray, and even a baby shark. (I used an underwater disposable camera for most of the excursions and I've yet to get them all back. But don't you worry, I'm sure I will post those too when I get them!)
My mom snorkeling....the water was so clear!!
Rodney, Jessica, Kim, Rebecca, Mom, Dad, me, Casey.....just relaxing.
We played a little football in the water and discovered ourselves on TV when we got back to our rooms. We didn't realize they were taping our group and there we were on the "Carnival" channel that shows all the different excursions, playing football and snorkeling and hanging out on the beach. Pretty funny.
DOMINICA
Then we went to Dominica, which was definitely the most impoverished island, but had the most amazing rain forests.
Here, we hiked to Middleham Falls (an amazing waterfall). It was so pretty. And hot! Lucky for us it started to rain pretty hard while we hiked. If felt great and added to the whole rain forest atmosphere. I even remembered to pack my bug spray. Me, who gets eaten alive in my backyard. Could you imagine what would happen to me in here??
Our guide gave us some leaves to eat that tasted just like sour green apples.
Then we got to swing on vines like Tarzan and Jane. So fun!!
Beautiful waterfall!!!
That is our guide jumping off a 40 ft. cliff. But we were only allowed to jump off the 15 ft. cliffs. It was raining pretty hard when we got to the waterfall and the water was freezing!!
BARBADOS
Then off to Barbados.....
Here, we took a boat out in the ocean and snorkeled with a bunch of sea turtles. Really big sea turtles!! They would just swim right by you and underneath you. At one point, one was beneath me and I didn't know it and I accidentally kicked it! Man, those shells are hard! It kinda freaked me out to have touched it. It cut up my toe a little, but I suppose I can forgive that little sea turtle, seeing that I kicked it first!
ST. LUCIA
This was one of my favorite islands and favorite excursions too....
We went zip lining through the jungle!
Like the hair nets? This place was actually very clean, which I appreciated, because how many people do you think wear those helmets and harness? (There are a couple of videos below of us zip lining and the view).
There were 11 lines total. We went from platform to platform zooming through the trees. A couple of the lines were really high and put us above the tree line. The view was amazing!
ANTIGUA
Next was the island, Antigua.....
......where we swam and snorkeled with big, giant sting rays. This was quite the experience! The sting rays are trained to know the sound of the boat, meaning food. So as soon as we pulled up to the area TONS of sting rays just appeared. These sting rays were huge. Some as big as 100 pounds. These sting rays are very used to people, so there was no stinging going on (unless of course you provoked it and who's gonna do that?) Anyway, at first I was
completely freaked out. These sting rays were not shy. They swam right up against you - at your feet, back, chest, neck - so crazy!! Then the guides showed us how to hold them. It was so strange and fun at the same time. We also got to feed them. Eventually we all got used to it and just swam around with them...but there was definitely lots of screaming going on at first!
I love the look on Casey's face here! Priceless!
ST. KITTS
This was our last stop and what a beautiful island St. Kitts is....
This was one of the most beautiful views of the whole trip. It is the only place you can see both the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean at the same time! (Atlantic on the left, Caribbean right). This island was awesome! We kayaked in the ocean for a few of miles and I saw some sting rays leaping out of the water. Just beautiful....
There are more monkeys on this island than there are people! As we were walking around doing some shopping, there were some guys letting people hold the monkeys. I wasn't sure about it and before I could even answer the guy just set the monkey in my hands. Eeeeeee!!!
And they are even in the process of building my dream home (they just don't quite realize that yet)!
There was an airbrush tattoo artist on board and we all got one. Like my dragon fly?
A couple of the nights were formal nights at dinner. We all had fun getting dressed up....
There were 2 shows with comedians and this was at the first one. Both comedians were HI-LAR-I-OUS!! I've seriously never laughed so hard at a comedian before!
The food was DELICIOUS and we ate SOOO much! We ate like kings and queens - lobster, filet mignon, all kinds of fish and seafood, and oh the desserts!! After every meal my sister and I would order their YUMMY hot chocolate. There were also all kinds of buffets and an ice cream cone machine that begged us to get one every time we passed. Seriously, I heard it. But Casey held the record at 8 - yes, 8 - ice cream cones in one day!
One of our favorite things to do was to just relax and chill on our balconies. As mentioned before, our rooms were all in a row so we had one huge continuous balcony. After our excursions we would grab some food and come eat it on the balcony and just enjoy the view (and sometimes take a nap, as my dad is doing here)!
Below are some videos of us zip lining in St. Lucia. The guides pretty much took over our cameras and videoed us coming in and also the views from above.
We finished Fall Kinder-Soccer last week. Caiden was on team Rough Raiders. Don't they sound intimidating? He had a lot of fun with the boys on his team - John, Jackson, Tell, Ian, and Kade - and loved his coach! And he made 3 goals for the season! Well, one was technically in the other teams goal....but still, way to go Caiden! We've come a long way from standing in the middle of the field watching everyone run back and forth.
This picture is blurry, but it is the only one I had of him scoring a goal. The first goal happened on the first game and of course I forgot my camera that day. Casey was late, as he usually has been for Caiden's entire soccer career. I suppose he was working, but still I like to give him a hard time. Anyway, Caiden was soooo excited and immediately after he made the goal he looked at me (I was cheering pretty loud) with the biggest smile on his face and the first thing out of his mouth was "Where's dad?". Oh, the heartbreak. So once Casey made it to the game, I informed him that he was officially the dead beat dad who missed out on his son's first ever goal. 
