McEntire Times: January 2012

Caribbean Cruise!

Thanks to my brothers for being awesome salesmen for Home Shield Pest Control (they are called EcoShield in California since they are more "green" minded there). Brett has been working for the for the past two years and Nick went out to sell last summer. They both sold enough to earn a free cruise through work so Scott and I decided to tag along. Too bad our cruise wasn't on the company! :) It was incredible to spend a week with my brothers and their wives. I really haven't had the opportunity to spend time with them since we have all been adults. I left home before Nick even started high school and once they were on their own I had kids. This was a wonderful week of being with some of my favorite people on earth. Love you guys! A huge shout out to Nana who came and stayed with our three K's for EIGHT nights - how blessed I am to have such an amazing mom.

I'm sure only the die hards will last through all these posts - but if you are interested in our trip. . . read on! Just keep on clicking on "Older Posts" to see more. Even if you only scan be sure to make it down to the pictures of us swimming with Lucy & Pepe Dolphin. An experience of a lifetime!

Embarkation Day

We woke up at 4:45 a.m. on Saturday, January 7th to make a 7:05 a.m. flight to Ft. Lauderdale, FL. I was grateful to wake up to a settled stomach and no throwing up. My family all had the stomach bug during Christmas break or a few days before. I kept hoping I would just get sick and get it over with, but alas I had to wait until two days before our trip. I was in bed most of Thursday and all the stuff I had been worrying about getting done, just didn't! When we went through security in the ABQ airport I ended up leaving my baggie of personal sized carry-on items at the checkpoint. Rude! Foundation, lotion, eye drops, moisturizer, hand sanitizer, etc. Not a great start!

We boarded the plane and flew to Tampa where we caught another plane to Ft. Lauderdale. When we arrived we went and picked up our stylin' mini-van rental and then went to the cell-phone waiting area to wait for the call that Nick, Jess, Brett and Brooke had landed. We picked them up at the terminal, almost losing Brett to a yellow taxi that about ran him over.

First item of business - find me a Sephora so I could get more make-up. Got that done and we headed to our hotel near the Miami airport. One bonus about Scott traveling so much is that he earns points at Hilton's (not to mention our SW flights to Florida were free) so we got a two room hotel room with two double beds and a pull-out couch for free. Yes, cozy accommodations for six of us, but for one night you can do anything. We went out to dinner and then hit Target for some last minute cruise items. While I was looking at moisturizer I heard over the loud-speaker "Amber McEntire, Amber McEntire to customer service. Your party is waiting for you" I peeked out into the main aisle and there are my 25 and 28 year old brothers with cheesy grins laughing up a storm. They were pretty proud of themselves!

Sunday morning was beautiful as we got up and headed out to our ship. We had to first drop our rental car at a location about two miles from the Port of Miami and then hail a cab to take us to the Port. We'd been told there were mini-van cabs that could probably accommodate all of us so when we had one pull over it turned into an adventure to add to our trip experiences! The cab probably really wasn't made to hold six people, plus the driver and all our luggage. We were squished in there like sardines with luggage in our laps and the air conditioning blowing HOT air. Finally, Brett said to the driver, "Man, we're freezing back here. Can you turn the air down?" It got significantly more bearable once the hot air was turned off.

Jess & Brooke in the back. . .

Nick, Brett and I in the middle and Scott in front with the driver who was from Haiti.

The check in process for the cruise ship was fairly painless and it was here that the picture taking began. Carnival took pictures of us doing EVERYTHING because I'm sure its a huge cash cow for them. Printing pictures and charging an arm and a leg for them has to be profitable! We couldn't pass this one up though - and it still makes me smile when I see it.

We spent the first few hours getting eating lunch and getting acquainted with the ship.

Miami in the background - the view from the boat certainly was BEAUTIFUL!

Nick (Elementary P.E. teacher) & Jess (Police Officer)

Brett (Pest Control salesman) & Brooke (Civil Engineer)

When our ship was leaving port everyone along the docks, in boats, etc were waving and cheering. These construction guys were funny and they must like taking a break to wave at ships. The guy in the front kept holding up his shirt and jiggling his belly - too bad I missed that shot!

Scott and his first SUSHI!

I think the cruise was a success from Nick's perspective from the very first FREE sushi bar. Then he found out it was going to be every night we were on the ship - oh, the joy!

One night he had 42 pieces of sushi and then ate dinner!

Our rooms were cleaned twice a day and in the evening we found little towel animals in our rooms.

We danced until 2:00 a.m. the first night on the boat and then slept until after ten the next morning.

Ah, the good life!

Fun Day at Sea

For a "Fun Day at Sea" we must have not done much that was picture worthy - these are the only ones! We laid out in the sun on the deck of the boat to soak up some sun, Brett played in a 3 on 3 Basketball tournament and we explored the boat and found lots of food to eat.

To be fair to Scott and Brooke I posted both these pictures. Scott looks stoned in the first one and Brooke has her eyes closed in the second. I have too many pictures to go through to change their heads in Photoshop. This was our first "elegant night" and Nick & Brett really dressed up for the occasion. . . in jeans!

Our Elephant!

After dinner we went and change out of our dress clothes and met back together at a Karaoke event. Most of the people in the room were from Home Shield so it was fun watching people we kind of knew. Some random guy and his girl friend picked to sing "I Like Big Butts" and apparently this is a song Nick knows very well! He was singing along on the sidelines until he couldn't stand how much they were messing up the song so he ran up and took one of the mics. The girl finally just sat down and Nick rocked the song with some serious booty shakin'!

Cozumel

Our first port of call was Cozumel, Mexico.

For weeks before the cruise Nick did tons of research about a fishing guide and boat that could get them catching lots of fish so they got up early and were off the boat as soon as it docked. Took a cab to this ghetto boat marina and had high hopes of catching some huge fish. I put this picture in because it shows a guy, still wearing his scooter helmet, paddling around on the frame of an old jet ski. He was the guy who was directing boats in and out of the marina. Nice!

The fishin' dudes. Brett, Nick, Cody Howerton (went to high school with Brett and also works for Home Shield) and Scott.

Brett & Cody with the cruise ships in the background.

Apparently when Brett takes sea sickness medicine this is what he does - sleep!

A fish! A fish!

Speared to bring it into the boat.

And the catch. . . a nasty ugly barracuda!

Even better - the guide cut up the fish, mixed it with onions, tomatoes and some other things and they ate it right there on the boat!

Ah, Look at those TEETH!

The color of the water was amazing!

Brett did wake up to catch a fish! I can't believe Nick didn't get to catch one when he organized everything!

Meanwhile, the girls went to Playa Mia, a private resort on a beach in Cozumel. Probably would have been a lot more fun if the area wasn't full of jelly fish and everyone who went out to the trampolines and slides got stung over and over again. Brooke and I braved the paddle boats, but none of us were brave enough to risk the stinging so we just laid out on the beach and got in the water close to shore.

Brooke, Jess, Katie Howerton and I ate lunch a little later than everyone else and had a good time sitting and relaxing. When we finally decided to be done we were headed back to our beach chairs when Dustin Sears came running up and said, "you girls were about to be left - eeryone is waiting on the bus!"' We grabbed our stuff and ran as fast as we could. While we were running Jess yelled, "Are we going anywhere?" We all felt like our legs weren't carrying us fast enough with flip-flops, our beach gear and the very humid air! Thankfully we made it on the bus. There were only two seats left so we got to be nice and cozy sitting on each other's laps!