Cruise

We went on a cruise. 5 night from Galveston to Progresso and Cozumel Mexico. The day we were to leave from Galveston was super foggy so we had extra time on shore. We walked around the beach and downtown including public library museum. Then it was our time to board. Here is our balcony and Galveston and fog.

Our nice little room with balcony!

Then there is this fun thing called safety check where we all crowd onto the deck where the life boats are and get our names checked off. 

Most of our time was spent eating, three meals a day at lots of great restaurants and plenty of snacks in between. Then we went to a show to learn about the cruise. There were some surprises that night, one being mom won the grand prize of dinner for two at the steak house.   

Fortunately, since the food was so plentiful and good, I also spent a lot of time walking. Here is our first fun day at sea. We had room service for breakfast, explored the decks, mom and I did Harry Potter trivia.

Here is our reading nook in the adult section. Then on sailing days, High Tea was served which was one of my favorite things and needed as we didn't have dinner until 8:15.

That evening Mom and Kathy got all cruise elegant and went to dinner at the steak house. I put on my swimsuit and had a piece of pizza on the deck then watched Doctor Strange in the hot tub. 

First day in Mexico, the fog caused us to change plans of order of the ports and we also decided to seize the day and go on an excursion instead of just hanging out. We did the Sacred Caverns. We drove for 2 hours to the interior through Merida and smaller villages, ones containing Maya ruins. Our peppy guide chatted most of the time. 

We went into two cenotes and got to swim in both. We were given snorkel gear but there wasn't much to see. The cave features were cool. Then we had a nice Maya taco lunch and little children performed a couple of dances. 

The entrance to one of the caverns. 

Back on board, the performer for the night missed getting to the boat so we had trivia before our first sit down dinner. Table for 11 with 6 people (by the last night it was only me and mom at our table for 11). All the staff are international and I loved reading their name tags which stated their home country. They danced and we got to join in as well. The food was amazing and you could get as much as you wanted!

Cozumel day! We ate at the breakfast buffet, then walked the deck before heading to shore for our snorkel trip. Getting off the boat was always funny. Staff were dressed up for pictures. We didn't buy any but posed for our own. 

Ah the Mexico I love-clear, blue waters; white sands and great temperatures. 

We had some time before our boat left so we did some cheesy tourist stuff. 

On our snorkel boat. We had three stops and they were all right by the shore and cruise boats. We saw lots of fish, rays two times and a barracuda were highlights. I tried to be the first off and last on each time. We were served soda during the couple of minutes between spots. There was also a sun deck on top.

There is never enough time in the water! Back on the shore we chilled on the small beach before heading back to our prison, I mean cruise ship :)

Mom and I went and heard some live calypso music before dinner. It was Valentine's day so we got two desserts. We took tons of pictures of our food because it was pretty and the majority of our trip was eating, so if anyone wants the food pic tour, I can show you. 

Entertainment for last day at sea was eating and towel folding! We also did tea again, more reading in our nook and walking. It was super windy. I had wanted to go down the water slide. It was closed while it was warm and we were in Mexico and I didn't feel like putting on a swimsuit on this cloudy windy day.

Before bingo was line dancing-I participated in the dancing not the bingo! We went to a piano bar with an amazing player. 

Our waiters on the last night of dinner. Then we went to the 80s musical dancing show. It was good. I stayed up to see the break dancers. The next morning we packed up, ate breakfast and then hung around with a ton of people waiting to get off the boat.
One should never complain about a fabulous trip where one doesn't have to cook or clean or even drive or plan fun activities, but we think we all checked Carnival cruise off our life list. There were fun moments but next time I would rather spend more time in Mexico snorkeling and less time getting there and back with thousands of other 'interesting' people.

Winter 16 & 17

We had a lovely winter in Texas, our family joined some friends for the Mozart's Christmas light show. 

We got together with my side of the family and held the annual living nativity.

With Caleb's family we all went roller skating!

Gloria's dream came true and we got family chickens. They started as sweet puff balls and 

the entire neighborhood came to enjoy the sweet babies.  

Mineral Wells State park-Caleb had a job interview and we enjoyed the park, there are awesome rock cracks beside the beautiful lake.

School kept on going, Lydia did a horse exhibit for science fair, they hiked and I subbed on Fridays. Here they are with a friend in the chicken coop. 

We also got tennis rackets for Christmas and went to the middle school to hit some balls around.

The chickens kept growing and moved from their little tub in the garage to their fancy coop that Caleb built in the back yard. 

Laura from France's parents came to visit, we had them over for a Texas fish fry as well as meeting them for the annual take Dad to see Baylor play at UT basketball game. It was a nail biter but the Lady Bears won.

Caleb's last event with TPWD was a community fishing event. The girls wanted to wade and fortunately we had too small clothes for them in the car to get wet :)

Stacey K had a birthday party/Academy Award watch party out. It was formal or pj, I did formal then changed into pjs and had a great time out on the town!

Houston - Museum and more

Gloria had 'go to the Houston Museum of Natural Science' on her summer to do list and we never got around to it. But we made it on Christmas break! We again saw everything included in our ticket. The foyer had a video on the wall of you with dinos going by. Then we walked past Train models all over Texas.

Next was the Dinosaur room and a friendly security guard told us how to tell real bones from replicas. There were a lot of real ones. The real ones have steel around them and replicas have steel bars going into them.

Pendulum in the lobby. We saw it from every level and saw a few of the stones get knocked over.

Cabinets of curiosities.  This temporary exhibit is a bunch of random stuff from storage put out without labels including a display you could step into.  It was fun to open the drawers and touch stuff.

The gem room, we spent a lot of time here. The girls were awesome, they went from each case and together examined the gems and minerals.  They stayed so long that we had to take a lunch break-McD in the lobby-before seeing them all.

The Egypt room included three mummies (there was a whole mummy exhibit but we didn't have time and it cost extra). Then we finished with Americans.

This day was so cold so we didn't spend much time outside. Caleb and I went to Houston on a date before we were married and have a selfie from this same spot.  Over the years we've added some crazy stuff.

Our hotel was in Pearland (half way between the museum and Moody Gardens). We got to see our friends from Pearland. Trent and Kelly invited us over for dinner. The kids had a fabulous time together and we enjoyed talking about books and politics and religion and kids and life. We ended with Indian tea, a fire and youtube party.

Our final morning we again enjoyed the hotel breakfast and the work out room that was right next to our room and we were the only ones who used it in the mornings. We went to see Rogue One: A Star Wars story. 

Then PHO for Gloria as she has a friend who this is her favorite food. Then a drive back to Austin. Having a mini-December vacation was great!