Vacation 2011 (Part I)

To celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary, we went on a Carribean cruise and had a total blast. It was so relaxing and totally amazing. I am so grateful to have had this opportunity to see some beautiful places with my wonderful husband.

Danita, Josh, Brie & Brodie took us to DFW, so we could fly to Miami. We were so excited that we got all of our stuff packed in carry-on bags. From Miami, we flew to Puerto Rico the the Carnival Victory. It was a beautiful ship and was great not having to make up the bed, cook, wash dishes, or do anything we didn't want--we were definitely spoiled for the week!!



We didn't get to spend much time in Puerto Rico, but we did do a little exploring near the port. San Juan is quite a lovely city.




First stop was St. Thomas Virgin Island. It was a beautiful island and we felt like we were in Paradise. We went to Magen's Bay Beach and on a shopping excursion downtown. The beach was beautiful with crystal clear water.


The next stop was Barbados. It was a cloudy and pleasant day (sure beat the 100_ degree weather back home in Texas). We went on a coast to coast tour and stopped at Bathsheba which was beautiful with it's giant rocks and strong tides (definitely not for swimming).

Vacation

We returned from our week long vacation on late Friday night. Traveling on the 4th of July was not as bad as we had thought it might have been. We made the 12 hour trip from Tennessee without too much traffic. We even saw some fireworks as we were traveling in Texas.

All in all it was a good trip and we got to do some neat things. We stayed with one of my good childhood friends, Tammy, who lives about 1-1/2 hours from Nashville. The area where she lives is so beautiful--lots of trees and beautiful homes.

One day we went to a live taping of the Crook & Chase show at a studio in the Grand Ole Opry. We got to see Josh Turner and Mark Chesnutt sing, and the ventroliquist Terry Fator from America's Got Talent. That was an awesome experience.

Another day we took a wagon ride tour to the Amish community in Lawrenceburg, TN. It's amazing how these people still have such traditional lives without modern conveniences such as electricity and telephones. Their handcrafted furniture was very impressive.

Another exciting thing we did was go to a dinner theater called Chaffin's Barn. We ate from a delicious buffet (boy were we S-T-U-F-F-E-D!!) and watched a hilarious comedy, "Alone Together".

It was a great vacation with a lot of sights and activities packed into one week. It was good to get to spend some time with my good friend and her four kids. (One of them even came home with us for a couple of weeks. Hope she isn't too bored with us here in Texas.) It's good to get away, but it's always good to get back home too!!