Our Vay-Cay...

Bon Voyage!

Leaving Ft. Lauderdale

Princess Cays, Bahamas

Our ship, the Crown Princess

The boat tender that took us to/from the ship

Cute fruit decorations

Carved watermelon

St. Maarten

Us, Matt, Natalie and Alayna

St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands

(And I wonder why our 4 year-old never makes a straight face for the camera)

Inside the Semi-Submarine excursion

Our guide showing us a sea urchin and a sea cucumber

Funky looking fish


Aquarium at Coral World

I fed a stingray for the first time!

(but not without squeeling like a little girl)

Sea turtles

Touching the starfish was really cool!

See our ship way out there??

The whole family, minus Rich

Iguanas everywhere!

Grand Turk, Turk and Caicos

I was so in love with this turquoise water. Beautiful!!


On Deck For the Cure

benefiting the Susan G. Komen Foundation

Natalie and Matt

I had such a wonderful time! It was so fun to hang out with Curt's family and to be able to experience so many new things for the first time together. We are so extremely grateful for Rich and Marla for taking us on this cruise and spoiling us all. I vividly remember the day we found out that they were taking us....and I cried (for real). So....MANY MANY thanks to them! I'm also grateful for my dad and Debbie to have driven all the way from Illinois to take care of our boys while we were gone. It made our trip that much more relaxing....just knowing that our kids were being well taken care of.

I was amazed at the beauty of the Caribbean. I could just lay on the beach all day and stare at the ocean. I tried really hard to not let the pain of my left side ruin our vacation. I was grateful to have thrown in my leftover bottle of Vicodin into my suitcase. I was in a lot of pain, especially the first 4 days.....the throbbing, swelling, and sharp stabbing pains were NOT fun. And it was especially painful to wear my swimsuit because it was cutting into the swollen "area". I fought back the tears many times and wanted to just throw my hands up in the air and say "Just CUT it OFF!!".....but Curt helped me work through it. When my Rx of Augmentin ran out 3 days before we were going back home, Curt insisted I go see the dr. on the ship. I rebelled, of course, but decided that it might be a good idea after all. I was still having the pain and swelling, and we weren't sure if the infection had cleared up. The dr. was very nice and extremely gentle. I was really afraid that he would try to scrape some of the gross tissue out, but thankgoodness he didn't. He determined that there was no more infection, and had the nurse put some Intra-site Gel on me and cover it with Duoderm. That next morning, I already felt better. The redness and swelling had noticeably decreased and I was relieved! It was a bummer that I couldn't go into the ocean above my waist, but I loved walking along the shore collecting sea shells for the boys. What a trip!!

As fun as it was, by day 5, I was ready to go home and see our boys! I kept picturing their cute little faces in my mind and couldn't wait to get home and smother them with hugs and kisses! I think they were pretty excited to have us back home. Jake wanted me to hold him the majority of the time (and still does) and I try not to scream when he bumps my sore spot :)

...More pics to follow...