Anniversary Cruise (Part 1)

Towards the beginning of the year, we started to realize that if we were going to do a no-kids trip of some kind (we'd never done one), this was our best window.  Evan was finally done nursing, and baby #4 wasn't here yet, plus I was over being sick.  So, we scheduled a last minute cruise to the Western Caribbean!   It was sort of our belated tenth-anniversary celebration.  My wonderful mother volunteered to stay here with the kids for a week, which made it possible.  Thanks, Mom! 
  
We started our trip with an all-night flight to Fort Lauderdale.  For some reason, it was the only flight we could find.  Ryan naps well, but I don't, so I was pretty wiped out by the time we finally got on-board at noon the next day!  Now, the best thing about a cruise (in my opinion) is the combination of awesome food and time to relax on the ship with your sweetie.  That doesn't make for exciting pictures, though, so most of these are from the ports we visited.  Our cruise visited four: Grand Cayman, Cozumel (Mexico), Roatan (Honduras), and Costa Maya (Mexico).
   

  
The first shore excursion we did was on Grand Cayman.  We went on a smaller boat out to a sand bar full of (sort of domesticated) stingrays.  There were probably twenty different tour boats crammed into the same space, but it was fun.  The tour guide held a huge stingray up out of the water so we could touch it, and they gave us squid to feed to the loose ones swimming all around.  After that, we visited a beach and rented snorkel equipment - something I'd never done before.  It was really surprising - I figured out the basics of what to do, then started to paddle out from the beach - and it was like I was suddenly in a fish tank!  I was surrounded with fish of every shape and color imaginable, along with all kinds of corals, anemones, and other stuff I couldn't name.  Sadly, I didn't have a waterproof camera, so that day was a photographic loss.  Something I will always remember, though.
   

View from our Balcony

   
Port #2 was Cozumel, Mexico.  We visited a museum called Discover Mexico that had maybe a hundred miniatures of important Mexican landmarks.  It sounds boring, but we loved it.
   

You had to pay for pictures with the snake or donkey.  We didn't want one that bad.

None of these guys were harnessed in, just tied with a rope.

The guy at the top is playing a wooden flute.

Tiny Mexico City

   
     Port #3 was Roatan, Honduras.  We went to the "Gumbalimba Preservation Park", which was supposed to be a guided tour of this amazing wild area filled with birds and monkeys.  It was pretty cool, but the tour guide was about nineteen and didn't know much, and the birds and monkeys were basically pets.  I liked it anyway.  
   

 
While we were waiting in line to hold one of the monkeys, a loose one went into our beach bag and stole our (my) sunscreen bottle.  He took it to the top of a tree and began to try to get it open - he must have thought it was juice or something.
    

  
After our turn on the monkey bench, the naughty monkey still had our sunscreen.  He was getting more and more frustrated, and accidentally dropped it, so Ryan rushed into the bushes and snagged it.  The monkey definitely did not appreciate that, because he came down and went on a rampage through the crowd - finally grabbing someone's water bottle and drinking everything in it.  Our sunscreen had the plastic button chewed off, but was otherwise fine.