Cruise: Day 4 - Cozumel

Day 4 of our cruise was spent in Cozumel. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with us that day and decided to storm all day, so we didn't get to go on our excursion. We had a really cool excursion planned to drive dune buggies to a beach to snorkel stopping at a nature conservatory and lighthouse on the way and way back. It's still an excursion I'd like to do, so hopefully we can do it on the next cruise. :) We did get off the ship and wandered around the pier for a little bit getting soaked.

Waiting out some of the rain before heading back to the ship

The dune buggies we were supposed to get to drive.

This picture doesn't even do justice for how hard it was raining.

Our ship, the Carinval Triumph

Since it was pouring and walking around in the rain got old, we got back on the ship and spent our day watching Harry Potter on the deck from under the covering.

Our waiters dancing for us again!

Towel animal #4 - the rabbit

Cruise: Day 3 - Progreso

Day 3 of our cruise was spent in Progreso, Mexico. It is a very small little port on the northern side of the Yucatan. We took a short bus ride through town to the Mayan ruins at Dzibilchaltun, where we had a tour then spent some time exploring the ruins.

Port of Progreso - very small with a loooong pier (4 miles) into town

Our tour guide, Jose

A chapel built by the Spanish

The cenote where a lot of people went swimming.

Most of the structures didn't have names. Some of them had numbers, but other than that there wasn't identification for them. This one is Structure 3b.

 

 

Temple of the Seven Dolls

The picture on the left is the road walking up to the Temple of the Seven Dolls. The picture on the right is looking out one of the windows back up the road. The temple is about half a mile from the rest of the ruins.

Our waiters entertaining us at dinner dancing to Apple Bottom Jeans. It was definitely entertaining!

Towel animal #3 - the turtle

 I have a lot more pictures from Dzibilchaltun that I'll put up on facebook.

Cruise: Day 2 - At Sea

Day 2 of our cruise was spent at sea. We spent some time laying around on the deck, gambled a little, played Bingo, and mostly relaxed.

This was our view for much of the day!

 

The slots were my favorite! I turned $5 into $20!

BINGO!

Night 2 for dinner was formal night. Our waiters also brought us cake and sang to us since we were celebrating our anniversary on the cruise. "Happy anniversary to you...kissy, kissy..."

Our anniversary cake

Towel animal #2 - a dog wearing Josh's sunglasses

Cruise: Day 1 - Embarkation

For our 1st anniversary, Josh and I went on a cruise. It left out of Galveston with ports of call in Progreso and Cozumel. We had a great time and I'm sure we'll be going on more cruises in the future!

We boarded the ship around 11:30 and we were on vacation! This was just the beginning of a wonderful week!

Towel animal #1 - Mommy and baby seal

Pre-cruise: Galveston

I'm finally catching up with pictures from our vacation. The cruise we took in June for our anniversary departed from Galveston, so we went down a day early and played in Galveston for the day. We went over to Pelican Island to Seawolf Park and saw the submarine and destroyer escort that are there. We had fun exploring them!

Ready, aim...

Missiles!

 

After playing on the ship and sub, we went over to the beach, walked around for a little bit, and had some dinner. It was nice to see that Galveston has pretty much completely recovered from Hurricane Ike. We got to see the new pier that just opened too. It was weird not seeing the Flagship Hotel, but the new Pleasure Pier is pretty cool.

 

The new Pleasure Pier where the Flagship Hotel used to be.

Murdoch's Bathhouse - you can see the where the old pilings were and the new ones right next to them.

Book #6 - Bound To You

On Monday, I finished book #6 of the year, Bound To You by Vanessa Holland. This was yet another free book I found and downloaded to my Kindle. I'm getting good at finding free books! :) I really liked this book too. It was another one that was hard to put down. It was so hard for me to put down that I found myself reading when I should have been studying! Oops... Anyway, here is the synopsis of the book from Amazon:

A night of passion has forever bound Jenna Morgan to a man she thought she would spend her future with. Instead, he dumped her with barely a word of explanation and left the state. Three years later, she’s a single mom struggling to provide for her son and young sister, and harassed by an obsessed stalker. 

After leaving home three years ago to run his aging grandfather’s ranch in Texas, Sam Strickland returns to Tennessee to discover a child he didn’t know existed. He thought he was saving Jenna’s future when he left home, and left her behind. He never dreamed he’d return to see a child with eyes the same shade as his own - and Jenna in serious trouble.

Sam thinks his only dilemma is whether he can earn back the trust of the woman he loves and commit to the responsibility of fatherhood. But Jenna’s life is more complicated than he could have imagined and he finds himself involved in a dangerous situation that could threaten his new son’s life.

I really liked this book because it tells the story from both Jenna's and Sam's points of view. The author switches back and forth with whose side of the story she's telling. You, the reader, get the privilege of knowing what both characters are thinking.  The author does a great job with developing the characters and storyline without being predictable, which is part of the reason it was so hard to put down.

We're now just over half way through the year with half of my goal complete. I am confident that I will be able to finish another book by the end of July and be on track for the rest of the year. Once again, I'm not sure which book I'll read next, but whatever it is I won't be starting it until at least Saturday after I take the next part of the CPA exam...I must study until then! And now, the break is over...back to the studying...

Happy 4th of July!!

Happy 236th birthday to the United States of America!! I'm proud to live in the land of the free and home of the brave! Thank you to all of those who have fought and are continuing to fight for our freedom! We know that freedom is not free and thank you and your family for your sacrifice.