Caribbean Cruise Day 1

Brian and I (Amanda) got to go on a cruise, just the two of us!  We had talked about it and joked about it and then come November, Brian was serious about it.  So we booked one and sent in stuff for our passports hoping they would return in time.  Luckily they did!
We dropped the kids off at Brian's parents house where they got to stay for a couple of days and then Grandma Turpin would bring them back so Avery could go to school later in the week (he had a couple of days off for break and a holiday).
Then we rode the front runner train to the airport (it was so nice and it didn't cost us to park for the week and the train took us right to the terminals at the airport).
Then we flew to Houston, Texas!  Our cruise was the next day and sailed out of Galveston, about 45 minutes to an hour away from Houston.  We had some really good friends that lived in Houston (Caleb and Nicole) that were so willing to let us stay the night and to take us to the airport.
Here we are getting ready to check into the cruise!  It was a pretty big ship, but its hard to believe there are even bigger ships! Our ship was The Navigator of the Seas by Royal Caribbean.

After reporting to our muster stations for a safety drill, weWexplored a little bit on the top deck as we were ready to set sail.   

towards the front of the ship, on the top

looking out behind Amanda is Galveston, Texas.

And we are off!  This was going to be so much fun!

We got a little overwhelmed with all the activities and what there was to do on the ship that we really didn't do much that first day.  We did find the Flowrider, which is a surf simulator.  It was one of the reasons we chose this ship.  They usually don't have it running on the first day, but they did this day, even though it was freezing cold!  We decided that maybe we would try it out, but by the time we got back up there after putting our suits on they had closed it again.

After exploring some more, we went to dinner.  Brian said it was the fanciest place he has ever eaten.  It was really nice!  They had a really pretty chandelier and the waiter brought us to our seats, placed our fabric napkin on our laps and made us feel like royalty!  They served 3 courses every night in the nice dining room.  We decided to try esgargot, or in otherwords, snail!  It was actually pretty good, since it was drenched in butter and garlic.  It tasted alot like mushrooms.  The food was really good too.  

We explored some more around the ship and  went to sit in the hot tub (it was kinda cold while we were in the Gulf of Mexico). Then we headed back to bed!