Jamaica

One of our favorite memories from our last cruise seven years ago was swimming with dolphins.  We have the pictures up right by our front door.  The only problem is that seven years ago Preston wasn’t part of our family.  That seems so sad.  I really wanted to get a picture of him with a dolphin to put up on our wall with the rest of our family.  The kids were more than happy to go along with that!

This morning we had room service for breakfast.  It is completely free, which is why we did it.  We just had cereal, fruit and crossonts.  We then got ready to get off the boat!  We were able to just walk off which was nice.  We took a short bus ride to Dolphins Cove.  Mike was a little nervous about it because someone from his work did this excursion and they said they were barely allowed to touch the dolphins.  Mike was worried that this wouldn’t live up to our expectations.  Luckily he was worried for no reason.

Mike, Maysen, Stockton and Jorja were taken to their dolphin experience right away.  They were able to RIDE a dolphin!  Preston and I were able to watch them.  It was so cool!  Too bad they were far away, but we were still able to tell what was going on.  Mike said that Stockton LOVED it.  This is a big deal.  Stockton hates anything to do with animals.  Stockton was saying things like, “This is fun, I like this, I love cruises . . .”  In Stockton language that means, “This is awesome!  I can’t believe I get to do this!  I love my life!  My parents are the best!”  The others loved it as well.  Their dolphins name was Misty.  It started raining on them pretty hard towards the end.  Luckily they were in the ocean, so it really didn’t matter.  Unluckily Preston and I were not, so we got soaked!  Luckily we were in our swimsuits, so it really didn’t matter.

 Jorja RIDING a dolphin who is swimming upside down.

 Maysen, Mike and Stockton are patiently waiting their turn.

 My Porgie!

 WOW!

 Maysen's turn

 Mike loves this picture.
It looks likes this picture needs a speech bubble...

Mike

Stockton

Look at The Boy!

Stockton, Maysen, Mike and Jorja with random people

Maysen

Love this picture

Jorja Porja

Can she get more adorable?

Why yes, yes she can.

Life is GOOD!

Stockton

Love this picture!

Mike

So cute.

Misty putting on a show in the rain

We had to wait about a half an hour after the rest of the family came back before Preston and I got our turn.  The lady had us wait so long to make sure that they would be able to watch Preston and I.  I thought that was really nice.  Preston was so excited when it was his turn!  He loved feeling the dolphin as it swam underneath him.  He wanted to feed the dolphin the fish.  He asked the trainer guy several times, but there was no way he heard him.  It was pretty cute though.

Maysen - the kids found a lizard to play with

Preston and Jorja

Preston

Maysen

Preston's turn!

He was so excited to finally do this!

Awesome.

Stephanie

Stephanie, Preston and random people

Mike's view of Preston kissing a dolphin.

Ziggy cheered after Preston kissed him.

Next we started making our way to a beach area where we were going to have a lunch that had been provided.  On the way we saw a guy with parrots.  He would put a parrot on your shoulder and allow you to take a picture of it.  The guy was amazing!  There were only two people in front of us, so we decided we wanted to wait.  Stockton went first.  We were so surprised when the parrot man kept putting parrots on Stockton!  One on each shoulder, one on his head and one in his hands acting like he was dead!  It was so funny!  There wasn’t any other photographer there expecting you to buy their photo, we were just allowed to take as many pictures as we wanted!  It was awesome!  I hope they turned out okay.  I haven’t had a chance to look at them yet.  We haven’t figured out our camera exactly, so some of the pictures come out blurry . . . . hopefully not these ones.  Everyone was able to get a turn – loved that!  Mike gave him a few dollars and he was so grateful.  We felt bad that we couldn’t give him more.  We were worried that we wouldn’t have enough to buy the dolphin pictures.  Mike had brought money off of the boat, but he didn’t bring a credit card.

Stockton with red parrot

Plus blue

Now with two more.  So funny!

Jorja

The green parrot was fighting with the red parrot on Maysen's head

No head parrot for Maysen

Preston

Three parrots for Preston

Stephanie

Mike

They liked his hat

We had lunch and then took the kids to the beach.  It wasn’t nearly as cool as the last beach from our other dolphin excursion.  That beach was called Meads Bay and was breathtaking!  This one was small and rocky, but it was still lovely.  We got the kids settled and then went to look at the dolphin pictures.  We were able to talk the lady into putting Preston and my pictures on the CD with the others.  I’m glad she didn’t make us buy both CDs.  We thought about buying the video as well, but that would have raised the price $60 (because we were in two groups).  It would have also taken every cent we had.  I decided we didn’t need that.  The lady said, “Are you sure?  This is a once in a life time experience.”  I just said, “Well, maybe we will need to come back.” (We were also able to go back and find the bird guy and give him a few more dollars.  Again, he was super grateful.  He was awesome!)

Mike and I went back and found the kids.  We played with them in the ocean for quite awhile.  I gathered up sand and didn’t lose it this time.  One of my beehives is completely obsessed with Jamaica.  I thought I would bring her sand back and put it in a cute little container.  Then I thought if I brought her sand back I should bring it back for the other seven girls.  Well see if that turns out well . . .

Bikini lady walking into the picture!

Maysen, Preston, Jorja, Stockton in Jamaica!

Maysen

Preston and Stockton

Maysen, Preston, Stockton, Jorja

Preston's head

Sandy Preston

The reviews of my camera said that with the lens in the upper left corner sometimes fingers got in the pictures.  I thought that sounded strange. Whoops.  Too bad I ruined several pictures this way!  Weird how you don't notice it when you are taking the picture.  I also wasn't good about making sure the water droplets were off the lens.  Lots of pictures were ruined that way as well.  Oh well, we did get plenty of pictures!  I love this digital age!

Jorja and my fingers

Jorja and Stockton

Jorja

Jorja and Stockton

Stockton

Stephanie and Jorja

Stephanie and Preston

Preston

Preston, Mike and Stephanie

Preston and Mike

Stockton, Preston, Jorja, Maysen

Stockton and Maysen

Jorja

Preston

Jorja

As we left the beach we noticed a little bird area with a small sign that said you could feed the birds.  Maysen, Jorja and I went in there.  It was awesome!  They had various lovebirds flying everywhere!  The lady put some birdseed in your hand and they would land right on you and eat it.  It was so cool!  Mike and Stockton had already passed this area; I wish they had been able to do this as well!

I bought a towel as we were leaving.  I thought, “Maybe it would be cool to collect towels from the different locations we visit.”  With the swimming pool in the back, it is always good to have extra towels.  Maybe we will need to convince Brett and Rachel to bring us a towel back from Japan!

We got back about an hour before the ship left.  We went upstairs to go rock climbing, but got distracted with the giant chess game.  We played that for almost two hours.  Girls against boys.  The boys ended up winning.  It really wasn’t fair because Maysen had me for a partner.  Sorry Maysen!

We took the kids to the show tonight.  There were about five performers from the group Second City.  It was pretty funny and mostly clean.  They did some sketch comedy and some improv.  They are going to do a show completely of improv on the last night.  I think the kids will like that!

That is about it for today!  We sure have a spoiled life!