Graduation Celebration!!!

It's crazy, but graduation and the celebration are over! We got back today and had an amazing time! The only downer of the vacation was leaving our baby girl, Coco, at home.

We left last Sunday with only 4 suitcases for the same cruise we left on for our honeymoon. That time we took 7 suitcases, so we've condensed considerably. We met up with both of our parents and my sister-in-law's family for lunch on the cruise. We had to do the safety drill and were then off to the deep blue sea.

Monday was our first of two days at sea. We started off with breakfast with my parents in the formal dining room. We decided that the Lido deck breakfast option was better - just more our style and speed. Afterward we headed up to the top deck for a round of miniature golf on the high seas. Wind is definitely a factor, but I was on fire this cruise and beat Sean 4 out of 4 times. We laid around the top deck, played trivia and waited for Sean to enter the hairy chest contest. It came down to Sean vs. an older man who had just as much hair. Sean lost due to the sympathy vote, but he did outdance him via a split. We went to tea time later and Sean was quite the famous man. Dinnner that night was the first formal night. It was nice getting dressed up with everybody.

Tuesday was our first day at port and I was so excited about this excursion. The excursion didn't start until 11:30 so we meandered around downtown. Then, it took a while to get the actual excursion part of the trip going. Our tour guide explained things in a very detailed fashion, which made me a wee bit impatient. Finally it was time to get the excursion started. It took a longer time explaining things since the tour guide kept switching between Spanish and English. Then, I got to put my life jacket on and get in the water with DOLPHINS!!!! I got to pet two dolphins repeatedly, kissed one twice on the cheek and twice on the lips; had one come up to the top of my hand; and got to dance with them. Then I kept swimming out into the middle on a boogie board and waited for a dolphin to come behind me. She then pushed me back to the deck by using her nose on the heel of one of my feet. She swam so fast. I just had to bend my knee to get her to stop pushing me. Then I swam out to the middle again and waited for her to come up beside me. I then grabbed  onto both of her fins and took a belly ride back to the deck. It was slower but I got to enjoy it more. I was in the water with them for about 40 minutes. Fortunately my dad had a great camera and was able to take pictures of all my interactions so we didn't have to pay the $90 for a CD of all my pictures.

It was such an exciting experience, but it didn't stop there. After climbing up the stairs to get out of the  dolphin area, we quickly climbed down stairs to pet manatees. Did you know they have fingernails? The one I pet had 3 rough nails. She was kinda slimy due to the algae growing on her back but she had fish swimming around her that ate the algae so we got to see them too.

The third exciting part of this excursion - the reason we picked this park instead of the one my sister-in-law and niece went to - was the sea lion factor. I love sea lions: they are my favorite to watch at Seaworld. They had a sea lion show at this park and I had read reviews that people got to interact with them. I was truly hoping that it would happen here. We watched the show - they had a big sea lion and a smaller one. At the end, they asked if we liked surprises. Of course we did! We got to line up and go on stage and get our picture taken while we got kissed by a sea lion!!! Sean and I went separately so we could each take a picture getting kissed by the sea lion. We then wandered around the park, the garden and went swimming in the ocean. We then watched the last sea lion show; got another kiss from the sea lion and got back on the ship.

It was a great excursion and a wonderful way to celebrate graduation!!!

And that was only day 3 of 7 :)