Keeping Up With the Jones': Let's go cruisin!

This blog has literally been in my draft since November. I come back to it about once every 2 weeks to add pictures in hopes that I would finally send it! Well, Harrison is asleep (after and hour of not wanting to go to sleep) and I am taking a break from grading (this semester I'm making some extra money by grading papers for a Professor in the School of Theology).

SO... here is what you all have been waiting for (I'm being a bit sarcastic), CRUISE PICTURES!

The key to flying with a 12 month old on SouthWest Airlines. Sit in the very back and put your child in the empty seat. Everyone will think it's his own seat and if by chance the flight isn't full, it will become his very own seat! It worked 3 out of 4 times! :)

The picture above was right after we got on the ship. YAY!!!! We were so excited.

This is us in the Promenade AKA the enclosed restaurant and shopping area. The ship was HUGE!

Our ship was WGINORMOUS! I'm pretty sure that's a word I just made up but my spell check said if I add a W to it, it's a real word... haha...

Our ship is the one on the right. See if the difference?

On our way out of Port our sister ship (twins really) showed us her colors!

We had a room, grandma Eaton and Carissa had a room and the Jones lovebirds had a room all in a row so we opened up our balconies and hung out every day.

This is from the top deck. One the sides you will notice the pools. In the middle the... shoot... I forgot the word for it...

This is a picture of the thing I forgot the name for...

I often got lost. Thank goodness for these bad boys! Just touch the screen and anything you want to know is yours.

This picture was taken at night from the back of the shops. It's called the boardwalk (yes, I remembered the name, thank you!) You'll notice the seating for the water stage which I am standing behind and the two huge rock walls on the side.

Our ship was big enough and filled with a enough rich people that it needed it's own Coach store. Every time I walked by the store was empty. Not a single shopper. Conclusion: The rich people, not really rich. Fake Coach bags they're sportin! Or so I like to think :)

There was beautiful art all around this ship. This was my favorite piece. Imagine 30 more of these birds attached to these poles 17 stories high.

Harrison, taking it all in:

The Jazz club:

A small shot of the kid's play area. I didn't want to be the creeper taking pictures of other people's kids so this is all we got.

The track for running and walking:

The kids pool:

I didn't get too many pictures of the whole family unfortunately and most dinners I was preoccupied with getting our 1 year old to sit still and not scream through a 3 hour dinner :)

These did the trick:

Banana muffins that I wish I had the recipe for. They were SO good!

Every night we came home to a new friend made out of towels on our bed. Notice the lovely attire Harrison is sportin. Brought to you by C&M Island clothing (Carissa and Michael). I loved that outfit and I hope he still fits in it this summer.

First Port: Nassau (Is that how you spell it?)

Nathan insisted on us going to Atlantis because when he was a kid it was such a cool place. Little did we know that the economy had hit them pretty hard... or at least that's what I choose to believe because NOTHING was free. The cool aquarium and the beach access you had to pay $30 per person to enjoy. So, here is all we got.

Second Port: St. Thomas.

We asked the cab driver to take us to a non-touristy beach. Wouldn't you know it was 5 minutes from the dock. He was right, there were maybe 100 people there. With 6,000 being on our ship alone, what are the chances?

Grandma and Aunt Cindy.

That was Nathan.

Last Port: St. Martan

This Port was my all time favorite. The water was phenomenally blue. It looked unreal. I kept blinking.

There aren't many pictures from our experience at the Port because we went Jet Skiing and it's just not safe to bring your nice camera on a jet ski :)

The last and most important thing I have to mention about the ports was that they were BABY FREE! Nana and Papa were so generous with their time that every morning they would surprise us with these beautiful words: "you both go, have fun, we'll watch him." I wouldn't recommend going on a cruise with a one year old unless you have people that will speak those blessed words to you. Brining him to port would have been a struggle o say the least. We could have left him in childcare all day long but it would have cost a bit.

When we weren't at port these were the fun things we were partaking in: