Summer catch up....at least what I can remember of it for right now!!!!

So by now most of you know that we have finally officially moved here to Colorado. If you missed that email and need our new addy, just send me an email. Things have gotten pretty well settled in finally. When Scott and I first got up here, Leighanna and Eryk were staying with us for the summer until school was back in. It was fun getting a chance to spend some time with both of them. Scott adjusted to the move pretty quick and made several friends on the street here.
School started here the beginning of July. They are on an all year calendar here, so kids go to school for several weeks, then get several weeks off. It’s hard for me to realize that Scott is in 5th grade now! I have to consciously take a step back every now and then and remind myself that he isn’t a "little kid" anymore and that it good for him to do things w/out. I’ve enclosed a few pictures from the first day of school. Keep an eye out for future posts including: My little sisters wedding!!!, my entire families visit, Scott and his Saxophone, and our new business venture!

The end of the most dragged out story ever!

Ok…I’ve dragged this trip out long enough. So here it is, in condensed version so that I can move on to all the over events going on here!
Cozumel had probably the most beautiful water that I have ever seen! It was the magical bluish green that was just amazing. Since we had been kind of busy on the other islands we opted to take the day and do some shopping. While we did find a few shops that were neat, it was a jewelry haven. I was hoping to find some more neat pieces to add to my kitchen, but there were none to be found at all. After a few hours of this we decided to head over to the Senior Frogs we had seen when we got off the boat with the idea that more from our group would probably be there as well. Right we were. In fact when we get there the party was already in full swing! The rest of our time on the island was spent there hanging out. And there you go…Cozumel!
Our last day at sea was our horse race. After a week of parading this thing around the boat all day, everywhere we went it was time to see what it could really do. There were 2 contests for the horses. The first was best dressed. We had that stupid horse all decked out. On top of that our entire group wore our "team" shirts to the race and then created a hand tunnel for it to travel down. We had a group of 20 some people there with us, all screaming as loud as we could, but our rival horse came from a group of 30 some people, so no matter how hard or loud we yelled, they were able to out yell us in the end. Then it was time for the big race, and while it was a close one, we didn’t get that one either…but that’s ok, because neither did our rival horse!
Before we knew it, it was time to pack up and have our bags in the hall for the stewards to pre-stage for our exit the next morning.
So there you have it, our trip all said and done, months later. Tim and I really had a blast, and can’t wait to do it again! We met some wonderful new friends (look for a future post on a visit with them). We had a chance to relax and hang out with friends old and new, some that we hadn’t seen in a few years, some we hope to see for years to come. So to everyone that was and is a "Sea Monkey", we would like to thank you all! Each and every one of you added something to our trip helping make it one of the most exciting things we’ve ever done! We hope to do it again someday soon!

Grand Caymans

This was the day that we had been looking forward to for months. The Caymans were the only island that we had planned an excursion on, and we did that months before the trip to make sure we could get in. After we had gotten on board a few others were still signing up for their trips, and we found out that Brian and Marci were signing up for the same trip we were on. It was nice having someone to share the fun with. Our day started off with some breakfast in the WindJammer while we waited for our tender number to be called. On this island we had to take a ferryboat to the actual island, as we could not dock right at their shores. The morning started off a bit overcasted and there were some threats of rain. We were reminded of the fact that the trips either continue rain or shine, or if canceled due to the weather we were SOL.
Once on the island I was captured by the old fashion charm of the main strip there. It had a very distinctive French quality to the building fronts. We had to shuffle around trying to find our meeting location. When our driver showed up he was much more then I could have hoped for. I was thinking that he was just a driver that would point out a few details along the way, but he was the entire package!
Our first stop along the way was a turtle farm where they are in the process of trying to boost the turtle population. Here they have established a beach for the females to crawl up onto to lay their eggs. If your not familiar with how the sea turtles work, the females lay their eggs and bury them in the sand, then crawl back to the ocean and are done. The eggs will then later hatch and the babies (about 2" in size) then have to find their way back to the ocean and take their chances of not being scooped up by birds or other animals. Oh yeah, they also have the problem of birds and other animals eating the eggs prior to hatching. So of a deposit of say 50 eggs, maybe 2 will make it. So this farm lets the females lay their eggs and then will dig them up and place in incubators till hatching then they will be raised in different tanks till ready to either add to their collections, or release back into the wild. Once we walked into the place our driver went into the full story of what this place does, and how it works. He also shared with us all the information of the turtle lives, how to tell the ages and the sexes of the turtles. The main tank with the adults in it was huge and the turtles were in huge quantities! They were just about stacked on top of each other. Some of the turtles there were up into their 70’s in age. The next tank we visited held the youngens that were about 6 months old. These were about a foot in diameter, and maybe 20 pounds or so. Here we were able to reach right in and pick them up. The turtles have a built in drive to be in the water and swim, so when you pull them out of the water you have to turn them away from the water right away, or else you’ll end up getting splashed as they try to fight you. After we left that tank we wondered around a few other tanks where they are working with other types of turtles other then the Sea Turtles. Before we knew it, it was time to run through the gift shop and then back onto the bus and onto our next stop…the rum store!
When we got to Tortuga Rum Co. I don’t think I have ever seen chaos like this before in my life! It was a small little store that had about 100 people in it and 1 cashier. They had a great business going, but needed to stagger the bus arrival times a bit better. All anyone needed was about 10 minutes in there to be able to get a good buzz going. They know how to sell booze there! They had about 10 different bottles open that they were giving samples out of, and they handed out as many as you wanted. Right next to there was a station of rum cakes galore for the taking. Being part of a ship trip though we could not carry our bottles on. Actually we didn’t even get to see our bottles of choice at all. We had to take our luck that they delivered it to our ship in time, and that it would make it to our room from there. Just as the place was clearing out a bit and we had some breathing room to look around, it was our time to go as well. Our next stop was Hell. This is a very small town on the island that got its’ name because of the exposed jagged black coral reefs. This reef field is about the size of a football field if that and very neat looking. In front of the reef is a little shack that sells all kinds of crap souvenirs to us gullible tourists. I couldn’t believe how bad it was in there. For all the neat Hell sayings that there are, they used none of them. To top all that off then, they were charging crazy high prices for the stuff. Most of the t-shirts there were about $35 for really bad artwork. We were able to send post cards off from there though, so the kids got cards postmarked from Hell. This stop seemed to last all to long before we finally loaded back up and headed over to the ocean again to meet up with our boat for the last leg of our excursion.
This last stop was the one that I was the most excited about. In fact I had thought about it since I had gotten a pack from our travel agent that had a letter from someone talking about it. Swimming with the StingRays. To me it just sounded like the coolest thing in the world to do on our trip. Our boat ride out to StingRay City was about 45 minutes or so. The boat tour had a videographer on board going around getting pictures of everyone on board, they also had this wonderful fruit punch that they were serving. Once we got closer to our destination we were given briefings on how to properly feed and touch the StingRays. We got to our area, threw out anchor and the videographer went into the water first to get some underwater shots of them swimming all around. A bit of history on the area before I go one with the story. Back in the day, a long, long time ago the fishing boats would stop in this area to clean fish and their boats. The sailors would just toss all the guts and what not into the water. Sting Rays love this type of stuff and soon learned to associate the sound of the engines with dinner. Over the years someone got the idea to make it a tourist stop. I’m glad that they did! Once we were in the water we had a bucket that had holes drilled all around it so that the squid juice inside of it was able to leak out and scent up the water. Before we knew it there were dozens of these amazing fish all around us! No matter where we stepped there was a StingRay. Some were under our feet there, some were swimming around our legs; all of them were looking for a free meal! We had been told to be careful of the squid juice and not wipe it on our legs or anything as the Sting Rays are scent eaters and will try to suck the juice off us leaving us with giant hickeys. So knowing this info Tim grabbed a big squid out of the bucket and rubbed it all over my stomach in hopes that one would latch onto my stomach. Of course I wasn’t his only target. Brian didn’t seem to thrilled with this whole idea of fish swimming around us and in mass quantities. So he was staying off to the side by the boat, far enough away to be away, but close enough that Tim was able to keep throwing squid over to the water around where Brian was standing forcing the Sting Rays over to him. We had been told that kissing a StingRay was years of good luck, so everyone that I could get a hold of I was kissing, I should be set for life now! We were able to grab a hold of them a few times for pictures and as we had to head back to the boat our one guide grabbed one and had it climb up my back for a StingRay massage. It was the oddest thing ever! Too quickly it was time to board back up and head back to shore. On the way back they had some rum punch for us to indulge in, so good…I could have gone through gallons of it if they had had it!
Tonight was our second formal night for dinner and we were all excited to see each other dressed up again, and share our stories of adventures from the day. We all met at the main staircase to get a group photo. The guy that was setting it up was really ticking us all off with his complete incompetence, and general rudeness. Rod had been waiting for this night, as he had rented himself a James Bond tux to wear. So there we are, all dressed up, carrying a horse on a stick with us to dinner, every bit the picture of high class! When dinner was done Rod had set up with a different photographer to do a few special pictures. There Rod was in the center with Tara and Mimi looking at him lovingly hanging onto his shoulders, and Loraine and I were clinging to his leg looking up at him. It was just too funny to see us there in front of a waterfall, and Rod posing with his best James Bond look! Afterwards Tim and I went out on the deck for a bit to enjoy the night air and then headed over to the casino to meet up with everyone. Tim sat down at the Roulette table to play, but there wasn’t anymore space there (was a small table) so I went over and sat down to play video poker. By the end of the night we had won over $100 between the 2 of us.
All in all I would have to say that this was my favorite day of the trip. This is the day that I think about when things get crazy….my new happy place!