Cruise Day 3: Cozumel

Cruise recap continues.  I apologize in advance for the amount of time it will probably take this page to load with all of the photos.

Day 3 was Cozumel.  We didn't get there until the afternoon so we had some time to relax around the ship.  

 

We played Bingo and Ryan won 25 dollars!

We found another towel animal friend in our room.  The next picture shows the view from our ship as we pulled into Cozumel. 

The little area where the ship docked was a total tourist trap full of stores selling junky souvenirs and bars pushing cheap drinks.  We had done a lot of research on excursions in Cozumel.  I have always wanted to see South American ruins and Ryan was game, but the tour to see Tulum required taking a boat over to the mainland and wouldn't have left time for the beach.  We decided to compromise by seeing the Mayan ruins at San Gervasio which was much closer and would still leave time for other things. 

The meeting spot for our tour was in front of that little temple shaped fountain.  It was sooo hot and sunny there and I was already terribly sunburned by this point, so not good for me.

They relocated us to a shadier spot and Ryan decided to enjoy a Corona, since we were in Mexico after all.

Soon we were on our bus with our tour guide Alex.  

Familiar sights along the way.  We also passed a Costco.  Cozumel was a cute little island.  Tourism is their only industry really, so they take it pretty seriously.  I really loved it and would love to have a chance to visit the island again.

Getting a tour of the ruins and learning all about the Mayans.  It was fascinating. The Mayans were so advanced in math and science it is unreal.  

The descriptions were all in Spanish, English and Mayan.  Our tour guide spoke all three as well.  He was excellent!

I don't know if you can tell how sweaty we were, but we were out in the middle of the jungle and it was HOT and humid and we had our bathing suits under our clothes.  Thank goodness they gave us a free bottle of water. 

There were also lots of these iguanas running around sunning themselves.  Ryan enjoyed chasing after them but they really creeped me out.

We picked up a few souvenirs from the shops there.  Ryan loved haggling with the vendors we encountered and was tickled by seeing how cheap he could get them down to.  It was interesting because even though we we were in Mexico, every where we went in Cozumel people were speaking English and accepted American dollars. 

Next it was back to the bus to head to the beach.  The beach was my favorite part of the whole cruise.  It was so beautiful and the water was clear and warm.

First view of the beach:

Toes in the sand.

Seriously, is this not the definition of paradise?

 You could stand in water up to your waist and still see your toes and tiny fish swimming near you.  It was amazing.  Again, a far cry from the water at the Jersey Shore.  Although it was a bit rocky as you can sort of see in the pictures above.

We also had free wifi there so we texted family and sent them some pictures so they could all be jealous.  

My only complaint about the excursions was I wish we could have had more beach time.  It was so peaceful and beautiful and romantic.  When you hear the word "honeymoon" this beach is actually what came to my mind.

Our next stop was dinner.  We knew we wanted to go all out for dinner in Mexico.  Ryan had bought a Fodor's guidebook to Carribean ports and the Cozumel chapter had recommended a place called Pancho's Backyard.  It turned out to be a stone's throw away from our ship.

The book had given them great reviews and we were not disappointed!  We each ordered sort of a sample platter type meal at our waiter's recommendation, as well as appetizers and dessert.

   

Ryan braved their special habenero hot sauce and while he enjoyed it, it made his nose start to run and little beads of sweat form on his forehead.  He loved it though and poured it on his entree.  I touched a little bit to my tongue and had to gulp down water, so I don't know how he managed it.  We bought a bottle to take home though.

on the bathroom door

We watched the sun setting over the water and wished we could stay in Cozumel in that moment forever.  But soon, it was time to head back to the ship.

Carnival is very tricky in that they route all of the traffic coming back to the ship through a huge gift shop. You have no choice but to go through it.  Performers of all sorts are in it too, trying to get any last tips or pesos and encouraging the drunk people to buy condoms (TMI, but true).

We were exhausted when we got back to the ship.  They had scheduled a huge Mexican buffet and dance party that evening.  We were going to rest and then get up to go, but we ended up sleeping right through, which was probably just as well.  We came back to the room to find a swan friend left for us.

We loved every second of Cozumel but were ready to recuperate on our day at sea.

Monday, Monday

NaBloPoMo...  National Blog Posting Month.  You might have seen is blowing up on some blogs you read.  Basically, bloggers hi-jacked National Novel Writing Month.  I am not going to participate daily, but I might steal a few of the writing prompts as they tickle my fancy. 

Today's writing prompt:

If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

Ryan and I have talked about the possibility of moving to New Jersey.   We are both beach people and with me having summers off, we would love to live closer to the shore.  It is also important to Ryan and I that we not move more than a 2 hours or so away from family. 

Ideally we would love to live somewhere right on the the Jersey Shore, like Ocean City, but unless we somehow hit the lottery, that probably won't happen.  

Speaking of the Jersey Shore, I have my own "Tales from the Teachers Lounge" sort of story.  After the worst of Sandy passed over us and we returned to school one teacher was asking her second grade colleague if she had a chance to go and check on her shore house.  One of the second graders piped up "Yeah!  Did you hear?  Snooki is homeless!  Snooki doesn't have a place to live now from the Hurricane!". 

Poor Snooki....

Have a great Monday!

Ocean City

Hello! Here is another quick update on what has been going on in the Stephenson household. My sister and brother in law came to town and the whole family heading down for a week at beautiful Ocean City at the Jersey Shore. Ryan was able to join us for the whole week and he somehow survived.  We did a lot of walking on the boardwalk, watching the Olympics, and eating yummy food.  Ryan and I were even able to get away for an evening and have a nice date night at the Crab Trap.

 The whole family got to meet Joe's sweet new girlfriend Melissa:

We took in some sights including the Cape May Zoo.

Saw random things on the boardwalk.

We had beautiful weather almost the whole time we were there.  Blue skies and nice temperatures.

Isaac got lots of uncle bonding time in...

We did a lot of reading and napping at the beach...

More random boardwalk things...

It was a very relaxing week, but our beach trip always signals that summer is slipping away and soon it will be back to the busyness of a new school year. Ocean City I love you so!!!

Medieval Times!

While we were in Myrtle Beach Ryan was able to scratch an item off his bucketlist....

Heck yeah, Midieval Times

Yes, Isaac brought binoculars, which were unnecessary since Ryan got us the VIP package and we sat in the first row.

My favorite shot of the night.

well, well, well.

My sister finally gave in and blogged about the shore first! I'm glad, because she has some pictures that I don't have. Jump over to her blog Walkin the Line to check it out.

...Summer is fleeting...

I'll do my my beach update soon. I have to mentally prepare myself for all of the time it takes to get all the pictures over here in blogger. It was a lovely week at the beach and so fun to have my sister and brother in law in town for as long as they were. It was so sad to say goodbye to them again. Anyways, here's one of our groups shots on the roof deck:

While we were down at the beach one of my cats had a bad health scare. Cody Pablo (the cat with 9 lives) had a urinary tract infection which is a very dangerous thing for a male cat. I lost a day at the beach to drive back and take him to the vet. Fortuneatly, he didn't have to be hospitalized and after I dropped about 100 bucks i don't have on prescription food and meds but he survived. My dad keeps telling he that Cody is more trouble than he's worth (which I know is true) but I like to keep him around.

Isaac and I have been watching some movies that I loved as a kid. It's funny how much he loves making microwave popcorn, and snuggling up together on the couch. Sometimes I get so obsessed with planning the big, grand things for him to do, but he really is satisfied with the simple things. We have seen Sandlot, Rookie of the Year, Robin Hood, Pete's Dragon, and The Muppets Take Manhatten.

So I had this wacky thing on my head that I thought was ringworm (I know-- SO gross). It wasn't going away with ringworm cream and so they referred me to a dermatologist. She thought it might be, like, an out of control mole and removed a little piece of it. Turns out, it is an "atypical nevus" that was "moderately" concerning. Last week I went and had a piece of my scalp the size of a nickel removed and a ton of stitches. Next week I go back in to have the stitches removed and a full body exam for any other troubling moles. They already identified another one on my scalp that I will be having removed in a few weeks. It was a little bit scary, because a girl I knew in college just recently died of melanoma. I'm glad, at least, that hearing about her gave me an increased awareness of the risks and a better push to get things checked out. I'm glad to be dealing with it since people with atypical nevus have a much higher risk of developing melanoma. It's scary. But anyways, enough about gross health issues.

I'm pretty excited for the weekend. Isaac's dad is meeting up with me at some place that sells super cheap tires and he is replacing a few of mine tomorrow. This is long overdue. It's been raining lately and I've been slipping and sliding all over the place in the puddles on my bald tires. It sounds a tad on the shady side, but at this point, I am so broke, I'll get tires from a shady place if I don't have to pay for them. After that Isaac is going with his dad for the weekend. I'm not sure what I will get into, but I will definitely be heading to my parents for a bit to help out around the house and to visit my friend Nicole, who will also be in town.

I still have another week of summer vacation left before I have to head back to school for inservices and stuff. I've popped in a few times this week to get the room together. It's going to be a really interesting year since we have lost so many services and things with the government cuts. Sometimes it's just hard to work in an impoverished area in a place with so few resources. My sister and I were commiserating about this on the phone tonight. Well, that's about it for right now. Things are going well more or less.

So Isaac has been begging for an escape to the beach. Finally, Thursday we had nothing planned, so I thought, why not? We had swim lesson in the morning and then we got on the road. I thought leaving around 11 would ensure that we would miss traffic but it was terrible the whole way there. Evidently President Obama was in town and there was also a Phillies game. Isaac was a trooper though and once we finally got over the bridge to Jersey we found Ocean City to be quite deserted and the perfect temperature.

We made sure we had plenty of time in the water and in the sand....

Isaac was so cute. He kept saying "This is fun, but the beach is more fun with your whole family." Then we did the old get changed with a towel wrapped around you trick (well, Isaac did. Not me!)

Of course we couldn't leave Ocean City without hitting the boardwalk. We went on a few rides....

and I almost got sick on the tilt-a-whirl, a sign that I am surely becoming really old. We also got some food, although we didn't sample what seems to be the big trend this summer:

A friend of mine assures me they are "life changing" but I don't want to find out.... There were also tons of crafty stuff. I took pictures of them to tuck away in my "things-I-could-probably-make-cheaper-if-only-I-had-the-time-and-motivation" file.

And of course, what would the Jersey shore be without the T-shirts? This was one of my favorites.

It was a lovely day. Hopefully we will be able to get down there a few more times before the summer slips away....