Cruise 2013!!

To start off our exciting trip we flew to Puerto Rico and spent a day exploring its beautiful surroundings and beautiful weather! We went to the forts and saw many people flying kites. We looked at the beautiful lakes and oceans all around with its luscious and blue water. It was gorgeous! The houses were all very colorful and the pavement was blue! It was all so beautiful! We had a wonderful first day as a family.

We are right next to the beautiful water! I literally look like a lion from the powerful wind.

This was literally on the side of the road.

It was amazing seeing palm trees and coconuts everywhere!

What a beautiful view!

We saw this casually walking on the side of the road. Unlike squirrels that I see roam around on the streets, I see iguanas!

All of the colorful houses in Puerto Rico are so pretty!

My mom at the forts that were used and built a long time ago.

We saw everyone flying kites out on the fields.

We all went out for some nice, cool ice cream.

It was really cool to go to a different environment where most of the posters, signs, street signs, and much more were in a different language. I take Spanish in school so I was able to understand what a lot of things meant.

After a fun day at Puerto Rico we finally all boarded our cruise ship! The Carnival Valor! Once we got on the ship we checked into our cabin rooms then explored and roamed the ship! My favorite room was the theater. It was HUGE and it had a them of knights and royalty! My other favorite place on the ship was the Lido Deck! There we had parties, ate dinner, the pool was there, the hot tubs were there, there was a 24 hour soft serve ice cream and 24 hour pizza! Breakfast and lunch buffets occurred here everyday! There were contests on the Lido deck, the water slide, and every night there was a movie that played on the big screen! Movies like the Three Musketeers, the Goonies, Swwet Home Alabama, and much more! So the first night we arrived there was a sail away party with line dancing, music, lights, and much more! It was a ton of FUN!!

This is Carley, Zack, Shauna Maylin, and I at the Sail Away party doing the line dances. We were on this cruise witht the Maylins, the Arglyes, and both of my grandparents! It was the trip of a lifetime!

Matt, my dad, my grandma, and Brooke just hanging out at the party.

My mom and her mom.

Shauna, Stefanie, and her brother really into the dances.

Doing the chicken line dance.

I got a pretty bad sunburn on the first day of the trip. Woohoo.

This was the amazing theater! We saw a ton of shows, tricks from jugglers, breakdancers, and magicians, and tons of performances!

The stage was huge!

Day 1: St. Thomas

On the first day we went to the beautiful island of St. Thomas! All 26 of us as a group piled into a trolley  and went off to Sapphire Beach! We laid out on the beach, played in the sand, swam in the Caribbean Sea, and went snorkeling!

The water is absolutely beautiful!

We saw this iguana strolling in the sand at the beach.

Zack and mom hanging out at the beach.

Carley and her friend Olivia had a great time at the beach.

Carley and her friends had a great time with her friends all week hanging out!

My grandma and grandpa Stokes relaxing on the beach.

My grandma and grandpa Olsen relaxing on the beach.

Carley and my dad snorkeling....

I had a little fun with the sand making each of the little kids a sea creature. Olivia is a mermaid.

Cassie is an octopus with 6 tentacles.

My mom and her mom.

Carley was a mermaid.

Grandma and grandpa at the beach!

Hanging out on the trolley.... 

Everyone squished on a trolley. 

24 hour ice cream! I literally had 3-4 servings a day! SO GOOD!

This was how large our cruise ship was!

My mom and I getting ready for the comedy show and dinner!

Waiting for the comedy show to start! The guy was so funny! Almost every night before dinner we went tot a comedy show and had some great laughs together before a delicious dinner!

Each night we had an assigned dinner with a wonderful waiter Serhey! He was really fun and from Ukraine. He remembered what each of us liked and showed us some fun tricks! On some nights he made us get up and dance with him like Gangham Style. It was a lot of fun to see everyone at dinner each night.

I got this appetizer, spring rolls everyday for dinner. It was delicious!

The waiters did some dances up on the tables almost every night. It was really fun to see.

The delicious chocolate melting cake! It was so good!

We went to go see the show in the theater! All of the dances were amazing! It was really cool to see all of the songs and dances each night!

Each night the servants put a towel shape into different animals . Along with the animals we had the activities for the next day and chocolates.

Day 2: Day at Sea

 On the next day we just relaxed on the boat. We played card games, swam in the pool, went down the water slide, had dinner, watched more shows, and just had a great day together.

This is our intense card playing.

That night we just sat, relaxed, and watched a movie on the big screen on the Lido Deck.

The deck was my favorite place on the ship!!

Brooke and dad hanging out in the hot tub. 

We had an elephant that day!

This is the family at the comedy show! The comedian called up Zack and Carley and asked them questions. It was really funny. He was asking Carley about why she was getting up to go see mom and she was like, "I don't know." And the comedian asked, "So you got up to go see your mom, just to see your mom." and she said, "yeah." He asked what dad did and she said, "works on stuff." and the comedian was like, "I want to join your family if you guys just go on a cruise from working on stuff." Haha this trip was awesome!

My mom and dad dancing.

At dinner the waiters sang for us while all the couple danced.

A napkin rose!

Day 3: Barbados

Our ship! The Carnival Valor.

The whole group on the beach! Wherever we went we got amazing deals from the amount of people we had in our group! It was amazing ! So this day we went to the beach, I went snorkeling with Shauna and we got to swim with the sea turtles. We also had another party on the Lido deck with line dancing so it was a lot of fun!

My mom and I on the beach.

My mom and her good friends Stephanie and Shauna.

My mom sunbathing on the beach. She is stylish..

Little Trevon falling asleep on my shoulder....awwwww

At Barbados it was cool to see an old celebrity's house and the kind of homes found on these islands.

We got to hear this wonderful music play wherever we went!! I  loved it!

We got to see a Guinness Book of World Records juggler! He was amazing! 

My mom and dad at dinner! I love the dinner, it's something I looked forward to every day. 

The kids at dinner.

Carley got a kids menu everyday.

Our waiter did some really cool tricks such as this. The toothpicks' tips on balancing on each other. 

The Lido Deck Party!

Carley's really into the dance. I love her outfit haha.

My dad was flipping me and I got to dance with him. It was fun and intense!

Day 4: St. Lucia

St. Lucia was my favorite day! It was a beautiful island but all the activities and events we did that day were so fun and memorable! We all took a speed boat and saw all different types of sites! We saw the great pitans, beautiful beaches, we went snorkeling and saw tons of sea urchins, fish swarmed us, coral, and much more! We also got to go to the mud baths up by the volcano and get real dirty! We swam at the beach and in a waterfall! It was tons of fun!

The houses and resorts here are gorgeous!

This was our speed boat we rode leaving the cruise ship.

We saw the Pitans, a well-known mountain range. 

Broke, Shauna, and my mom got a picture with the guy that apparently went , "into the mines" to get the diamonds for the jewelry...haha

This is at the volcano before the mud.

This is the mud bath, more like a mud waterfall and stream!

And this is the after....my skin was so soft!

We all got a ton of mud!

All of us in the mud!

More friends in the mud!

Little Travon was SO adorable and smiled at EVERYTHING!  We just held him and hung out with him a lot!

Us at the waterfalls swimming.

Family picture at the waterfalls!

Hanging out in the hottub.... :)

We tried some coconut candy. It was really sweet and pretty good.

The beach we stayed at.

A man cracked open a coconut for us and we got to eat and drink it!

It was very sweet but tart, I didn't like the coconut that much but it was really cool to try it!

A man carved animal creatures out of coconut leaves for all the kids.

Paige got a fish, Carley got a grasshopper, and Olivia got a bird.

The kids and our wonderful waiter! He was awesome and we looked forward to seeing him everyday!

Our table, it was our family along with both sets of grandparents. It was awesome seeing  them everyday!

Our waiter got us to get up and dance with him.

The guys.....

My mom and dad at the theater.

Brooke and I at the theater.

The kids and our cruise directer, Felipe. He was from Brazil and I LOVED his accent! It was cool hearing his voice over the intercom everyday!

We got to see some really cool break dancers at the end of the day.

 Day 5: St. Kitts

St. Kitts is a beautiful island! I got to explore a lot of their shops here! They had a ton of cute  styles and clothing!  We also went to the beach, jumped off some docks, a lot of our group went snorkeling ad got to see starfish, conch shells, and much more! It was so cool to be here and I still can't believe we went on this wonderful trip! Thanks you mom and dad for everything you do! You have made my life wonderful!

Zack and grandpa hanging out!

Beautiful views everywhere!

We got to hold a little monkey today! It was so cool! I only see monkeys in the zoo!

We got to relax on the beach a lot! I luckily ended with a nice tan!

We found a bunch of conch shells! We got to take them home!

On the streets a little dance was going on! It's so cool to see the different cultures!

More dancing at dinner! Haha we had to join in oreder to have dessert Serhey said.....

Partying with the girls... :)

That night we celebrated my grandpa's 80th birthday!! He got a NICE chocolate cake and we gave him an iPad with all these different apps he can use.

Happy 80th birthday grandpa!! Love you!!

Carley and grandpa.

Brooke and grandpa.

Zack and grandpa.

The delicious chocolate cake!

Grandpa was so excited for his iPad.

More animal towels!

 Day 6: Sint. Maarten

Sint. Maartin was A LOT of fun! We did a lot of things! We rode on this nice boat and saw a lot of different sights and things. We went snorkeling and saw a lot of fish, fire coral, sea urchins, and a helicopter that crashed sometime in the late 1900s. It was pretty big! We got to feed the fish and hold an old sea urchin! After snorkeling we went paddle boarding and then jet skiing. I got to drive the jet ski and it was so freaky! I rode at one point 70mph! It was crazy! Then we had our final dinner with everyone on our last day on the cruise ship, it was really depressing.

I'm on the dock before we got onto the boat. You can see how large our cruise ship is in the background.

This is our boat we went on to do all the different activities.

Look how gorgeous the water is!!!

Our cruise ship.

 Everyone on the boat.....

I'm rocking my snorkeling outfit! Snorkeling is so fun!!

Brooke and I ready to go snorkeling....

Our family snorkeling.

While we snorkeled my dad and Jared went scuba diving. They got to see a lot of things a little more up close.

Zack got to go paddle boarding.

Paddle boarding was a lot of fun!

As you can see, Zack and CArley managed to fall off of the boards.

The group on the boat!

A cute little sailboat on the blue blue water!!

I got to go jet skiing! So fun!!

There were cute little decorations along the streets in Sint. Maartin.

Partying on the cruise deck!!

Our last towel formation on this cruise. 

My grandpa got frog legs for his appetizers.....gross.

All the waiters sang us a farewell song!

Me and the grandparents.

Me and the grandparents.

The kids and our helper waiter. He always served us our dessert.

The whole group saying goodbye!

The couples.....

Our dining room.

We stayed up as long as we could taking in the wonderful moments of this vacation. We watched the movies until lat 1am and ate a lot of ice cream.

 Goodbye wonderful cruise!!

 Back in Puerto Rico:

This was our last day on the boat. At Puerto Rico though  we went to the rain forest and got to swim in a waterfall! We heard all these different animals, saw the beautiful forests full of trees  And swim in the COLD water of the waterfall. Then we had to say our goodbyes to everyone! It was sad but this whole trip was so wonderful and memorable it will never be forgotten!

This is part of the Lido deck where a lot of our buffets occur.

This was my last ice cream on the ship!

This was a lot of the Lido deck at the top of the waterside's point of view. On the boat there were tons of different things you can go to and do. There's a mini golf course, a basketball court, I got to run in the gym one day, there's a spa, kids' clubs, dining rooms, an arcade,  there were shops where I got beautiful jewelry, a hat, and much more! The ship was full of crazy things and it was just unbelievable! I miss the trip already!!!

The water slide.

Our cabin room.

I thought it was funny how once we boarded off of our ship the first thing everyone does is pull out there electronic devices. The hotel power eventually went out though, but they gave us free drinks and pizza so that was nice.

The 3 best friends saying farewell.....

This was the beautiful rain forest we hiked!

There were a ton of people at the waterfall!!

The waterfall we hiked to.

The family at the waterfall!

Zack got soaked!

The girls....I love you all!!

The guys....

My mom and I hanging out in the waterfall.

Cute hat Carley....

The rain forest we hiked.

We went up to the top of this tower and saw an awesome view of the rain forest!

The top of the tower.

The tower we climbed up.

Our group at the rain forest!

My grandpa looking out the window. 

The rain forest we hiked.

I got a burger, and it was huge! Also while we were out eating, Brooke and I met some teenagers from Puerto Rico and we got to experience sort of speaking to them in Spanish. I have learned I am not very good at it....

We went to a resort that my parents had their anniversary at. It was amazing with is pools, private beaches, ad so much more!

Us at the resort.

This whole trip was wonderful and I will never forget the adventures or the people we shared them with.