I almost titled this one…”Where’s Jake!?”

I’ll get to that later!  After a painstaking process to decide on a trip to celebrate my parents 50th wedding anniversary, we landed on an Eastern Caribbean cruise.  It’s really hard for 4 families to find a time that is ideal, a location that everyone finds desirable, and fits within budgets!  This actually happened at the end of July, so I’m going back in time a bit!  My parents are experienced ‘cruisers’ but this would be a first for our kiddos and my brother’s kids.  We were packed and ready for this adventure!

As we were checking in, we came to the realization that I was not actually booked on the flight and there were no seats left.  HOLY CRAP!  Meanwhile, my sister and hubby had already bypassed us in line and were sitting at the gate rapid fire texting me…’where are you!?”  I got booked on the next flight out which was hours later.  As we reunited with our group at the gate, we were all trying to figure out what the heck went wrong and making sure I had everything I needed for a long day in the airport by myself!!  I could see panic in the kids eyes and I was so sad as I watched all of them boarding the plane without me after all this planning!  Then, over the loud speaker, I heard my name and I threw my hands up in the air in celebration.  Thank you to whoever didn’t show up for that flight!!

In Orlando, we checked into our hotels, grabbed a bite to eat, and completely took over the lobby!  We had scrapbooking going on, a massive card game, and many free drinks flowing.  Vacation is on!

The next morning we boarded our ship…the Carnival Magic.Once on board, my dad instructed us to start eating right away…that’s what we paid for right!?  However, it was a torrential downpour!!Well crap, the stinkin’ ship is flooding and we’ve only been on here 45 min!!  No worries, we started making a dent on our drink packages and our cabins were great!!  The Conley crew had an adjoining balcony with my parents, Shauna and Scott were one room down and Greg’s crew was close by in the interior.  It worked out perfectly!

Look at my mom in the background putting on the life vest…isn’t she cute!?

Our first stop was in Nassau, Bahamas where we found ourselves on a secluded public beach.  Greg and Brian hitched a ride with a stranger to get beer and KFC!?  What were they thinking!?  My parents took a tour they had arranged and all of us had a blast!

Our second stop was Amber Cove Dominican Republic and it’s beautiful!  We spent the day at the water park/shopping.  Some of the kids got to zipline over the park and of course Greg and Brandy ran into Elvis…this is totally normal right!?

Our last stop was in Grand Turk, an island in Turks & Caicos.  My sister spent lots of time researching our stops and making the best plans for us!  She arranged for a private boat tour where we snorkeled several places, spent time on a private beach, and dove for conch shells!  It was a amazing!  We were so impressed with the kids’ diving skills…unfortunately we could not get back on the ship with the shells.  Except my sister, who managed to get hers smuggled through!  The boat ride was crazy rough but I managed to make it without losing my breakfast overboard!  What a gorgeous place…we are so lucky to have spent time here!

Jake’s conch shell

My dad is notorious for striking up conversations with the locals!!  They split open our shells and made fresh conch salad.

We love you Grand Turk!!

In between our stops, we had one day at sea and lot’s of fun times on the ship.  This is where it comes back to….’Where’s Jake!?”   That seemed to be the theme of the week for me.  Even using the ship app to find my crew, I always found myself looking for Jake!  He was apparently enjoying his freedom…playing basketball, golf, winning contests, hours upon hours on the water slides, and eating cheeseburgers and ice cream.  At one point I was wandering the ship in a disoriented panic searching for him and two steps from having his name called over the intercom system before he was found.  He was on the water slides.  The kids really liked to roam around, make friends, and stay up LATE..ugh…I was not prepared for that!  Morgan even ran into someone she met on the ship on the soccer field in Omaha!  What a small world!  We had Alyssa looking for us late one night and look at cute Collin hanging out with the little kids in our room and having a candy party…

I promise, there’s never a dull moment with this group!  Without a doubt, my favorite part of this cruise, were the family dinners.  They were a teensy bit early…I felt like I was getting ready and eating in the middle of the afternoon!  But we had amazing food, service, and so much fun.  I loved watching the kids (and Greg…he’s kind of a kid) dance, and Reece being mesmerized by magic tricks!

Since everyone had the drink package except my parents (my dad is ultra cheap, remember!), we were getting them drinks as often as we could on our cards.  I think Greg and Brandy might have maxed their cards out one night.  Way to get your money’s worth guys…job well done!

The balloon drop on our final night was AWESOME!!

So much ice cream was consumed on this trip that I am still laughing about it!  My sister and I managed to avoid it the entire trip.  Finally, as we were waiting to disembark the ship, we decided to give that ice cream machine a try at the very last minute.  We didn’t even know how to work it!!  Dorks!  Everyone else on the ship was so experienced with it, they just wanted us to get our ice cream and get out of the way!

I adore these memories and all of these people.  Happy Anniversary mom and dad!  You are LOVED!

Cheers to 50 years!!