Antigua March 19, 2009

On the island of Antigua, we took a taxi to the other side of the island and a boat ride to where the stingrays gather. They were gentle and friendly and soft and squishy.

Antigua is much drier than the other islands. Our driver's name was Bentley. He has 10 daughters and 8 sons. 8 different mothers. I think he was kind of bragging.

St. Lucia March 18, 2009

Next up, St. Lucia. This is such a beautiful island! (kicked Barbados' trash, and we thought Barbados was great) So the plan for St. Lucia was to walk to Vigie Beach, and do a little shopping. We were trying to stay out of the sun because we got fried in Barbados.

Our ship port was in the town of Castries. What a beautiful place!

We went to "market" to get our token necklace and tee-shirt. That was an experience in and of it's self! Everyone approaching you to see if you will buy their goods. One guy came up to me and told me that if I would buy his necklace and wear it, none of the other vendors would bother me...I guess that makes sense. It was such a funny marketing strategy, nothing to do with whether his product is good quality, cute or well priced, just that it would make the others quit bothering me. Yep, I bought that ugly necklace.

This is Vigie Beach, is this amazing or what?!

When we approached this beach, a weird guy named "Jimmy" told me he had made this grasshopper for me....and if I wanted to give him something that would be okay. My new pet grasshopper we named "Jimmy". We carried Jimmy for the rest of the day.

This cemetery is right on the beach.

While enjoying the beach, and checking out the map, it appeared that there was a lighthouse within a couple miles...so we now had a new destination, the Vigie Lighthouse. From the beach, we climbed up a embankment, and ended up in a soccer field. We thought we knew about where we were, so we kept walking. Without knowing it, we had passed the road that leads up to the lighthouse. We were walking through a really rich neighborhood, and a women came out on her balcony and we asked her where the lighthouse was. She gave us a really funny look, and told us we had to go a long way to get to it, and she pointed us in the right direction.

After another mile or so, we saw signs for the lighthouse. Finally we found it! What an accomplishment. We were looking out at the beautiful sights, and Dean was supposed to be taking care of Jimmy. Apparently Jimmy jumped out of Dean's hand...(or was he pushed?!) I was able to find him, and that is why we have those pictures from below the lighthouse, I was rescuing Jimmy!

We logged 8 miles on this island.

Barbados March17, 2009

Barbados...



(Notice the rum factory behind Ej, that's where we were headed)

The plan for Barbados was we would get up and walk to Malibu Beach. It was suggested by one of the crew members on the boat. Looked like about a 3 mile hike...sounded great. So off we went. We passed a cute beach, Brandon Beach, but we were headed to Malibu Beach, so we kept walking. We passed a sign that said "Malibu beach, oops, you missed it" so we turned around, and the way to get to Malibu beach is the same road you take to get to Brandon's beach. So down at Malibu beach a factory worker told us where the public access was, so we wouldn't have to pay an entrance fee to the Malibu club....you guessed it, we had already passed it, so we turned around again, and found that access to the beautiful beach! Along side the beach is a rum factory, so the cooling water from the factory creates a hot tub. The water was so warm, the smell would be great if you like rum. It was an amazing beach. We snorkeled till we were so tired and sunburned, and gathered up our stuff and headed into Bridgetown to do a little shopping....very little if Ej has her way! The temperature was perfect, the town was interesting, couldn't find any Dr. Pepper, so this was the first day of no DP for Dean and EJ...little did we know we would not see DP again until we got back to Salt Lake City!

Dean at Brandon's beach, the first time we passed it.
Ej looking back at the ship











We walked 7.8 miles on this little outing.

Back to the ship to shower, because tonight was formal night in the dining rooms.

The Caribbean Princess March 15-22, 2009

This was "Home Sweet Home" for the last 8 days. We left Salt Lake City Saturday Night, and arrived in San Juan Puerto Rico Sunday Morning around noon. Everything went real smooth, and we were on the ship around 2 pm. The rest of the day was spent exploring the ship, and sleeping. We had flown through the night, with a 2 hour layover in Atlanta, so catching up on sleep felt great, and made it so we were ready to face the days ahead!

This is the view out our balcony of Old Town (Puerto Rico). We were about to start our cruise to the West Indies, Lesser Antillies, or Southern Caribbean, which ever you would like to call it.

Rex Lee 10k

This is after the Rex Lee run for a cure, us three, along with 2000 other people decided that was how we wanted to spend our Saturday morning....although Braden was a little bitter that it wasn't a pi-day (3.14) run. We all felt great about our times...especially Dean, who placed 3rd in his age division! EJ had her best 10k time, as did Braden (this was Braden's first 10k, so it really didn't matter what his time was, it was going to be his best.)

Dean had to leave right after the race to attend a luncheon with Presiden Neider of the Young Men's General Presidency. That meant Braden and I had to hang around to pick up Dean's medal. We both wanted to know how it felt to wear the medal.....
Now home to pack...we leave for our cruise tonight!