We Be Cruisin'

Welcome aboard the Caribbean Princess

First stop, the lovely Aruba. We packed as light as we could for this cruise so we could haul down our snorkeling equipment. {Turns out you can pretty much rent it anywhere for $5, our mistake.} Nevertheless, we had a great time snorkeling and exploring Aruba.

Lifetime Goal, check: On to Bon Aire. A few months before we even planned this trip, Justin read some article on the top 10 dives in the world. The man LOVES to dive and made it his life goal to do all of them. I dive...but I don't love it. In fact, it usually leaves me exhausted and puking. When he found out our cruise would be stopping at none other than Numero Dos on his list, he couldn't stop talking about it.

The. Most. Beautiful dive of my life. Truly unbelievable. The reason being {and why it was ranked number two in that dive article} that you can start your dive right from the shore. No half hour boat ride, no lugging around heavy tanks and equipment, no puking through your regulator. We just sat down, strapped on our equipment, and took off. The beginning looked rather barren but a few yards away we dropped off a ledge and were in some pretty spectacular scenery. I actually felt surprisingly energized afterwards.

Most bizarre moment of the day: Yinny's house. After Bobby, J, and I finished the dive, we wanted to go check out the large populations of flamingos they have on the island, but we didn't have time to make it out to the flats. We happened to talk to a local who had a friend nearby who owned her own. A few things got lost in translation {we thought we were looking for a woman named Jinny, with one arm, and large dogs} but we eventually found her. Turns out Yinny has two arms and large dolls. And all this:

Welcome in our fantasy garden, indeed.
She's an artist. And all this is for sale.

And she has six flamingos walking around her yard.

{...melody, justin, and paul watching Grenada pull into view...}

Grenada was a pretty mellow day. Except that Justin jumped off a 45-55 foot cliff into a waterfall. We found a little place that makes pure nutmeg oil. For the Paces and all you other Essential Oil fans, it'll cure whatever ails ya (Amber, there's an oil for that!) Later that afternoon I was laying on Justin's stomach on the beach and this fella came up to serenade us:

I'm not going to say we deserved or even needed this vacation. Come on now, my life isn't that rough. I know this was a total indulgence. So I'm thankful for my mother-in-law who came to watch my kiddos while we were gone (thank you, thank you, thank you!) and never once made us feel bad for pampering ourselves. We love you, Kath.

I'm working on one more post to finish out the week.