December (Part Two)

So for our big adventure of the year. We went off on a cruise to celebrate my parent's 50th anniversary the week after Christmas. Since we were all ready in Florida, we decided to fly in early, on Christmas Eve, and drive down to Orlando. The kids have been wanting to go to Harry Potter World ever since they heard about it. Honestly, so have I! We got delayed, almost missed our connecting flights and got some good exercise running through airports, but made it to Florida at around 11 pm. That was over two hours later than we were originally supposed to arrive. We rented our car and began our drive down to Orlando from Jacksonville. We were starving and every place we went to was closed. Thankfully we found a McDonald's that was closing at midnight. We arrived at 11:50 pm and finally filled our poor kids' bellies! We arrived in Orlando at around 2:30 am and promptly went to sleep.

While we were sleeping, Santa managed to find us and leave the kids little presents in cute stockings. B got her pocket kite and the big kids each got $20 to spend at the park. B was pretty excited that Santa actually found us all the way in Florida.
 
We got up that morning and headed to the park. The strangest thing about it was that everything was open, even though it was Christmas day. We loved how decked out the park was for the holidays. Seuss Land became Grinch Land as well as Harry Potter had all the trimmings. It was busy but not nearly as crowded as Disneyland was last year. We did have over a two hour wait for the Hogwart's Castle ride, but it was pretty exciting actually being in the castle. We loved Hogsmeade and enjoyed our dinner at the Three Broomsticks, complete with butter beer. We went and shopped for wands and did all things Harry Potter. Following that we went to Seuss Land and loved being amongst all the Christmas fun. We did manage to walk around the rest of the park and had a little fun in Jurassic park as well. It was a really good day, although a bit chilly.

 
We spent the night again in Orlando and then drove up to meet the family in Jacksonville. That night we celebrated my parents' anniversary with a fun and memorable night. My sister put together a great presentation and it really broke the ice between family that hadn't been together in ten years. It was fun seeing how much my parents still love each other and how much life they have shared. I can't wait to live those years with T!

 The next morning we woke to a chilly 34* day and got onto the ship. Honestly I would say that this was the coldest trip I have ever taken. There was no heat on the ship at all.  We had a lot of fun with the family and made some really great memories together. I feel like it reminded us why we are forever families and set aside all the pain of the past.
 
The Bahamas were OK, but not my favorite. The beaches were pretty, but cold. The market was over priced and redundant. Our one excursion was a total disaster. The truth is that the people that we encountered down there were dishonest and only set on making a buck. It was very different than the experience we had in the southern Caribbean. We did enjoy feeding the fish on the beach in Nassau and I have now kayaked in the waters off of Freeport. That excursion was supposed to be a kayaking, snorkeling, eating and shopping fun day. Instead we fought waves to get to a sandbar off the coast. It was very cold, but in truth, the best snorkeling I have done. After that we attempted to kayak back to the shore line and with the storm moving in were not able to. Poor M was brought to tears as he and his cousin tried to fight the waves and get in. E went off with her cousin K, who does Iron men competitions, and made it about half way. My parents made it the furthest, but still couldn't cross. T and I had a scared B with us and couldn't even get off the sandbar. Miraculously a boat showed up (we hadn't seen anyone else the whole day) and rescued us. We haggled over price, since they were also over an hour late to start everything, cancelled the lunch and shopping, and gave us only one guide for 13 people. I sat racked in shivers as I was experiencing hypothermia and nowhere had heat. We made it back to the boat with only ten minutes to spare. It was truly a disaster, but an incredible memory!

Nassau:
 
After sitting in a hot tube and purchasing another sweatshirt, we enjoyed a very rocky return to Florida. Half the family was sick and the other half felt that they were getting there. We docked in and got onto a flight home.

Freeport:

The big kids wanted to make the New Year's Eve dance that night, although were so tired it was hard to enjoy it. T and I put B to bed and attempted to watch 'New Year's Eve'. We both kept falling asleep, but T managed to wake up in time to toast in the new year. It was quite an adventure and most of all I'm glad for the time spent with family, both our own and extended. What a great blessing to have them all in our lives!