First Vacation--- as a family of 3!

Last month, we went on a cruise with our good friends Rod & Ashley to celebrate Ashley's graduation from college! Let me begin by saying that in hindsight, I was an ill-prepared nervous wreck... I waited to the last minute to make my final to-do list and everything kinda went down-hill from there. I consider myself very organized when I comes to my family and planning things for Brielle, but I wasn't ready for traveling with a small child! When I say that Brian and I didn't sleep the night before because we were up packing and running around like head-less chickens, I'm serious! What was I thinking-- taking a small child on a plane, nevertheless a 7 day- cruise?! I know people travel with their children all of the time, but this was by far the most stressful

So... a long story short, we missed our original flight, our stand-by flight, and we finally got on the plane after our 3rd booking. I don't fly very much, but I can definitely say that I won't be flying with American Airlines anytime soon! So our original flight was to Ft. Lauderdale and our group was to take a shuttle together to Miami, but we flew directly into Miami instead because we were pressed for time. So after much stress and strain, we arrived to the Port of Miami and made it onto the boat right before it was scheduled to leave!!


We took a ton of pictures and I cannot even post them all between here and on Facebook... We visited 4 islands, Half Moon Cay, Bahamas, St. Thomas, USVI, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos. Here are the highlights though:

Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

Us riding the ferry to the island

Enjoying the warm Caribbean water!

Me and my love with her straw hat that we bought from one of the locals

Group Pic-- Rod & Ashley plus the Nemons'

Rod and Ashley on formal night

Brielle on Formal Night

Some of the wonderful cuisine

Daddy and daughter

Some of the ladies!!

Us in St. Thomas visiting Magen's Bay

Me and Ashley

Couples!

Baby girl--- enjoying the view! Thank goodness we were able to rent a stroller!

View of St Thomas from the "rainforest"

Taking a break from sight-seeing to try the local cuisine

Fish & Chips; Curry jerk chicken

The pictures above are from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Brielle and I didn't get off the boat for this stop because she was sick! She was teething with a fever and then she began to have a runny nose, congestion and a cough :-(

Family pick in Grand Turk--- It was very misty outside!

We spent the day shopping and relaxing on the beach--- Brian and I have a tradition of stopping at Margaritaville anytime we encounter one on vacation lol

Formal night number 2--- we were nice and tan by the latter part of the cruise lol

These are a couple of pictures that we bought on the boat... The quality is much better in person--- my scanner put a grey line going down the middle!

Some of our best friends!!

Brielle Alise--- 15 months; First cruise vacation

If you can't tell from the pictures, we had an amazing time!! Lord willing, we will be able to take many more trips together!