cruise day 1

***WARNING: long post!***

since we are about to go on another beach trip, i thought that i may need to go ahead and post our family trip that we had 3 weeks ago!

mary peyton chose, over a few other options, to go on a cruise. now before you start thinking, "what are the two of you thinking letting a 5 year old pick your vacation?", each option we gave her was one that tommy and i were completely fine with.

i won't tell you the options because some of you might think that my child was crazy for choosing a cruise over the other options, but we were glad she did! the cruise was so affordable and the fact that we only had to drive to mobile was an added plus.

tommy and i love cruises. we had both cruised before we married and have now cruised 3 times since 2001. all 3 of our cruises have been in the western caribbean. one was to jamaica, grand cayman, and cozumel...the last 2 have been to cozumel and calica. mary peyton was 15 months on our last cruise. and contrary to what many people told warned us, it was a wonderful trip.

on monday, august 9th, we got up and drove to mobile. it was nice because we didn't have to leave super early. i got up and got ready, slipped mp's dress on (in her sleep, of course!), and we loaded up the car.

when we went on our last cruise, i took a picture of mary peyton sitting in front of our luggage ready to go. compare that picture to the one from this year...

it was nice to only take one big bag, a "carry on" size bag, and a duffel. in fact, it was 3 bags less than our last cruise! of course one bag on that trip was nothing but diapers, wipes, medicines, etc. that are a must when traveling with a baby. this time was MUCH simpler!

when we got to mobile, the parking garage was already full, so we parked off site in a lot and they shuttled us over to the boat. mary peyton was SO excited. at this point, we had already pulled up to the loading area and dropped off our luggage, so she was anxious to get on! so were we! (oh - as a side note - the cute little sparkly flip flops in this picture? they became our only loss on the trip.....so sad!)

poor mary peyton....she was already getting tired of pictures. and i did promise that i wouldn't completely bombard her - or tommy - with pictures all week long. i decided that i would rather enjoy the vacation and make mental pictures than to sit on the sidelines and not participate because i had to get the perfect shot. so in the following posts, just keep that in mind!

i did tell mary peyton that i wanted one picture of us on the bus, though. thank goodness she let me take it!

once we checked in, took our "boarding" picture (the first of MANY from the ship's photographers), and walked out to start the "walk" up on to the boat, i wanted to get a picture of the front of the boat. here it is!

please notice that in the next picture it does say "no photography". OOPS! i saw this after the fact and i certainly wasn't going to erase it!

once we got on the boat, found our room, and looked around, we decided to go ahead and take a picture of us with mobile behind...

and go figure - i wanted one of mary peyton by herself as well...

it was hard to believe that as dirty as the water looked, within 12 hours, we would be out in water that is sapphire blue and so beautiful!

i let mary peyton make her own ice cream cone even though i was nervous and tried to help a little. she insisted she could do it - and she did! this was the first of MANY ice cream cones we had that week!

we sat up on the deck and just watched as they prepared to set sail. it was not super hot and being on a covered deck, it was comfortable. mary peyton waved to the workers on the other ships and they waved back.

this is tommy and me as we sat watching us set sail!

and mary peyton!

after this, we went to a mandatory safety briefing. it's not the part you like to think about, but it is necessary. they tell you where you need to go for your muster station, etc., in the case of an emergency. kids 11 years old and younger are "banded" so that if they are somewhere else when an emergency happens, the crew can get them to their parents.

these safety meetings have changed since our last cruise. on the last one (and all of the cruises before that), you had to take the life vest out of your room to the meeting and everyone practiced putting it on, etc. we did not have to do that this time (thank the Lord!) but here is mp showing off her bracelet!

after the safety briefing, we just stayed on the deck watching for fairhope and some of the other little places along mobile bay.

and did you know that this little house is out in the middle of mobile bay? how interesting....

we had heard wonderful things about camp carnival, so we went to an orientation to get mary peyton signed up. basically it's like a daycare, but it's only for kids 2-5 (there's a different one for kids 6-8 and then 2 others for pre-teens and teens). i was hesitant about it before we went, but it was awesome. we got to have adult time and mp LOVED it. really. some nights we wound not even be through with dinner and she would be begging to go to camp carnival!

we got ready and went to dinner. i didn't get a picture of the 3 of us, but here is one of tommy and mary peyton listening to karaoke. it was hilarious. mary peyton could have done better than some of the people!

when we got back to our room, our room steward, robert, had brought mary peyton's cot in and put it at the foot of our bed. it was turned back and ready for her to go to sleep and lily was waiting on her =)

robert had also made the first of our towel animals for the week. i loved the elephant! of course me, being the nerd i am, saved our towel animals over on the desk and each day took a picture of the collection so far. you'll see it as i do these posts!

with the towel animal each night was the copy of "fun times" for the next day. this is basically a big pamphlet of everything going on on the boat for the next day. you can do everything or nothing - it's your choice! just another thing i enjoy about cruises! the camp carnival itinerary was separate.

stay tuned for day 2! hopefully i can get a post done each day and it will all be done before we leave!

oh - and you get extra props if you actually made it through this whole post AND comment =) i'm thinking i may not have readers anymore since i never post!