Cruisin' 2012

So sorry about the delay. It has taken me so stinkin' long to get this post up. I have been so busy with young women's, my kids, and trying to get my photography business sorted out. That's right people...A photography business! I will let you know more later.

For Mike's 30th birthday I surprised him with a cruise that we would be taking shortly after Christmas. Most of you know that he has been working a full-time job and going to school at night. I have been doing daycare out of my home and juggling 4 kids' schedules while he is gone. We haven't gone anywhere together, alone, for longer than a night or two since our honeymoon. That was almost 9 years ago. We were both crawling out of our skin with excitement as it approached. We had so much fun! It was 4 nights and was just long enough to really want to come home to see the kids. Here are some of our favorite pictures. My camera was left on the kitchen table so this is Anna's "point and shoo"t that she so generously let me borrow. I may have cried a couple of times without my camera, but we got by. Enjoy

Long Beach, CA

 Mike's 2 brothers and their wives came along too. We had so much fun!

 Catalina Island was our first stop. It was so beautiful and really sunny. It felt so good after leaving Utah.

 Mike and I got to have some alone time and went hiking up the hills in Catalina. It was so nice and so pretty.

 We saw dolphins our whole trip. There were hundreds of them! Some even had babies with them. It was really neat.

 Our ship was the Carnival ship Inspiration. It was rated #1 out of all their ships for their dinner service. I would have to agree.

 Ensenada Mexico was our other port. It is kind of a crummy port, but we made the best of it and got a ton of vanilla to bring home.

 Ensenada at night. We were there until 10pm and the ship had to make a 5-point turn to get out. Very impressive.

 Tyler took second in the hairy chest competition. It was really funny. They made them dance and perform, too funny.

 The third day was our day at sea. There is nothing quite like the sun setting into the ocean is there? Magical.

 Our dinner table had another couple assigned to it. They turned out to be not only from Utah, but had just gotten married in the Bountiful Temple! It was fun to have another LDS couple at our table. Another couple may have found our lack of drinking alcohol strange.

 Every night after dinner there was a towel animal left on our bed. "Nessy" was my favorite. The guy that was in charge of our room always remembered our names even when we were other places on the boat. I was very impressed. I was glad he called me "Miss Nicole" instead of Mam. ;)

 We took advantage of the empty buffet room at night to play "hand and foot." It's one of our favorite passtimes.

Here we are back in Long Beach. It went so fast! It was totally worth it and we are already trying to figure out what we will be doing together next year. A big thanks to Linda and Judy for taking care of our kids. They were so loved while we were gone and we appreciate it.