Day 9 - Back in Miami

Today we docked in Miami. We had breakfast and then waited for a few hours as they s..l..o..w..l..y disembarked the ship. We got through customs pretty easily and took a cab to our hotel. We had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and then wandered through the nearby park. We met an artist there from Tucson touching up and repairing a play sculpture he installed about 6 years ago. Pizza and a movie in the room before bed. Pretty low key. No towel animal. Bummer.

Arriving at the Port of Miami about 6:00am.


Checking in.


Hangin' in the park.


Tuscon artist fixing up his sculpture.


Night view of downtown Miami.
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Day 8 - Angry day at sea!

Well, today didn't start out very fun. We woke up at 6:00 and realized Klara wasn't in bed. I got to spend 2 hours with ship's security trying to track her down. It turned out she lost her key and says we didn't answer the door when she knocked. Of course, she's too smart to call the room, ask for security or anyone else to help her or even go to the Guest Services desk to get another key. Nope. Her solution was to go to a cabin shared by two sisters she was hanging out with and sleep in their extra bed. After we woke up about a dozen families we finally found her. Yikes! What a scare. She got to spend the day confined to our cabin. We let her out for an hour in the evening to meet her new friends and exchange email addresses.

Other than that we just hung out on deck, played games, ate and went to shows. A nice day to catch up on our rest.

Our servers. She's from Thailand and he's from Indonesia


Our last towel animal.
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Day 7 - Roatan

Today we docked at Mahogany Bay, Roatan, Honduras. What a gorgeous island! We had another private tour scheduled so we hiked in past the port area and met our guide. She took us on a 5 hour trip around the entire island. We stopped at the East end on top of a mountain for a great panoramic view of the whole island. Then we went to a resort beach, an iguana refuge, a very nice bay area on the West end, and then to a butterfly farm. There were plenty of shopping stops along the way too!

Finally we asked our tour guide to recommend some a local hang out where we could sample some traditional cuisine. We settled on stewed iguana served with fried plantains and beans & rice. We practically licked the plates clean it was so good!

Beautiful Beach.

A little friend.

Fun with Iguanas!

Peggy's in her own...

...uh, and here too!

Back on board. :(

We think it's a dog. What do you think?

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Day 6 - Belize

Today we got up extra early to be on the first tender to Belize City. We had a tour starting right away and we had to get there ASAP! Luckily we arrived and found our guide with plenty of time to spare,so we took off early. I paid a group rate online for the tour, but they decided to give us a private tour so we wouldn't have to wait for everyone else to catch up! Awesome!

We drove about 40 miles into the interior where we arrived at the foothills of the Maya Mountain range. There we entered a preserve where we went zip-lining through the canopy. What a blast!

When we finished up the zip-lining we changed into our suits and hiked 45 minutes through the jungle then dropped into a river and tubed through a cave system. Gosh that was nice!

We finished up the stay in the preserve with an excellent Belizian lunch of grilled chicken, tortillas, rice, fruit, fish-filled panadas, and my favorite Belizian onion salsa. YUM!

Tendering to Belize, our ship in the background.

Ready for adventure!

Charlotte didn't balk at even the highest tree stands and always insisted on going first!

We all survived!

Monkey business.
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Day 5 - Cozumel

Today we spent on Cozumel. We drove a jeep around the island, stopped at a small Mayan temple, climbed a lighthouse, snorkeled a mile of reef about 200 yards off shore and had a fabulous fajita lunch. A very nice day.

Peggy and I ate supper in the ship's steak house. Just incredible!

Christmas time in Cozumel!

A small Mayan temple thought to be used by travelers.

Inside the lighthouse.

On top of the lighthouse.

Couldn't say awake long enough to go to dinner! LOL!

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Day 4 - Grand Cayman

We spent today on Grand Cayman. Shortly after arriving we heard the bad news..the government closed trips to Stingray City because the seas were too rough. Bummer. We really wanted to swim with the stingrays. Well, we had fun anyway. We went to Hell, visited a sea turtle farm and sampled an excellent Cayman-style lunch.

Grand Cayman is a haven for banks (and foreign money) since King George declared it to forever be a tax-free province after the locals rescued the survivors of 10 British ships that crashed on the reef as they arrived back in the 1700's. Consequently, between the banks and tourism (the primary income for the island) they had sufficient resources to completely rebuild within 6 months after Hurricane Ivan nearly wiped the island clean! By comparison, parts of Cozumel, Mexico and some areas of New Orleans are still struggling to recover! They haven't even repaired the docks in Cozumel yet and we'll have to tender in from the bay.

Here we are in Hell...

...And here's the proof!


This is why we couldn't swim with the stingrays.


Playing with some young sea turtles.

Well, at least we got to see ONE stingray.

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Day 3 - At Sea

Sadly, the weather was bad today, so we spent most of the day inside. The pools were closed and so we played games,ate and occasionally stepped outside to see what was going on. The seas were quite rough and there were a lot of folks sick. Luckily we weren't affected. Hopefully tomorrow will be better when we arrive in Grand Cayman.

Last night we watched Leap Year on the JumboTron up on deck!

The girls slept in this morning.


Big waves crashing close to the bow.


Klara is right at home (this is after I cleaned it up some!)


Someone let an elephant into our room!
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Day 2- Set Sail!

Today we slept in a little, had breakfast then made our way to the ship at about noon. Check-in and boarding was pretty quick compared to the last two cruises we went on. The ship looks like it's going to be a lot of fun and the girls signed up for the youth clubs for their age groups. At first they didn't want to, now they can't wait to get away from us. Magically, that works out great for us grown-ups too!

Tomorrow will be a day at sea, then when we wake up on Tuesday we'll be at Grand Caymen. Wednesday is Isla Roatan, Thursday is Belize and Friday is Cozumel. Saturday is another sea day then Sunday, sadly, we disembark.

Miami. A free Monkey with every room!

On board waiting for a cabin to be ready.

We're on our way! Miami on the horizon.

Sunset from our balcony.

Fun stuff from our steward.

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The kids' first cruise!

Here we go! This morning we got up at 0430 and finished getting ready for the cruise. We fed the animals and then raced out. Getting parked, checked in and through security was a breeze today. We flew on American Airlines (the dirtiest plane I've been on in a long time, I must say!) and 4 short hours later we plopped down in Miami. We're spending tonight at the Hyatt in downtown Miami. I'm so excited to be cruising again, it's just so enjoyable and we got all kinds of shore tours lined up! Stay tuned to keep up with all the fun!

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Deer Hunt 2010

At the end of the fourth day of hunting Justin and I were hiking back to the truck and took a look off the other side of the ridge where we were parked. Within a minute I spotted a little buck under a tree reaching for some berries. After we hiked into him a ways I got the kill shot from 189 yards. He ran about 10 yards then dropped dead. It was a steep, gnarly hike over to get him and we reached him just as the sun went down. Here's a few pics:

He's not a trophy, but he'll taste great!

Tough drag out!

Halfway back. The "X" on the horizon is where the Jeep is!


Ready for processing.


Roadside maintenance, just for fun.
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Peggy in the news

Peggy and I attended a Trauma survivors luncheon yesterday at the hospital where she was taken after her accident in May. While we were there ABC 15 in Phoenix interviewed her for about 15 minutes and used some of the footage for their afternoon news show. Here's the video...

Charlotte's First Cross Country Race

This morning Charlotte raced in her first Cross Country race ever. The race for her group was 3/4 of a mile. She competed against 14 schools and 70 girls. She jumped to the lead within the first 10 yards of the race and just stayed there. One girl challenged her for the lead, but Charlotte just put the coals to it and left her in the dust. She ended up crossing the finish line 20 yards ahead of the second place runner and won the GOLD! Yay Charlotte!

Charlotte Leads From the Beginning


Charlotte at the Finish Line


Charlotte Accepts GOLD at the Podium
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Special Operations Warrior Foundation

I know times are tough, but if you've got a few extra bucks you can spare this is a great charity. Anything helps. They're caring for over 500 families of our greatest fallen heroes. Check out the website...

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Guitar extravaganza!

I know I've posted about Funtwo before, but someone on playlist.com finally upped some of his songs. I put two on my playlist - down close to the end. Check them out.

Cannon Rock is a rock guitar version of Pachelbel's Cannon. It's my all-time favorite song and I can't hear any version of it without getting emotional. There's another version in there played by Jerry C.

Enjoy!

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Our new baby

...well, okay, our new charity case. Meet Gale (like the storm wind). She's a purebred Red Doberman, just a couple of months old. This picture was taken a couple of days ago. She had her ears cropped today and is all bandaged up now.

She gets along well with everyone and loves to swim. She's especially fond of grabbing Rylee's collar and riding around on her back in the pool!

We can't wait for everyone to meet her. She's just as sweet as all the other Dobermans we've had.

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First day of school

We weren't on the ball enough to take pics of the girls on their first day back to school. Luckily our neighbor was thinking ahead and snapped a shot of our girls with her kids at the bus stop.

Charlotte and Klara in the middle with our friends Zach and Maddie flanking them.

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