Well Gary & I finally bit the bullet & left our kids for a week to go on a vacation by ourselves. Gary has wanted to go on a cruise for a long time, so when some friends of ours said they wanted to go too, we booked it & went. Our ship was leaving Long Beach, CA on memorial day so we dropped our kids off at Gary's parents house the night before & drove to Phoenix that night and stayed at our friends condo. Then on Monday morning, the four of us all got up early, hit IHOP for breakfast (yes, I ate IHOP even though I work at Denny's), and headed out.
The cruise was awesome! We left Long Beach Monday evening, went to the Catlaina Islands on Tuesday, and then went to Ensenada, Mexico on Wednesday. Thursday, we were out in the middle of the ocean all day, and Friday morning we woke up & got off the ship back in Long Beach. The ship which was the Carnival Paradise, was huge! There was so much to do on the ship. Always games, comedy shows, karaoke, musical theatre, etc, etc,etc going on. And if you want to gain a bunch of weight in a weeks time, you could seriously do it on that ship. There was food served 24 hours a day, no limit on how much you ate. And they always had awesome desserts! On Thursday, since we were at sea all day, Gary sprung & got us a couples spa package for us, which included a hot rock massage, an arm, hand, feet, & leg massage, and a facial. By the time we got off the ship on Friday morning, we still hadn't seen everything on the ship and I was kinda happy to know that I was going back to work on Sunday to walk off the extra pounds & calories I had taken in that week.
Our room. Every night during dinner, the room stewards would turn down your bed & make an animal out of towels to put next to your following days itinerary and mints. This is an elephant from one night. We also had a pig, a seal, and a bunny. All of the staff are from different countries, a lot from the Phillipines. They all work long hours and are on the ships for 10 months out of the year, most of them still have their families back in their home country and don't get to see or talk to them very much. We felt really bad for them. But all of the staff was very helpful & accomodating & awesome at what they do.
This is our cruise elegant night, waiting for the elevator. 
This is a picture in Mexico. We went to a blowhole (pictured below) & to get down to it you walk thru this area where this flea market is. All of the little stores pretty much sell a lot of the same stuff & they compete for your business. They will tell you anything to get you in to their store & once you are there they will do anything to get you to buy something. You can bargain with them on their prices & get them down to like 1/3 of the price that they originally quoted y0u. We bought quite a few things here. 
At "La Bufadora." It is the biggest blow hole of only three in the world. You can see a little of the mist of the ocean water behind us. It was really cool to see. You can hear the water start to rumble below & then it shoots up. It does this like every 30 seconds. It actaully shoots a lot higher than what y0u see in this pic. This is really an awful picture of me, so please don't look too close!
The two of us sitting in our window, enjoying the ocean view.
The Whole Gang!
We had so many pictures & I would love to post all of them, but as you all know I can't, so I tried to highlight as much of the trip as I could in just a few. We really had an awesome time & the kids enjoyed getting to spend time here with their cousins. We were really lucky to have Gary's 2 sisters come down to Thatcher with their kids & help take care of our two. We really appreciate the sacrifice they made to come all the way down here! (Thanks Corri & Tiff).
