Eastern Caribbean Cruise.

When I found out that Landon won this cruise from work, my initial reaction was there is NO way I can go. How could I leave Charlie for a week?! Some thoughts I had...

• I'm still nursing Charlie. That means I would have to pump a HUGE supply and then pump the whole time I'm gone. Pain in the butt!

• What if he reaches a huge milestone while I'm gone? Like getting his first tooth or finally crawling?

• What if we DIE! I know, morbid... but I really couldn't stop thinking about it.

• How am I going to survive a whole week without my baby?!?! I don't even like leaving him for a few hours! I don't even like when he naps for too long! Ha!

But, after thinking a lot about it, I decided that even though it would be so hard to leave Charlie, the best decision was to go on the cruise and spend a week with my love.

Leading up to the trip I was literally sick to my stomach and would cry when I thought about it. And then saying goodbye was like actual TORTURE. Landon and I were both a mess! It was SOOOOO hard! Luckily, we left him in the best hands. So we didn't have to worry about Charlie's well being at ALL because we knew Nini and Papa love him just about as much as we do and would take such good care of him!

It was funny running into people from Landon's work at the airport who all looked SO happy and excited and we were all depressed with red, puffy eyes.

But, once we got to the boat and started the vacation, it got a lot easier. Each day we were closer and closer to being home and skyping with Charlie every day made it SOOOO much more bearable. It was the highlight of our day, every day! I kept telling Landon, "why did we leave if the best part of our vacation is seeing our baby?!?!" haha! Suzette also sent us a lot of pictures and that helped a ton!

Anyway, we really did have SO much fun. We got some much needed alone time and a lot of relaxation! It was so nice to NAP and be forced to relax!

InContact paid for us to have a "premium beverage package" so we got to have all these fancy "mocktails" every day. It was fun! :)

My parents came on the cruise too which was SOOOOOO amazing! It was their first cruise and I'm so happy they came. We loved spending time with them. They're seriously the cutest.

For some reason my dad and I lost our voices for most of the cruise. We kept saying we were going to go karaoke and call ourselves the "Karaoke Croakies." But, we never made it to Karaoke. Lame! But here's a video of our practice ;)

Our first port was Labadee, Haiti. This is a "private" beach owned by Royal Carribean, so we just got off the boat and hung out at the beach. It was beautiful! We snorkeled a bit, but didn't see anything that exciting.

Landon filmed with our go pro and I about peed my pants when I watched it. His "tricks" were killing me. He's so funny!

It was our second time on the Oasis of the Seas... (see this post). Not our favorite boat, despite all of the "cool" features it has...

It was so awesome having a balcony! 

Our second port was San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was really awesome walking around Old San Juan. The architecture was so cute and seeing the old forts and the old walls that surrounded the city for hundreds of years was really neat.

Our third port was Phillipsburg, Saint Maarten. This was definitely the highlight of our trip because we went scuba diving! It was my first ocean dive, so I was really nervous! Our first dive was about 60 feet deep and as soon as we got down we saw TWO sharks! It was seriously the coolest thing and I wasn't even nervous, surprisingly. We also saw a lot of pretty fish and a sting ray. It's a really neat experience to be underwater like that and I LOVED it. But, as soon as I got up from the first dive and back on the boat, I got VERY sick. The boat was rocking like crazy and I was trying to stare at the horizon and take deep breaths... but after about 20 minutes I threw up all over the boat... It was soooo gross and I was so embarrassed! They all told me I'd feel better in the water, but for the second dive I was nauseous the whole time... And at the end of the dive I puked again... right into my regulator underwater. Landon told me that fish started swarming. SOOO gross! But despite being sick, it really was a neat experience... especially getting to swim with sharks! At one point I looked behind me and there was a shark RIGHT there. And then he swam next to me within like 2 feet for about 5 minutes. We were buds!

Other than our ports, we had a lot of fun hanging out with my parents, eating SO much food (I accidentally gained 5 pounds!) and relaxing.

I had to document this. I left my sunglasses in the room and Landon let me wear his (even though he basically DIES without sunglasses). That's true love! 

Fancy surf'n'turf meal! :)

At one of the shows

This is me getting mad at Landon for not taking a picture with me. Stinker!!!!!

When we got off the boat we had a LONNNNG day at Disney Springs, which was fun... but honestly we were just ready to be HOME back to our baby! We ate at the T-Rex restaurant (because we are 5 years old... ha) and walked around. 

Our flight was delayed over an hour, which was horrible! We were SO anxious to be home. I didn't sleep the whole flight home because it seriously felt like Christmas! I told Landon I was just as excited to see Charlie as I was when I was giving birth and waiting to meet him. Suzette and Jason came into the airport and I just ran to Charlie. He was confused at first and then when he realized what was going on, he was SOOOOO happy to see us. He just kept looking at us with the biggest smile. It was the best EVER!

When we got home, Suzette, Jason, and Charlie made us the cutest welcome home poster. I can't even begin to thank them enough for taking such good care of our baby and our puppies! I know it was a lot of work and we are just soooo grateful! We are so lucky!!!!!!

We had so much fun, but man it's good to be HOME with our Mister! :)

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