Cruising for Swine Flu...

Tyson helping us pack the car. Using his binoculars ;)

Last Monday thru Friday, Brandon and I enjoyed a cruise to Catalina Island and Ensenada, Mexico with some of his co-workers. The day we were leaving we saw on the news the outbreak of Swine Flu in Mexico, we didn't think much of it because we didn't plan on wrestling any pigs in Mexico, but more to come on that...

Brandon and I as the ship set sail!

We flew to California (the first time I have flown in 12 years unless you count when I went skydiving, so that was 10 years ago) Anyways, it went well, we landed at the airport and not in the water so that was good! ;) We had two vans take the 12 of us to Long beach so we could board our ship. The driver in our van was a little crazy. He gave us a 10 minute lecture(because he would repeat the same thing over and over again) about the Swine Flu and that we needed masks and blah, blah, blah. We had one close call with him, but he got us there safely!
The cruise got on its way and we enjoyed dinner and some gambling. The roulette table was a 50 cent minimum so we went to town and won some cash. We went to the showtime performance they had that night and man was that terrible. Bad costumes, bad dancing, bad jokes so needless to say we didn't stay long for that!

Brandon and Aaron looking studly in their wet suits!Brandon and I in our hot wet suits!
At Catalina, Brandon and I wanted to go Kayaking. Krista and Aaron joined us. We were going to use the people that the cruise ship had recommended and go on a guided kayaking adventure, but we ended up finding another group that let us kayak(unguided) and snorkel for half the price. It was awesome! The only bummer thing was that I had some crappy goggles the fogged up really easy, so Brandon would point out fish and I couldn't see them. So halfway through Brandon traded goggles with me and man were there a lot more fish than I thought!

On shore at "Turtle Rock"

While snorkeling we were around a lot of kelp, which is where most the fish hung out, but when the kelp would touch me it would creep me out!!!

On Catalina.

After Kayaking we ate lunch at Armstrong's. It was delicious and recommended to us by some locals.

Catalina.
It was a little bit chilly, but the water was surprisingly warm. The wet suits helped a lot. It took me awhile to warm up after being in the Ocean, so when we got back on the ship we went hot tubing. Ahhh it was nice and warm!
So, every time we turned on the TV on the ship the headline was always Swine Flu. We were trying to decide what we were going to do, do we risk it and get off and see Ensenada, or do we stay on the ship...well Tuesday night the cruise line made the decision for us, we were going to go to Ensenada, but we were not going to get off the ship. So I saw Mexico from the ship. I wasn't too heartbroken we didn't stop, but two whole days on the ship was going to be tough. We made the best of it. We would eat breakfast, stake out our lounge chairs and lay out till lunch. It was great! I read a book, (yes, you are reading this right, Shay actually read a book!) talked with the other wives (luckily the group we went with was a really fun group, you never know when it is a group of people you have never met!) and talked with B. It was nice to actually take some time and relax. After lunch we would relax some more, one day we even took a nap. Then we would go workout in the gym. It was interesting to workout on a moving ship. You really had to work hard on staying on the treadmill! Then we would get ready for the evening, eat dinner, gamble, hot tub, or checkout the shows (which were not very good, we never lasted through a whole show!) It was a lot of fun!


Brandon tried to win some free throw competitions (there were 3 or 4 of them) the first time he played he came in second. It was hard with the wind and the ship moving. If he had won he would have gotten the coveted trophy. It looked like the Carnival Cruise ship. It was hilarious! Ty ended up winning on the last day and got the cool trophy. I am still proud of B getting second!!

Of course you have to take a picture of the towel animals. We also had a towel monkey hanging from the ceiling!

In Catalina we got the kids these cute tin lunch boxes. Tyson was so excited to have a picnic with them. He also wanted to take a picture of them. Tyson the photographer!

Tyson and Lily had so much fun with their Nana, Papa and Zak. Tyson was exhausted when we came home. This was what Tyson was doing when we were eating dinner! He was way too cute. While driving home he was asking us what we did on our trip, so I told him everything we did and he kept saying uh-huh, uh-huh... He was truly interested! What a cute kid!

Thanks Nana and Papa for taking our cute kids for us!

We had a excellent time!