Splendor!

Alright here it comes...the long cruise post. Although, we've been home for a few weeks now and the vacation excitement has worn off for the most part so it probably won't be that long after all. I'll do a little explaining and then overload the post with pictures. :)

Getting there:

Friday, we started our journey to California right after work. We drove to St. George and stayed the night with our dear friends, the Schillers. We love them so very much and were happy to see them. 

The next day we got back in the car and we drove straight to Long Beach. It was so great to feel warm weather. We forgot it existed!! We got to the hotel, unloaded our stuff and we got back in the car to go to Beverly Hills!! We went to H&M in the Beverly Center and then a few other stores, and had some dinner at the Grand Lux Cafe. Love that place. 

Sunday was Mother's Day and we got to spend it with the nearest ward we could find. We went to Sacrament meeting and heard some great talks about Mothers. I love the church so much because no matter where you go, it is always the same. Different buildings and different people, but I can always feel the Spirit within the walls of the church building and there is always a special energy about the members. I'm really glad we were able to attend church there. 

After Sacrament meeting, we went to the ship and boarded!! Wahoo!! The night consisted of eating a lot of food...way too much. It was like we'd never seen food before. We also went to a few game shows and spent a lot of time walking around the boat. 

Monday we were on the ship................that's really all I can remember. haha

Cabo:

Tuesday we were in Cabo! We rode a Mo-Ped around for a little while. That is until we crashed it.....into a curb. That was embarrassing. Stupid tourists. Although according to my husband, we just tipped the mo-ped a little bit and it never hit the ground or crashed. Even though he was bleeding from his knee and foot. haha I love him-he's such a boy. We also laid on the beach for awhile and got some sun and then we walked around and got some gelato. 

That night the ship sailed in a little circle...

And we were in Cabo again!!! haha I guess Mazatlan is too dangerous right now, so we stayed in Cabo for two days. According to the gal at the front desk, "we were lucky they weren't charging us for getting to go to Cabo twice" haha whatever. We really didn't mind though. 

The second day we actually swam with dolphins!!!!........well kind of. If you know us, we are kind of cheap. So instead of paying $200 to swim with dolphins we went up and watched the other people do it!! FOR FREE!!! We even got to go over and pet the dolphins and we were right by the pool so we could watch them all we wanted. haha suckas!! Little did those people know, they would basically be doing the same thing we were. Only difference was they were sitting on a ledge in the water. You see when they say you "swim with dolphins" what they really mean is that you sit on the ledge and watch the trainers tell the dolphins exactly what to do and then you get to do about a 5 foot lap with the dolphin while they take lots of pictures so it seems like you were doing it for hours on end in the pics. It was pretty sweet and the best part was it costed nothing!! Woo! 

I really can't remember the days on the ship because they all blend so there may have been a day in between Cabo and Puerto Vallerta.....but the next stop was Puerto Vallerta! 

Puerto Vallarta:

We didn't have any idea what we were going to do there. Not a single one. So we got off the boat and saw a tour for $25 and thought we'd give it a shot. Let me tell you...best decision we ever made. Well, besides a few others like getting married etc. So we get in this van with Aurturo, our tour guide, a gay couple, two sweet old ladies from somewhere that spoke spanish, and another couple from Mexicali. haha it was an interesting mix but they all turned out to be really nice people, even though we never actually conversed with the sweet ladies. We would just smile back and forth and they'd hand us their camera for a pic every now and then. 

On the tour we got to go through all the different areas of the newer city, the older parts of town, the rain forest, even a tequila making tour. Our favorite. haha not really. After we said no to the tequila for about the tenth time, the girl asked us, "Are you mormon?" We proudly said yes and weren't asked again to break the Word of Wisdom. haha I loved that. We were gone about 5 and a half hours. It was pretty sweet. And best part--$25. YES!

Booty Shake:

The next few days were on the boat. We had a lot of fun going to the shows and soaking up the....clouds. Yeah cloudy. Every. Day. On. The. Stinking. Boat. Darn it! It was okay though, we still found plenty to do and we got plenty of sun when we were off of the boat. Mike tried out for Carnival Idol. Definitely pulled out the booty shake. The crowd went wild. My husband is so hot. haha too bad though he got beat out by a guy who really wanted it, and it was his third time trying out. We ate lots more and had our fun at every trivia event ever thought of. If anyone asks us to play any sort of trivia game in the next few years, I will probably say no. Don't take offense. 

Anyway, that was longer than I expected! Here are the more interesting parts, the pics: