What's in a name: Adapting to Island Time

So,apparently I picked up on "Island time" when I was in the Caribbean! Yes I am alive and our trip was amazing, and I am FINALLY going to post some of the pictures from it. It was 7 days of endless fun.

I'm going to start with the sappy and over the top stuff. Ernie's family is amazing. There were 46 people there. Yes, 46 people all on the cruise. All adults, except for these cute munchkins (who are all way too grown up!)
I knew it would be fun, but I had no idea how much I was going to cherish our time with family while we were there. We built and strengthened relationships, and made many lasting memories.

Here are a few shots from our first day,
as we were taking off from Ft. Lauderdale and heading to the Caribbean Sea .

Our first stop was the second day at Princess Kays, Bahamas. It was our first taste of warm Carribean water, and it was heavenly! We hung out in the water, and walked along the beautiful beaches.

Amanda, Lane, and Ernie on the way over to the beach

Emily, Karli, me, Amanda, Amber, and Holly

Every night we would all have dinner together. All 46 of us! We took over one of the dining rooms, or at least it seemed that way :)

Joe, Lane, amanda, Emily, Greg, Enrie, me, and Holly enjoying our yummy food one night.

Here are some of my favorite cruise pictures from another dinner.

A couple of the days were at sea. But we made the most of our time seeing movies, hanging out by the pool, and of course playing endless games of Rook! One night we all went and hung out in one of the closed dining areas and played games. There were a couple of board games going on, 3 or 4 Rook games, and some hearts! It was one of my favorite nights!

Irene, Nate, me, Grandma, and Kassie playing an intense game of Rook.

Grandpa, Amber, Karli, and Ernie playing Hearts.

On the fourth day we stopped at St Maarten. Before our wild excursion, we walked around the town and we couldn't resist the water.

Joe, Holly, Amber, Emily, me, Ernie (Greg is the photographer, thanks Greg)

Me, Emily, and Amber standing near what I am pretty sure heaven looks like.

Amber, Emily, Greg, Ernie, and I went on a wild and crazy power boat ride. We stopped and did a little Snorkling and then we went to a private beach. It was my favorite excursion! We had a blast!

The next day we were in St Thomas. We had so much fun snorkeling in St Maarten, that we decided to go again! This time Holly and Joe joined the fun as well. We took a catameran out to a great snorkeling spot.

Here are Emily, Greg, Ernie, and myself enjoying the front deck.

We made a friend that also enjoyed the warmth of the Caribbean sun and took a picture to show the boys.

I am telling you, hanging out at nights was a blast! One night, we went to cheer on a few of the family members in karaoke. We took up an entire corner of the room, and loved our ability to support Amanda, Amber, Dan, and Stephanie. And they were by far the most cheered and whistled for singers!

(See those awesome legs with jeans on them? I'm sure you could already tell, but in case you needed clerification, Yep, that's me)

Our final stop was Grand Turk. What a place! Emily and Greg went with us on a dune buggy ride around the Island. It was not like anything we could have imagined! They are the most layed back Island I have ever seen. They used to use Donkies for salt mines, and when the mining ceased, the donkies stayed. They roam the Island freely. It was the funniest thing to see.

And then we realized the donkies had friends. Cows, bulls, horses (even klidesdales), dogs, you name it. There were beautiful houses with nice landscaping and a horse eating the bushes in the front yard.

The people were the most layed back people I have ever seen. (Obviously; they let horses eat their bushes) I am pretty sure everyone on the Island, sat on their front porches and waved. They even waved slowly.

I didn't think to take a picture of the actual Island while we were cruising around in our dune buggies until it was too late. I did get this shot