Grandma & Grandpa Castle

So I am finally getting around to blogging about our wonderful Caribbean cruise that Mom took us girls on. We went to the Eastern side of the Caribbean. We were gone for 9 days and on ship for 7 days. The ship was so big, it was hard to get far enough away to get a picture of the whole thing at once.

Here we are going out to sea. There were many people on the shore and banks that waved to us as we went out to sea. It was so cool to go out on our deck and see nothing but ocean for as far as you could see in every direction.

The sunsets were fabulous. Mom and Julie got pictures on their camera, mine died on the 4th day and I forgot the charger. There was this big screen TV that you could watch from the many deck chairs in the sun or shade. At night they covered the chairs with soft blankets and put a throw on top to keep warm while you watch a movie under the stars. We didn't have time, but it looked nice.

There was tennis, chess, a walking-jogging track around the ship, work out equipment and many pools and jacuzzi's. The chess game looked fun to me.

We were out to sea for two days and on the third day we went shopping on St. Maartens. We went ashore and then took a water taxi to the shopping are. GeraLynn and Julie lead us on a merry chase for all the free stuff promised to us in our packets. We got some pretty cool stuff. We got a wheel chair to help save on Mom's knee's. I shared sometimes when my feet started hurting.

Our rooms were about half way up the ship and just forward of center (front to back) There were thousands of balconies, one of my favorite places to go first thing in the morning and at night before bed. Sometimes at night you could see other big ships out in the ocean and they were all lite up and looked beautiful in the water. On the Caribbean Kay's we were taken ashore on the life boats, that was really fun too. We had a barbaque and we played in the ocean and drank a smoothie out of a coconut carved into a monkey, it was very cool.

The day we docked at St. Thomas we shopped in the morning, then had lunch on the ship and then took a snorkel trip in the afternoon on a sail boat called the dancing dolphin. We love love loved that trip. We saw sea turtles grazing on grass on the bottom of the ocean floor and then in the coral there were thousands of fish and thousands of differnt kinds of fish of all shapes sizes and colors. We saw lots of "Dory" fish, they were friendly and would swim right up by your mask. There aren't enough words to describe how cool that was. AMAZING

The crew was really fun and made sure that we had a fun trip. They turned off the engines for a while and we sailed. The water was aqua blue and gorgeous. The homes on the surrounding mountains were mansions.

We meant to get a picture of the beautiful plant behind us, but by the time we got someone to take the picture and got lined up, we sort of missed the shot. We made a little song up for Mom and sang it too her while we played in the ocean. We spent most of the trip laughing and we just cracked ourselves up. We really had a wonderful time.

We totally got spoiled. In the morning when you go to breakfast you put your sign on your door and your room is cleaned and bed made each day. New beach towels etc. In the evening when you go to dinner, you put the sign in again and your beds are rolled down with a chocolate on your pillow. They kept our rooms spit spot at all times.

We are waving to all the people on shore as we pull out to sea. Very exciting and nothing like what I expected. I knew it would be fun, but it was actually 10 times more fun than I was expecting. Mom was just so funny and so much fun. I am so grateful that she is here to go have a fun time with. We were celebrating life with Mom. The sisters are a crack up all the time.

GeraLynn was brave enough to try out for the Princess Idol contest and we had a blast cheering her on from the side lines. She looked beautiful all the time and she really was the best singer there.

We loved the buffet's which were there 24 hours a day. The presentation was always beautiful and you had different choices each day.

They didn't do anything half way on the ship. Everything was fun to do or see or hear or watch. There was not enough time to do everything. It was a sad day to leave the ship and go our seperate ways. It was like leaving a fairy tail life and being thrown back into the cold crewl world. I dream of going again one day and will start saving now so I can go again. Thanks to Mom for planning such a wonderful trip and for making it so much fun for us all. Thanks to my sister's, you guys are great.

Wyatt took pitty on us and took some time off to help us. He was fabulous.

This is our new Christmas tree.

We aren't sure how old our wagon is, we can't remember what we did before wagons.

One of our new garlands and some fun font.

Most of our season was shirt sleeve weather, we were very lucky.

My roller chair and yellow crocks may have looked funny but they saved my feet.

Wyatt and I saw this truck in Richfield on our way home this weekend.

One of our new nativities. We don't get to do many.

Grandpa and Grandma Mortensens windows. We worked out a new choo choo garland but did not get the chance to use it except for here.

Jorgensen Honda in Richfield

Santa loves his Rhino

Cortnie was actually on a step ladder on top of an old stump. Not very stable.

Santa is taking pictures of an elf family. We thought it turned out fun. Look at Cortnie's new packages.

Jensen Property. Cortnie's new brick.

We love this angel. Putting it in our book for next year.

Very popular this year.

Hot pepper garland.

Snowman Garland

McDonalds Mesquite

We started painting Nov 1st and just finished up today. Because of the rain we had to do some repair work this year. 17 years this year. Blogging to late and can't think of anything interesting to blog. More tomorrow?