Norwegian Jade

Over a year ago we booked a cruise, that Kyle saw a good deal for, and the time to go finally arrived! 

Hayden and Karissa came with us and Friday night at 7:25pm, we took a red eye flight to Florida. Side note- red eye flights are the worst! We had a 3 hour layover in Denver then sat at the Orlando airport for over 4 hours waiting for the bus that would take us to Port Canaveral on Saturday morning. I think I fell asleep 7x from Salt Lake until we made it to our rooms on the Norwegian Jade, where we napped again.

We woke up in time to go to dinner and the comedy show though!

Sunday was a day at sea so Kyle played Bingo and we played other card games too. Mostly Hearts cause Kyle always wins Egyptian Ratscrew and he doesn't like BS.

That night was our favorite show because we ended up on the front row of Blazin Boots and Hayden got some nice close up hip thrusts from all the Cowboys! Haha Hayden and Karissa also went to make out in front of everyone, trying to get on the Love and Marriage Gameshow, but they weren't picked.

Monday we were in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic to do a zip and dip excursion at Damajagua Falls!

We rode a bus into the Rainforest and hiked for about 45 minutes up to wear we rode 5 little zip lines.

There were 3 rock slide waterfalls that we got to slide down between swimming/walking down the river. They told us not to take our phones, but I had a waterproof necklace I would have worn it on if I were to go again. So we ended up paying $70 for the pictures they took of us and not a single one shows the waterfall slides... We did get videos of us going down them though!

Tuesday morning we visited the British Virgin Island or Tortola. We went on a snorkeling excursion to Norman Island where there were a few caves  we could swim into and then we moved to another spot where we got to see TWO sea turtles! I love when they swim up for air and their little heads pop up above the surface. Right as we were heading back to the boat we saw a sting ray too. So cool!

Wednesday we woke up in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We did our own walking city tour and some shopping for the kids at Del Sol. I love the blue bricks that pave their roads. Lots of cats and colorful buildings.

Remember when all the sisters wore Chaco's in Brazil, but I didn't get the memo and wore nylons EVERY DAY! I finally got my Chaco's for this trip. So I could hike the waterfall. But then they made us rent their water shoes anyway. lol

Thursday was another day at sea so we took advantage of our one specialty dining meal and went to get sushi! It was so good! Karissa and I were super bummed that they only had the lava cake dessert one night. We waited all week for it to come back and it never did. But I love feeling fancy, eating new fancy looking foods.

I played Shuffleboard for the first time and we went to the card room to play more games like the dice game and 31.

Nobody wanted to Karaoke this time, but we did use the hot tub one night and went to the ABBA dance party another night! There was a magic show and acrobats that performed for the night shows this cruise too.

Friday we spent the day at Norwegian's private island in the Bahamas, Great Stirrup Cay. I went there on a cruise with my mom 10 years ago, but it's 100% commercialized now. The grass isn't even real.

But we still swam and saw a flounder and some tiny little hermit crabs that Karissa almost took home with her!

That last night Hayden got Kyle onto a gameshow! Woo hoo! He put his name in the bucket like 4x so when Kyle went and pulled one of them back out we weren't worried. They called his name and he said if they pull his name out again he gets to go sit back down. Bruno made sure to hide that he did pull out Kyle's name again... Haha They had to ask questions to guess celebrities and Kyle ended up guessing the most and winning a swag bag! Go Kyle!

Thank you so much Grandmas Melanie and Tammy for coming to stay with our kids! It sounds like they had lots of fun going to the splash pad and cousins softball games and all sorts of things. We super appreciate everyone that helped take care of them.

A whole week of no cooking, no cleaning and no listening to kids fight was amazing!