A few vacation observations.....

Joe and I just took our babies on an amazing 5 night cruise to Haiti and Jamaica. We just got out of the car a couple of hours ago after a very long drive home from Fort Lauderdale. It was a wonderful trip, which is miraculous considering that the voyage south at the beginning of the week began with some ominous omens....

1. I saw a dead body on the side of the road on Highway 280. I'm not kidding. Just outside of Opelika, we had to slow down a bit due to a couple of police cars stopped on the side of the road. I glanced their way as we creeped by, and I saw what they were looking for lying next to a power pole. Joe didn't see it, and as he speculated as to what was going on, I told him that it was a body. Bad chills ran up my spine, and it made me feel a little woozy for a while. I've never seen anything like that. Bless that poor man and his family. I have since read in the paper that he was the victim of a hit and run, and his killers have yet to be found.
The next two omens are less chilling....
2. I nearly had a side swiping incident with a crazy driver in Valdosta. I will say, first of all, that I-75 can suck it. I hate it, hate it, hate it. Every inch of that interstate is the devil. The stretch through Valdosta is particularly horrible because the road work is never ending. Anyway, I changed lanes in very heavy traffic, after double checking my blind spot and mirrors AND using my blinker, and as soon as I changed lanes I noticed another car careening through the lanes behind me. I was visibly shaken thinking of how far our van might have spun had we collided as such high speeds.
3. I killed a bird. It swooped down in front of our car, ricocheted off the windshield and plummeted into the traffic behind me dying a brutal death. It happened so fast - there was nothing I could do. Poor fella.

I was worried about the fate of our trip after these bad omens. I do tend to be superstitious, so it caused me worry. As it turns out, the omens themselves ended up being the worst events of our trip. Everything after that was all peaches and cream and wine and roses. We had an amazing time. But, I did make some observations about cruising and people in general while on the cruise.

1. Plastic surgery is alive and well all over the world. The travelers on a cruise are truly international. You see and hear people from all nationalities around the boat, and more interestingly, you see them in their bathing suits. I saw lots of very good work by some very good surgeons. From top to bottom, people have been worked on. A lot.

2. Cruise entertainment is wonderful. And cheesy and weird and bizarre and very well done. And not so well done. We saw some amazing flying acrobats, a not so amazing song impersonator in the shiniest patent leather pants I've ever seen, an awesome juggler with some jokes that could easily be eliminated from his routine, and a musical version of Saturday Night Fever that was actually pretty great. We also got to see an impressive ice show on the on board ice skating rink.

I actually had several other observations to share, but I am currently being inundated with multiple Easter baskets and eggs from the kids. The Easter decor was pulled out today (I started this blog post last night, and I'm still working on it today - Sunday. And it seems it will still be completed unsuccessfully), and they are having a ball pretending to be the Easter bunny. Right now, I am surrounded with four baskets, several stuffed animals, and tons of plastic eggs. Needless to say, I'm a little distracted. Here are some pictures from our trip for you to enjoy since I've lost my train of thought.....

The ship had a perfect kids' spash park that Jacks and Nealy loved. There were two hot tubs that they spent a lot of time in because the water in the pools was pretty cold.
Here is our table where we sat each night for dinner. Stories about our waiters will be saved for another blog post.
Here we are in Labadee, Haiti! It was overcast that morning, but it ended up being a beautiful day.
The kids took a cupcake decorating class on the ship. Nealy was a little young for it, but the chef was nice to us about it.
Here are some pics from Falmouth, Jamaica! It was gorgeous. We spent the day on a beach, of course.
Jacks spent a few minutes each meal looking out the window at the ocean.
Pirate night!
Dreamworks breakfast!
Superhero night!!
Nealy got ONE braid on the beach in Jamaica. I didn't think she'd tolerate that much, but she froze up the second that Rastafarian woman got her hands in those curls.

That's all for now. Right now we are spending a great deal of time in denial that we have to return to the real world tomorrow. We're not ready!!!
More on the cruise later. Ask me questions to help me along!