cruisin'

Karl and I just celebrated our 10th anniversary. That's right, folks, a whole decade!! We can't hardly believe it ourselves!



Since it's the big one-oh and we've got a baby on the way that will complicate any big trips like this in the near future (and despite the fact we've been saving to buy a house), we decided to take advantage of living near a port town and go on our very first cruise!

Heather and Karl are cruisers!

Although we originally planned our 5-day sojourn in the Gulf of Mexico during the week of our actual anniversary (18 May), my pregnancy demanded that we actually go in early April (see my prego post from 12 March). We left Galveston on the Carnival Ecstasy on 4 April, spent a day in Progresso, Mexico on 6 April, then Cozumel, Mexico on 7 April, and returned to Galveston on 9 April.

We really weren't all that interested in the Mexican ports, and to save money (saving for a house, remember?) we opted out of any shore excursions, but we did get off the boat and wandered the shopping and beach for a couple of hours at each port. On the ship we ate great food, relaxed with books on the deck, ate more great food, relaxed with more books in our room, played miniature golf, ate more yummy food, swam one morning while the ship was in port and everyone was on shore and no where near the pool, ate delicious food, and took night-time strolls on the deck after filling, yummy dinners!

One of the funnest parts of the cruise was bringing Flat Stanley with us everywhere! My niece, Amanda, in Detroit was doing the Flat Stanley project in her class where the kids make and mail off and paper man to someone they know in the world. That person sends back photos and letters of what Flat Stanley has done in that part of the world. Karl and I actually did a similar project for a friend and another niece while we were living in Germany so it was great fun to do it again for Amanda! We realized during our cruise that 90% of our photos had Flat Stanley in them! We really did have fun picking locations for Stanley to get his portrait taken. So...here's some photos of our fun, relaxing cruise with our new friend, Flat Stanley!

Flat Stanley and our ship!



Flat Stanley and our fun ship!



Flat Stanley and our fancy ship! (Yes, that's Karl at the bar in one of the Hawaiian shirts he wore every day or our cruise.)



Flat Stanley and the blue blue water of Mexico!



Flat Stanley at the on-ship art auction (we actually won a free lithograph at the auction)!



Flat Stanley on the Mexican shore!



Flat Stanley being beaten by Karl at minature golf on the ship!