Quick catchup! Disney Magic! :)

April 11-19 we went on a

DISNEY CRUISE!!!

It was incredible! Thank you Grandma Burdett! :)

It was wonderful to be with family for so long and to be on a ship/vacation that is very luxurious, relaxing and family oriented. I have been on another cruise in the past and this one had MUCH more to do for the whole family, it was clean and had excellent service (what do you expect though? It's Disney!! :) ) and it was fun to have a whole clan of 36 there.

The boat was huge! Ryan and I shared our cabin with Brandon and Austin (my little brothers). It wasn't TOO bad, but luckily my parents tried to help us keep our sanity and took them into their cabin a few nights.

Ryan LOVED the nonstop food on the cruise! I think we both gained a little more than the few pounds we should have! :) But, all is well. We're back to normal life now and are getting skinnier again (relatively of course because of this baby!) :) The food consisted of a buffet open basically from 6am to 10pm every day. Pizza, Hot dog/Hamburgers, and beverage stations open 8am-midnight (if not later). 24 hour room service (most of which was included in the cost of the cruise) and then 3 magnificent dining rooms--Lumieres, Animator's palate and Parrot Cay. I think my favorite was animator's palate becuase it is all black and white and then the pictures on the walls light up as different Disney characters and at the end of the meal, all the walls become color animations! :) We got to eat dinner in each restaurant at least twice which was fun, but we missed out on our second Animator's because my aunt gave us a late wedding gift to eat in the "Adult only restaurant--Palo". When I first found out we were going to miss Animator's I was a little bummed, but after going to Palo--It was SO worth trying! the food was excellent (Ryan STILL talks about the Lobster Ravioli he had!! :) , the service was excellent, our view out the back of the ship was excellent! It was quite the experience! Here are some pictures from that night. We got 5 appetizers, 2 meals, and 4 desserts between the two of us! :) Chocolate souffle, tirimisu (not the best I've ever tried but alright), and 4 different kinds of Italian gelato! :) Yum!

Shore excursions were fun. We stopped at St. Maarten in the Caribbean and then St. Thomas and St. John in the US virgin Islands. We got to go snorkeling there and it was very very nice. Ryan loves to snorkel, and the water was so clear and blue--it was just perfect.

The last stop was Disney's private island called Castaway Cay. The Disney Cruiseline kinda builds their island up to everyone, getting everyone excited for it, and then saves it for the last day of the cruise. I'm not always the biggest beach person--but it was very enjoyable. It was like Disneyland by the water and without rides! (I'm sure you're going...what?! How can that be?!) What I mean is that it had the Disneyland feel with the restaurants and paved pathways and lots of flora and fauna and music playing everywhere you went. And even though there weren't rides, there were things to do. We went on a bike ride, I got my hair braided in cornrows, we swam/snorkeled/fed stingrays! It was quite the day and the experience.

The only bad thing about it was my sunscreen didn't work as well as it should have (after applying it 2 times throughout the day) and I got fried on my arms! I would have to say that was the worst part of the cruise --- and I am never trying to use Bullfrog sunscreen again. It worked for the rest of my family but Kelsey and I got fried! ouch!

One of my favorite things on this cruise was seeing characters around everywhere all of the time. It's like a more private (smaller) Disneyland! I watched the little kids get all dressed up to take pictures with the characters and watched them get excited to see the characters and I just can't wait to watch my kids do that! :) sigh... in time I guess!

Another favorite thing was the classic disney shows that they put on nightly on the cruise! Other cruise lines talk about their shows as being "Las Vegas style" or "Broadway style" or just "unique". Disney is just always so clean and family oriented! It gave me chills everytime because it was so good! And yeah, sometimes hearing about how you can wish and dream and they'll always come true can get a little old after a while...to a child it doesn't! And that's what I love. It is innocent and pure and exciting and motivating! Even for adults it can be a refresher and I think that is what Walt Disney intended from the beginning.

A lot of people were surprised I played so hard since I'm pregnant, but actually--being pregnant wasn't terribly difficult. I'll admit I probably was more tired throughout the week than I normally would be and there were a couple times when I'd suddenly feel really dizzy or sick but it never lasted very long. I wouldn't hesitate to do it again! The only hard part of being pregnant on the boat was that I started actually looking more pregnant while we were there and I'm just not used to people really noticing yet--so I had to mentally adjust myself and accept that I was bigger and looked pregnant now! :) But that would happen anywhere so--that has nothing to do with a cruise! (It was just that much more apparent because of all the cameras around and pictures being taken!) :)

Anyway, we had a wonderful week! It was hard to come home, but we were tired. When we got home, we almost needed a break from running so hard! We also caught colds after we got home--and have been sick for the past week--but we were just happy they didn't come while we were gone! :) It was a wonderful and very memorable vacation!