Cruising ⚓ & home sweet home

Hi friends! Sorry for the late post! We have officially made it back to utah and have been playing catch up in school! 

We had a blast on our cruise! We left from Jacksonville Florida on the carnival fascination! 

We spent the first day at sea. It's an incredible feeling to be outside and only see ocean around you on every side! 

We spent our day playing cards, reading, relaxing and joining the various activities and shows provided by carnival. 

Here we are at the comedy show! 

Here we are at dinner in the "Imagination Dining Room" our original dinner time was scheduled too late so we got it switched. So glad we did! We were moved to a table that had another LDS couple who were attending byu so we ended up playing games with the four of us and attending shows together it was a lot of fun! 

Here we are at the 21 and older  "Serenity" area ( yes I just barely fulfill the age requirement!) we loved to read here and watch the ocean. 

Last but not least here is our silly Bon voyage picture from day one (:

Day two we arrived at carnival's private island Half Moon Cay. Absolutely incredible. White soft sand and turquoise clear water! Our favorite activity here was snorkeling. We saw so many fish! We saw a huge school of fish with hundreds of them together that would quickly part if anyone got too close! In the middle of them much to our surprise was a giant barracuda! 

He was at least three feet long and you could see his giant teeth! It was terrifying! 

After spending our day snorkeling in the overcast it started pouring rain with thunder and lighting dangerously close to us so we were all evacuated and had to return to the ship ):

Snorkel!

The water! 

Back to ship): 

It's okay though! We spent our night at dinner with our friends and playing games. We also discovered our comfy robes and towel animals! 

Day 3 we ported in Nassau Bahamas. Also incredible and full of history! 

 

Nassau was amazing. They are celebrating forty years of independence! We spent our morning exploring town and shopping for souvenirs! They have carriage rides that reminded us of home sweet home temple square! 

After exploring town we headed to the famous "Atlantis" hotel.

 They have a Michael Jackson sweet there that he apparently stayed in. If you're curious rates start in that room for $25,000 a night with a minimum of 5 nights. Crazy! The hotel is beautiful. There are pools of sting rays and sharks swimming throughout all the walkways. 

They also have a pretty cool aquarium we went through. After Atlantis it was beach time! All of the excursions were shut down due to weather ): but we were still able to play in the beautiful ocean! 

Josh had a blast playing in the waves. He's so funny he's like a kid at Christmas in the water! 

Once again an incredible beach. We played there all afternoon (: 

Back to the ship for the night! That night there was a "Hasbro Game Show" (Hasbro is the company that makes all the games like monopoly Yahtzee etc) and our Joshua got to participate!! His team was shooting basketballs into a giant connect 4. He made some key shots! 

His team won so he got to choose a monopoly piece to put into this machine (he chose the dog, I'm rubbing off on him!) whichever piece ended up being worth the most cash was the winner. Josh's dog was almost the winner! But not quite. So we got to take home a 20$ Hasbro gift card and monopoly card game. So fun (: 

On stage! (In purple) 

Winner winner with the host! 

It was a very fun night!

Day four we were on the water again so another relaxing day of games with our friends, reading, and of course, food! I think being able to go get however much food we wanted and whenever was one of our favorite parts! 

We also loved seeing the beautiful sunset from the boat every night. 

And all the towel animals we tried to collect! 

Sadly day five we had to go home ): we ported back in Jacksonville. We had a "random immigration screening" we were required to go to so we ended up first off the ship. We ran into trouble in Florida! Josh's flight benefits had been taken off a day too soon so we couldn't get our boarding passes at the airport until he made several phone calls! But we finally were able to fly back to dallas! 

Once in dallas we visited American airline head quarters and picked up our stuff and hit the road for utah! Long drive!! We stopped in Denver and stayed with some friends of mine for the night then the next day from their recommendation had lunch in Vail, CO. It's beautiful it's like another park city but prettier! 

20 + hours later in the car and we made it to Utah! Oh home sweet so home!! So grateful to be back. And we made it just in time to go see my new nephew Luke who was born! 

Josh and I have had an incredible summer full of fun and adventure. We'd like to thank all of our family and friends for their support and keeping up with us on our blog! As I mentioned josh received  an offer so we will keep you posted on if he takes the job and we head again to Texas. 

We are back in salt lake for the school year and I will still be updating our blog during our last 2 semesters at school so keep checking (: we love you all! 

Congrats Matt and Amanda!