Away we go...

Even though grandpa's stuck in the hospital with a bad flu, we're off on a Caribbean adventure.

And the cousins are coming too so there's just no end to the fun.

First morning in Florida- swimming in the hotel pool before getting on the ship.

We filled up the whole hotel shuttle with all of us and our gear.  Look at that trunk!

Waiting in line to board.  This was actually quite humorous.  There were 8 adults and 7 kids and the kids kind of just roamed from one adult to the next as they got bored in line.  You should have seen the confused looks we got from people around us as we'd have 4 kids, then none, then 7 in line with us.

Cousins are the best.  My kids get to have younger siblings just enough that they like playing with them and helping care for them, but not enough that they get annoyed.

All dressed up for our first dinner.

Ft. Lauderdale in the background as we head out to open water and head to dinner.

Apparently too much excitement for Isla.

But not too much that a little power nap can't get us to the ice cream course.

This was what I would call Taylor's and my first true vacation with the kids and not just a trip.  Always in the past it's been so much work that really it's exhausting and not a vacation.  But this time all 4 of our kids were old enough to be in the kids center (where they actually preferred to be most of the time) and Taylor and I found ourselves with nice chunks of time to ourselves.  Truthfully the first morning when we dropped them up and had 3 hours to ourselves we looked at each other and were like "what now?".  Luckily there's plenty to do on a cruise.  First up, making a poster to hold on our balcony as we pass other ships in the Panama Canal.

Very soon it was time for lunch and giant chess with our kids.

Because there are 6 of us we had 2 back to back rooms, not adjoining with a door, but we had them open the balconies to each other so in effect it was adjoining.  Taylor took all 4 boys and had bunk beds and Isla and I had a girls room.

Dancing with daddy while we wait for our dinner to start.

Coraling Aria also while waiting for dinner to start.

On our second night we had a bit of an adventure.  While sitting at dinner, just as our waiter brought out our first course, we heard a loud speaker announce "man overboard" and then instantly the ship started to turn and tipped almost fully onto it's side.  All the dishes and glasses and silverware slid right off our table and shattered on the floor.  It was a little intense.  Then everything was back upright and we were all instructed to go back to our rooms.  Apparently one of the workers had been running on a treadmill looking out onto the horizon and spotted men clinging to an overturned boat.  So our ship backed up to where they were spotted and then we hung out on our balconies while the boat circled and tried to find them.  Then as the sun set, we watched life jackets get thrown in the water and eventually watched them fish 2 people out of the water on our side of the boat.  We weren't close enough to see much more than the white rings being tossed out.  Luckily we found the men who had been drifting from Venezuela for 2 days and were out in the middle of the ocean.

Kind of a crazy start to our cruise.  2 days at sea was actually an amazingly peaceful way to start our vacation, relaxing aboard the ship.