Riding the Freedom...

The Kids first Airplane ride! My Grandpa Cliff decided to take all his kids and grandkids (and 2 great grandkids) on a cruise vacation. We left on Friday the 21st of December. It was pretty fun since there was like 24 of us. We basically had our own section of the plane. And there was well over 40 large suitcases. We spent Saturday in Miami and then got on the Cruise ship Sunday. The ship we went on was called the Freedom of the Seas. It is the Largest cruise ship in any Ocean in the world. The ship even had an Ice Skating rink where they put on ice skating shows. We stopped at 4 ports. Haiti, where I didn't get off the ship. There was a Iranian gun boat that escorted us into the Island. I was too scared to get off. Wilfred got off and said there were gaurds with machine guns nearly everywhere. Then we went to Jamacia. I loved it! Our next stop was Grand Cayman Islands. I didn't know that the Cayman Islands were still owned by Great Britian and therefore still under the British Queens rule. It was very neat to see. Our last stop was at Cozumel, Mexico. None of were impressed and no one has any desire to go back there! Then it was back to Miami on Sunday were we got off the ship and went straight to the Airport to come home.

Sissy(my Aunt Janice,) Alexander, Lindsy, and Me all playing at the beach in Miami. We spent a Day in Miami before getting on our Cruise ship.

Tuckered out after a day at the beach in Miami.

Here is Lindsy and I in the H2O Zone on the ship. Lindsy LOVED the water and didn't want to get out of it. Clayton was a little fearful of it and hated to get his face wet.

Wilfred did something called the FlowRider. It was basically a surfing simulater. Here he is boogie boarding. Wilfred was getting some last minute instruction before jumping on to the board.

This is Ocho Rios, Jamacia. I loved this place! I didn't expect it to be as mountainous as it was. Everyone was facinated with Wilfred's boots because most of them didn't even have shoes. About every five minutes we would get stopped so the locals could see the boots. Wilfred had to lift up his pant leg several times. I would love to go back to Jamaica...any takers?

One of our stops in Grand Cayman was the town of Hell. It got its name by the natural rock formations there. They were pretty creepy, there is all this beautiful green and sand and then bam these creepy rocks. There is water at the bottom of the rocks but it is nasty and murky from lizards and other things that have fallen in there and been unable to get out.

We went to a Turtle farm in Grand Cayman. We learned some facinating things about sea turtles. Clayton got to hold a Turtle egg. It was like a ping pong ball but bigger and it was much heaver than you would expect. We all got to touch a turtle. I would have never expected that their shells were rubber like. I always assumed they would be hard. I learned Sea Turtles are different!

Clayton and Uncle Leon Playing in the H2O Kids Zone on the ship. Clayton took a nasty fall shortly after this picture was taken. He still has the knot on his head from it.

Eating a Hamburger at the Miami Airport. We were all tired out and waiting to come home. We had to fly from Miami to Houston which is where they forgot to put our luggage on the plane. So from Houston we flew to Albuquerque only to arrive and find we had no luggage. Our men were nice enough to wait around to collect our luggage 3 hours later.

Lindsy was very 'into' helping me unpack when we got home.