We Went on Vacation!

Man! I have really slacked in the blogging world!! This ended up being extremely long so I broke it up into a couple different days.

Listening to some old school 1997 MON Hanson. Believe it.

Well, we went on vacation. And it was so fun! We have been blessed with a tremendous little sleeper in Jake, as well as a super flexible kid. We left for New Orleans and spent the weekend there before boarded the cruise ship on a Sunday. Jake was great through the 11 hour ride down there, thanks to Mommy's iPod, Curious George, and Clifford the Big Red Dog.
 In NOLA, we enjoyed some local cuisine ;-) went the to aquarium,

 an insectarium

 and rode the trolley.

This was our first trip not to bring a pack and play with us and Jake (of course) did excellent. He slept in his very own bed in the hotel in NOLA.

We boarded the ship on Sunday and left for the beautiful blue waters of the Caribbean.

 Actually, it takes around 12 hours just to get out of the mouth of the Mighty Mississippi. And if you have seen the Mississippi River... well, it's nickname, the "Muddy Mississippi", is for a reason. It's no beauty, that's for sure. ;-) When we woke up the next morning, we were smooth sailing on the deep blue ocean waters.

 Jake was old enough this time to attend Camp Carnival. Carnival provides something for kids 2-teen. I guess the teenager one is pretty cool because I overheard a couple teens talking about what they were doing later, more than once. lol. Anyway, Jake was in the 2-5 group. He had a blast and would ask us if he could go. We took him once or twice a day, mostly on the "days at sea" when we weren't in port. We had 2 days at sea, then we arrived at our first port in Jamaica on Wednesday. In Jamaica, we went to an all-inclusive resort, which I HIGHLY recommend. It was a resort with a swim-up bar,

 a restaurant, and a very nice, very pretty beach,

 and some non-motorized water stuff. We rode a hobie catamaran...very fun!

The water was the clearest, prettiest water, I've ever seen! It was as clear as bath-water!

The one and only downside to this place were the jellyfish. There were gigantic jellyfish. But if you're not much on swimming in large bodies of water, like me... then it isn't a problem to you.

After Wednesday night at dinner in the formal dining room, we quickly realized Jake is not quite cut out for a long day, short and late nap, AND formal dining. So we changed things up and ate at the Lido Deck during days we went on excursions.

Until tomorrow... lol aren't you waiting on pins and needles?! Hahaha, right!

Happy Monday, friends!