The Maughansters: The cruise!!!

Oh man. I have SO much to say about the cruise but for some reason it added all my photos in reverse order!! :( There's way too many to change it so we'll just work our way backwards in the trip. Here's the very last picture I took as we were driving home and had stopped to stretch our legs. It only took us 25 hours straight to get home but I'm so glad we drove and it wasn't as bad or long as I thought it would be. The kids did amazing!!

Our last meal on the boat. Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!

Not thrilled to be leaving.

We definitely got our moneys worth at the artic zone. We at SOO much ice cream all week!

Our last fancy meal everyone in the dining hall rocked out to Sweet Caroline.

We 'almost' won the Harry Potter trivia game thanks to Rach. We were so close!

One last ride on flow rider. Josh was a pro!

We soaked up a lot of sun and it felt amazing. Especially since it was snowing back home.

How many ice creams is that?

The sunsets were unreal and spending uninterrupted family time is my slice of heaven!

Our waiter was the best! Every night he knew exactly what Jonah was going to order and brought Will his special strawberry ice cream too.

The towel animals they left were fun. This was my favorite.

This was walking through the streets of Cozumel. It was cool to show the kids a new country/culture!

My favorite picture of Will....

Josh officially has "cruise hair"

I only got pictures before the snorkeling. We were all looking forward to this. Unfortunately, the water was pretty rocky that day so Jonah was too terrified to even get in the water and Kate, Josh and I all got sea sick. Kate got it the worst. It was still really cool. We saw lots of fish, starfish and turtles.

We loved our boat guides. They were amazing and even made us fresh guac and cut up pineapple to eat on the boat after snorkeling. Too bad most of us were too sick to eat it.

Cozumel!

One of the nights we star gazed on the upper deck and we were the only ones there. So cool.

Will's strawberry ice cream

Jonah got some too.

Costa Maya!

If you look closely there's a dolphin jumping in the hole of the little girls face. I can't believe I caught that!

Why did will choose to be the woman?

This pineapple was seriously one of the highlights of the entire trip. It was AMAZING. We took a tour of ancient Mayan ruins and our tour guide (who we loved) stopped at a street vendor on the side of the road. It was $2 for a big bag of the most delicious pineapple I've ever tasted. I'm drooling just thinking about it.

Such cool trees!

And seeing the temple was cool!

We thought Jonah was going to melt into an actual puddle because it was so hot. We are not used to the heat and humidity.

We had a couple ship days. I honestly just loved chillin on the ship watching the water.

They had an ice skating rink that we had to try. It was the most uncomfortable skates I've ever been in. Luckily, we only skated for like 20 minutes just to say we did.

Rach and I went to a dance show that was pretty cool. There's always some form of entertainment happening.

How many ice cream cones Kate?

The water at night is a little creepy

It was crazy windy a couple of days. It made mini golf a challenge.

Josh could not get this one in. It was so funny. It literally would blow the ball off course every time. He tried like 20 times.

The main dining area.

Yes, I was walking around the ship looking like this. No, I didn't realized it was that bad...

Not a lot of wiggle room in the halls

Windy ping pong was even worse than mini golf! It was still fun though!

How much bacon can he eat?

Not a lot of wiggle room in the rooms either. This was the boys room, girls were next door. I've never slept better in my life. I just need complete darkness and a boat rocking me to sleep every night now.

The first night we went to a silent disco and it was hilarious and so much fun. The teenagers wouldn't get up and dance but they'd listen to the music.

The rest of us were boogieing

More ice cream?

Hold on to your hats!

The kids got to try escargot for the first time. Kate's face. Ha ha!

She did eventually try it.....and did not like it!

Rach tried it...

Surprisingly good!

These two said "no way"

These water slides were super fun and we did them a lot

Still eating ice cream....

We even went swimming a few times on the ship

This was when we very first boarded the ship and were just walking around checking everything out before our room was ready.

These are our first ice cream cones of the trip!

Getting ready to board!

We drove to Galveston, Texas and it took us 27 hours to get there. The kids did amazing in the car and it really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'd totally do it again. Unfortunately, our hotel in Galveston was AWFUL! I'm usually not very picky with hotels but they didn't even have a room ready for us (after 27 hours in the car). We eventually got 1 room (that only slept 4, for the 7 of us). We did sleep because we were so tired but the next day when we requested another room so everyone could actually sleep in a bed, the new room had bed bugs! Thankfully we didn't bring any home with us.

We did get to play at the beach a lot at Galveston....if only to stay out of the hotel.

Jonah. Ha ha! He definitely doesn't lack expression.

We took long walks along the beach and out on the pier

Sleeping here was better than that hotel. Not even joking.

Matchy matchy

Here's pictures of our drive there. The unicorn boondoggle.

I probably shouldn't even mention this but it was seriously the funniest thing in the world. (Maybe because we were all sleep deprived it was even funnier? I don't know). But we stopped at chick fil a for breakfast during our drive. As we were all climbing back in the car, Kate was already in there and Jonah let out the most rancid toot I've ever smelt. It was BAD. Nobody else dared to climb in and Kate threw up it was that bad! It was sad but so funny. Have you ever heard of anyone actually throwing up from a fart? Ha ha! This boy has more power than we realize.

Oh no! Now it jumped to Trav's pictures! Sorry these are so out of order. I seriously don't know how to fix it....or am too lazy to figure it out. That's more likely. He was taking panaramas to make us look funny.

Here's our snorkeling experience. Trav had all those pictures on his phone. Poor seasick Kate. But look at that guac!

I wasn't feeling great either

Another funny story about Jonah....as we were driving back to the dock...which was like 45 minutes...Jonah needed to go to the bathroom. Our guides said we could either stop and he could jump in the water and go or he could go off the back as we were driving. He opted to go off the back since he was not loving the water. He stood on the back, our guide held on to his life jacket and as we were still driving he went #1. But he was going for the longest time! You know in a League of Their Own when Tom Hanks goes? It was like that long. It was so funny!

After snorkeling, those that weren't feeling crappy went to swim with the sting rays in more shallow water.

This was before it got too rocky and we were feeling good.

The kids also did rock climbing which I imagine can't be too easy on a moving boat?!

Here we are back in Galveston

Thankfully, Rach and Josh both helped drive. We took 2 hour shifts and swapped even if we were still feeling good. That way nobody got overly tired and it was so nice being able to rest a little. They did awesome and it helped Josh get lots of driving hours!