Our Cruise

In January, Curtis, Camilla, and I went on a cruise to the Western Caribbean. This was a present to Curtis' mom from his dad for her 60th birthday. All of Curtis' brothers and sisters got to come. We realized that it was a chance of a lifetime and that we couldn't miss it. The only problem was that I had a nursing 11 month old baby. We decided that the best decision for us was to bring her. We made arrangements for the other children to stay with their aunt and uncle for a weekend and then my mom and another brother for the rest of the week.

We started out in Port Canaveral, Florida. I was excited to see the Eastern United States. I had gone as far East as Kansas but was just a baby then. Florida was beautiful, along with the weather.

This was a Book of Mormon cruise through "The Cruise Lady" travel agency in Salt Lake. They work with Dr. John Lund. He is an LDS author and a wonderful speaker. This cruise was so wonderful and memorable. It definitely increased my testimony of the Book of Mormon. I thought I would share some of the pictures of our trip and I will try to comment of them. As you can probably tell I am still a blogging beginner.


This is Camilla and me at the top of the ship. She loved it up here. It was a bit windy when the ship was moving, but there was a beautiful view. We played miniature golf a few times here.

Formal Night (well, really semi-formal night - there were only a few tuxedos and ballroom gowns to be seen) in the dining room. The meals were absolutely delicious, especially on the two formal nights. I tried some crazy foods, like slimy snails (I mean escargot); I wouldn't recommend it.

Our first stop was in Mexico, at Cozumel. After we got off the boat we had to take a ferry (a motion sickness inducing ferry) and then a bus to our destination, which was Tulum. It is an ancient city where the local LDS guides believe some of the Nephites lived. Above is a picture of a temple. If you click on the picture you can see an iguana at the front. Iguanas were everywhere. The other picture is of the ocean. The Caribbean is so beautiful, the picture doesn't do it justice. Below are a couple more pictures of Tulum.

The Next day we went to Belize. Belize is a beautiful country. Our destination was Lamanai, which some believe to be the home of the 2000 stripling warriors. We took a bus deep into the countryside and then had to take speedboats to Lamanai.

This was amazing, it was my favorite place. I never thought that I would have the opportunity to go to a jungle. Once we arrived, I realized this was a very remote area. Below is a picture of the Jaguar temple.

The next three pictures are of the High Temple (which Curtis, the baby, and I got to climb), the view from the high temple, and the Jungle. Behind the picture of my sister-in-law Anna, is a mound of earth. They said that there are many uncovered stone buildings, temples, etc. in the area but the Belizean government doesn't currently have the money to uncover them. I was so excited by that. It almost made me want to become an archaeologist and go work on the area. :) Afterwards, we visited another temple called the mask temple That afternoon, we enjoyed an authentic Belizean lunch. I realized how fun it is to experience other peoples' cultures.

The days that we didn't get off the ship were really fun, too. We played volleyball and miniature golf, went swimming, did the water slide, ate, and walked. I even got a whole body massage and facial, it was amazing!! Some of Curtis' relatives were really into doing the family karaoke (I had a great time - but just watching, not singing). Below is a bunch of our family playing volleyball on the top of the ship. There is also a picture of the amazing Grand Buffet that they sculpted out of food. Take a look at that watermelon. There was much, much more.

Our last stop was the Bahamas. We rode around in a taxi all morning looking at the sights and then in the afternoon got some much needed relaxing beach time. Camilla loved the sand and even got a mouthful. I took a swim and then we were offered a chance to go snorkeling. We couldn't pass up the chance. It was beautiful and a really fun experience once I got the hang of it. There were a lot of beautiful fish. We did this until it was time to board the ship. We hurried to shore and realized that Curtis' wallet was missing. We did not have time to go back to the beach and we searched and searched our snorkeling boat over and over. No sign of it. So either it got stolen or we left it on the beach. But no one ever turned it in. Luckily Curtis had his passport in a different spot or we would have had major trouble getting back on the cruise.

After seven amazing days on our cruise it was finally time to go home to our other children. I was really ready to see them and so was Camilla. Here is a picture from the very last day. Camilla was remarkably well behaved, but as you can see, she was ready to go home.