Caribbean Cruise on the Carnival Liberty

I have been in SUCH a funk over the last two days, and I'm wondering if the rest of my family has felt the same way.  We had an AMAZING Thanksgiving week together.  Here are my top ten favorite things for the whole weekend:

10.  Thanksgiving dinner:  Okay, so I no this has absolutely nothing to do with the cruise that we went on, but I definitely felt that it deserved a mention.  After we got back Saturday, as soon as we got home we started cooking.  I must say, it was pretty impressive seeing ALL of us pitching in to make the Thanksgiving dinner a reality!  We spent Saturday night making pies (apple and pumpkin) and pumpkin cookies.  I must say, I did a PRETTY good job on the apple pie, although it took me two tries to get enough apples. :-)  Sunday we cooked the turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, baby crap :-), and the mashed potatoes.  For someone who hasn't had a real Thanksgiving dinner in two years, this was a dream come true!  The food was so good, and it was lots of fun making it all together.

  9.  The cruise ship:  My family was pretty pleased with their red sign and sail cards, complete with VFIP (Very Fun and Important Person) designation.  Me?  I got the blue, NEWB card.  Yes, it was my first time on a cruise ship, and it didn't disappoint.  There were lots of fun activities (family-friendly comedy anyone?), but as hard as we tried, we never came away with a vessel on a trestle. :-(  We also enjoyed the hypnotist one of the nights, and I was extremely grateful for the EA Sports bar that let me keep up to date on the latest college football scores.  I got some pretty nasty looks when I mentioned that I was rooting for Iowa to beat Nebraska.  Who knew that so many Huskers took cruises over Thanksgiving break???  Seriously though, I think that I could get used to the cruising lifestyle, a major reason being....

8.  The food:  At one of the comedy shows we went to, a comedian mentioned that before you board the cruise, the people letting you on take your picture.  That is the "before"  picture.  You know, the one where you still have a chin? ;-)  SO TRUE.  Oh my gosh, the food was amazing!  I ate everything from steak to lobster to shrimp every single night, not to mention the 30+ bowls of 24-hour ice cream I had just because I was bored!  It makes absolute sense now why we go on cruises for diving.  Diving takes so much out of you, and the cruise gets you ready for the next day with all the amazing food you can eat.  Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed taking advantage of all the culinary gifts that the cruise ship had to offer.

7.  Cruise ship friends:  This one surprised me.  First off, all of the people with

Jessie, Jaxon, Hannah,
me, Glo, and Ashton=TONS
OF FUN!

whom we dove were extremely nice, and we had a great time diving with them.  Then, my diving outfit was flip-flops with my red swimsuit and my Poland jersey.  It was INSANE to see how many people from Poland were cruising the Caribbean this time of year!  There were several people who just walked up and started talking to me about Poland or in Polish because of my shirt.  Then there was the Polish waitress on our cruise ship who had had the pleasure of talking with several times po polsku.  Not only that, but our waiters and just the staff in general were great.  Everyone from our steward to just random people with whom I became friends.  Mama commented on the fact that between Papa and me, we would get to know everyone on board the ship, and I agree!  A special mention has to go out to the Becks.  They lived in the cabin in between ours, and on Wednesday Mama noticed that one of the girls was wearing a BYU T-shirt.  A series of notes left in cabin mailboxes followed, and the girls and I became really good friends with Jessie, Jaxon, and Ashton from Lindon, UT. I couldn't help but think of the recent "Utah names"  viral Youtube video when I heard those names. :-)  WE had tons of fun playing card games and hanging out, especially during our final day at sea.  Unfortunately, Jessie won't be at BYU this winter when I head out there, because she'll be serving a mission in Tampa Florida!  We're definitely going to stay in touch with all of them though, and we were grateful we met them.

  Some other people also make up my number six...  

6.  Dive masters.  We had some AWESOME dive masters!  Oscar, Fiona, and Jason all made sure that we were doing good during our dives, and showed us some very cool stuff underneath the water.  In particular I remember Oscar's complete nonchalance as he grabbed the nurse sharks for us to touch and the great pictures he took of our whole family, Fiona's legit "okay" sign, and Jason's help when my tank came unattached from my BCD.  I think we would all go back to those dive outfits just because of the dive masters.  They were great for our family in particular, and made our dives all the more enjoyable, which takes us to...

5.  Diving-Isla Roatan:  So, this was last on my list of dives, only because I don't remember a whole lot about it.  It had rained in Roatan, so the colors weren't particularly bright in comparison to the other dives.  Of course, this is like saying a Ferrari isn't particularly nice next to a Lamborghini and a Maserati.  I think Glo would definitely talk about the sea spiders that she saw.  Plus, there's something absolutely incredible about swimming next to the wall, and then looking down, knowing that the bottom is 3,000 feet below you.  As a friend of mine put it: "It's a good thing that we're like Superman down here and can fly."  I wholeheartedly agree.

For some reason, the camera lost all of the pictures from the day except for this one.  Not that there were many pictures anyway, darn rain!

4.  Diving-Cozumel:  I enjoyed this dive purely because it was my first diving experience in the Caribbean. The dive outfit that we went with wasn't great (I can't actually remember our dive master's name), and we didn't see a ton of really cool stuff, but I loved being under the water for the first time and really, truly diving for pure pleasure.  I loved having heard about the curiosity of the yellow snappers, and then actually SEEING how curious they are.  I think I saw my favorite parrot fish of the trip right at the beginning too, a massive green and orange that swam in front of us.  Some other highlights included a barracuda (I now remember what the letter "B" is in sign language, thanks Mama!) and a lobster.  This dive was different from our other dives too, because there was more sand/dead coral than live coral.  However, this ended up being something I appreciated.  I really liked the contrast of the colors of the coral against the backdrop of white.  I do want to go back to Cozumel though and see the real reasons why it's one of the best diving spots in the world.  The first dive was 80 feet deep, and the second was 40 feet.

Waiting at the pier for the other divers.

On the boat...

Getting ready to do my first real giant leap into the water!

Mama, putting on her 16-pound weight belt.  She has some killer buoyancy!

My first dive!

Hannah and Me

Superman...

Hannah, Me, and Daddy

The Man Dawgs

My incredibly awesome parents

I made it!

A parrot fish

The coral was all kinds of colors

An anemone

After we finished diving, we headed back to the ship, showered, and took a taxi into the center of town.
As we've traveled around the world, we have found many a Hard Rock Cafe.  Turns out, Cozumel has the
smallest one in the world.  Who knew?

I must admit it--we all liked the cool glass pop bottles.

After Hard Rock, we wanted to find a legit ice cream place.  Our waiter in Hard Rock told Daddy where to find one.
We were glad to leave the "tourist" district, and head into the real Cozumel.  The ice cream was heavenly--it
tasted like it had real butter in it.  Hannah and I got a flavor that had chocolate cake chunks in it.
Daddy told us that all the people in the area were telling each other (in Spanish) that they were going to kill us :-)

See the chunks of chocolate cake?

Heading back to the ship.

My crazy Mama

3.  Diving-Grand Cayman:  So, remember how like two sentences ago I said that I liked how the coral contrasted with the white of the sand?  I guess that all falls apart because of Grand Cayman.  Grand Cayman was like an EXPLOSION of color.  The reef was absolutely gorgeous!  At the end of our second dive the reef rose to about 15ft, and we swam over it for our safety stop. The best way to describe looking at it would be to "marvel".  It was amazing how alive everything was, and all of the colors that resulted from that!  Too, I can't NOT mention the turtle we saw.  Most of the time turtles are swimming along, and they swim away from you when you get close.  This turtle was chilling pretty much upright against a rock, and just eyed us when we got close.  We imagined that he was sitting at a bar, sipping his drink, when we showed up.  He seemed to say: "Dudes, can't you guys just leave me alone?  I'm drinking my drink."  It was very cool.  The second dive we went on was called "Palace Wreck Arches", and was defined by the fact that you swim through three arches of coral.  They felt like one of those video games where you have to drive/fly through rings, and you get a bonus every time you make it through one.  It was really cool flipping upside down when going through the arches, because you got to see the underside with things like shrimp hanging out underneath.  Definitely a place we want to go back to.  This also gets the award for the best dive outfit of the trip, although the last place on our list runs a close second in that department.

Getting ready to dive

The sun makes a HUGE difference in the colors underwater!

In honor of Mark, Hannah wore his rash guard.  Well, that's how we like to think of it.  Really, she just raided his closet at home and found it :-)

Papa

Diving in the "canyons", about to go through arches

We came upon this turtle.  Papa thought he looked like he was "bellying up to the bar" and just wanted us to go away.  He stayed still for several minutes, only swimming away after we had left.

See him?  Propped up against the coral?

On our final dive, Mama figured out that the flash shows off the colors of the coral much better.

Dory!!!

"Hey, would you stop following me?  You want a piece of this? Huh, huh, huh??"

See the fish, hiding in the coral?

He came out and swam away.

Glo and Hannah

See the sparkly fish?  We don't know what it is, but it looked like it was covered in diamonds.

Mommy says that nobody takes her picture, so she took one of herself!

She obviously couldn't center herself in the view...

Papa finally took the camera...and took a good picture of her.

This is Daddy's favorite picture of Mommy.

The final pictures.

2.  Diving-Belize:  I never would have thought that this was going to be my favorite place!  I had heard so much about Roatan and Grand Cayman.  However, this one takes the cake.  First off, the trip to the dive outfit was an experience in an of itself.  Get off the ship, get on a taxi to an airstrip, take an AIRPLANE to another island, and then walk to the dive shop. Talk about a unique experience to get to  where we need to dive, especially considering that we went back to our ship a couple of hours later.  However, it was SO worth it.  This was also the only dive where we did a backwards roll entry (Note to self: I like a backwards-roll now more than the giant-stride).The dive sites were basically canyons of coral, and the first dive we went THROUGH those canyons.  Papa even took a wrong turn at one point and ended up in a different place!  We also had a couple of friends who decided to join our dive group for the dive; two nurse sharks followed us the entire time, including through the tight spaces, WHILE we were going through them too!  They were about seven feet long, and they're completely harmless.  They eat bottom-dwelling fish, not people.  Like I mentioned earlier, Oscar, our dive master, grabbed one that followed Hannah through a tunnel and let us all touch it.  It felt like sandpaper or a rough counter top to me.  Also, instead of being all grey, they had diamond-shaped speckles that were really quite pretty.    On the second dive, Oscar brought down a tube with bait inside that attracted a BUNCH more nurse sharks (I think we ended up with five in all), as well as a bunch of moray eels.  I think it's needless to say, but the eels and the sharks didn't really get along, and one shark took a swipe at an eel for being too aggressive in getting to the food.  We also saw a turtle on this dive as well, although this one swam away fairly quickly.  The best part about it was "playing" with the nurse sharks, though.  They seemed like underwater dogs that minded their own business.  At one point, one even decided that Glo's leg was a good pillow on which to rest his head for a minute!  Such an awesome experience, and it makes me want to do one of the shark dives even more now!

Getting ready to take the single-engine airplane over to Ambergriscaye, Belize.
Mama was having serious flashbacks to her childhood!

From the cockpit, looking back.

From the back, looking forward.

Hannah, studiously reading the emergency landing procedure.
We seriously hoped we didn't need to know any of this!

One of the two nurse sharks that followed us on our first dive.

Still following us...

My first turtle!

Hannah and the sharks

The family and the sharks on our second dive.  Notice the yellow snapper photo bombing our picture?

This grouper must have been at least three feet long.

A moray eel, looking for food.

The moray eel is to my right, at the left side of the picture.

The nurse sharks were like dogs, just wanting food.  Of course, they reminded us all of Cherry who loves Glo and never leaves her side.

This shark decided take a rest on Glo's leg.  He just sat there for several seconds.

Mommy and Hannah always end a dive with dancing and posing for the camera.

Even diving, Mama has nice painted toenails!

Before we had even left Miami,
Papa was obviously ready to dive!

1.  Family:  We realized at the beginning of the trip that this is the first real vacation that I have taken since getting home from Poland, and it didn't disappoint.  The best part really was having the family all to ourselves.  Because of us kids growing up, the chances of that happening are getting smaller and smaller.  Even this trip, we all thought about how much we missed Mark.  However, I can't stress enough how amazing it was to spend so much quality time together as a family.  I love them all so much, and I hope they know that.  This trip was amazing, and thanks guys for being such a big reason of that awesomeness!

Mama bemoans the fact that she has crazy hair in every picture of diving.  She found time to take a picture of herself (looking like she WANTS to look) in the cabin.

My awesome family.  When are we going again?