Cruise!

Talk about going on a cruise with the Sutton clan had been in the works for a while and it finally happened! I was kind of an emotional wreck before we left because we weren't taking Nix with us and I have never been away from him that long. Though he was going to be in the best hands with my momma and pops, I was still anxious and super nervous about leaving (the fact that we wouldn't have cell phone service most of the time didn't help either). Though I missed the kid like crazy, (and looked through all my pictures of him in my phone at least once a day) I am proud to say that I didn't have one melt down while we were gone.

Honestly, I didn't realize how much I needed this vacation until we were actually gone. I don't remember the last time I didn't have to worry about anyone else but myself. It was nice to be out past 9 o-clock. It was nice to be able to hold my husband's hand for longer than 3 seconds at a time before chasing after a toddler. It was nice to have multiple conversations with actual adults daily. It was nice to sleep in! And it was just nice to RELAX!!

We boarded our cruise ship in New Orleans so we took a super early flight out of SLC and spent the day there. This is the most humid, hot, dirty and interesting place I have ever been to with the BEST food ever. We boarded the ship the next day and were off!

Our first two days were spent at sea so there wasn't much to do other than eat. So we did just that. Our first stop was Jamaica. We arranged to take a tour to "Dunn's Falls" which was about an hour and a half away. On our way there, we saw two other cruise ships and i'm pretty sure every person on all 3 cruise ships ported at Jamaica was there. It was crazy. It was pretty fun walking up the water falls but there was honestly just too many people. After we were done we headed back to the ship because you have a certain time you have to be back or they will leave you. While we were there we hit a major traffic jam caused by a couple of robbers shooting a killing a bus driver so we made it back to the ship with only a few minutes to spare. Though Jamaica was beautiful, I can't say I really ever want to go back. People just hound you there and practically force you to give them money. Kinda scary.

First Formal Night on the cruise ship.

Our second stop was definitely my favorite. The Cayman Islands are sooooo pretty and you feel safe wandering around the city. We took a little boat tour out to Stingray City and got to feed, pet & kiss the stingrays. It must have been their gross slimy bodies swimming all around you and the fact that they could stab you at any second that kind of freaked me out. It was really cool but I just could not relax at all while we were in the water with them. After the stingrays our ship took us to a little place we could swim around and snorkel. It was so much fun. After our tour was done we still had a couple hours so we wandered around the city a little bit and got some lunch. I will definitely be going back and will stay longer because it truly was one of the prettiest places ever. Never seen bluer water in my life.

 Our final stop was Cozumel. Here we decided to rent a bunch of scooters and drive around the island. We made a stop at this small beach and hung out there for a while then kept on driving. It was pretty fun and only had 1 out of our 10(ish) scooters break down along the way. Pretty much the whole drive we had our own little scooter path that we could follow which didn't allow cars at all. About the last mile or two was pure city. After having a girl in our group almost get completely ran over we made it back to the ship safely.

 We made it back to New Orleans and had to spend the whole day there because our flight didn't leave till later. We decided to take the trolly around town and see all the big old houses. It was pretty amazing. We finally made it home after a 2 hour flight delay and made it back into Nix's arms safely :) I don't think the kid even noticed we were gone.