Back in the Saddle Again...

Well, I feel like I've been gone a LONG time. We were actually gone for 12 days, but it's taken me two days to catch up (partially) at work and at home with the laundry, grocery shopping, etc. It has also been hard for me to have to make my own meals, my own bed, etc. The trip was wonderful! The Caribbean was perfect - perfect beaches, perfect temperatures, etc. We got to Puerto Rico after traveling for 24 hours (But it was FREE). We got in early Friday morning and our check in time was at 3 p.m. We had a rental car, but we were basically homeless. Here are Shane and Becca, sleeping on the beach: (Okay, we were all dozing there in the shade for a couple of hours)

We had a couple of days in Puerto Rico where I got to practice my (very) rusty Spanish. It was beautiful - we went to the beach, a rainforest and slept a lot to recover from our travels.

Becca loved any biological creature she could spy: Did I mention we had a LOT of luggage?We were nice and rested when the ship took off on Sunday night. On St. Thomas, we took an open air taxi (a truck retrofitted with bench seats and a cover in the bed) across the island to a beautiful beach - the water was perfect for wading and floating around in. The trip over in the taxi was great too - beautiful views and a nice breeze. On Antigua we swam with the stingrays! This excursion was not my pick, but everyone else wanted to do it, and Heaven forbid I get left out! We took a nice little boat ride out to a sand bar and saw lots of sting rays, people were feeding them squid, holding them, etc. (NOT ME). One brushed up against me and it was pretty slimy. One swam towards Shane and he screamed like a girl. Becca was brave enough to hold one. We also snorkeled with sea turtles and near a sunken ship with lots of fish swimming around. Stacy and Shane bought a "drink card", which was $75 and included all the soda, milkshakes and 'mocktails' you could drink. They definitely got their money's worth. This is what all of the tables looked like after we left:

Did I mention the food was AMAZING? Well, it was. I gained 2.5 pounds and it would have been more if I hadn't taken the stairs everywhere and done a lot of walking and visited the gym a couple of times too.Shane put away 4 lobster tails:We met nice people from all over the world - lots of Canadians, escaping the cold weather. One thing I really enjoyed was with all of the other cultures, people were way less hung up on their bodies than we seem to be here in the US. There were lots of people of all different sizes, just enjoying life and the beauty around us.

Chocolates on the pillows every night. A great way to spend an anniversary,

now we just need to start saving our pennies for another trip...