Cruise Day 2 - Nassau, Bahamas

On Day 2 we woke up in Nassau!  We decided to go on an all day excursion to the Atlantis Resort, and it was INCREDIBLE!  We rode ALL the water slides, and were like little kids in a candy store we were having so much fun!  I don't think I could afford to go to Atlantis for an entire vacation, but it was just perfect to stop and go for the day...I can't wait to go back!

You know how they are always taking your pictures on a cruise and then want you to buy them?
We didn't buy this, but we did take a picture of the picture they took!  HA!

EVERYWHERE around Atlantis is BEAUTIFUL...there are aquariums everywhere!

We went out to the beach at Atlantis...don't think I've EVER seen water this beautiful!

Who knew Erika and Tab could be on America's Next Top Model?

Right in the middle of all the water slides and pools, this mini "parade" came through.
The drum music was so cool, I just had to jump in the parade!

Poor Erika, because she is preggers she didn't get to enjoy all the water slides like we did,
but she was busy laying out and reading while Tab, Ryan, and I headed to the slides.

If these guys win the lottery, maybe they will bring us back so we can stay in the middle
section.  It's only $10,000 a night!

After spending all morning in the sun, we decided to take a break and go look at all the archaeological stuff at Atlantis.  There is a huge indoor area called "The Dig" that has all the original ruins found in the lost city of Atlantis...SO COOL!  Tab and I were in our "history element" and loved all the ruins.  Erika and Ryan were a little more into the fish!

Ryan took this picture and told me he thought it was really "artistic". HA!
I was so excited telling Erika about how this was a real staircase thousands of years ago...look how
interested she looks...HA!

They have built aquariums around all of the ruins...it is just breathtaking!

Erika decided this was some ancient kind of torture chamber.  

This is a recreation of the "suits" that were found at Atlantis.  Supposedly, the people built these
and used them in an attempt to save their city.  To this day, they still don't know exactly how the city
was destroyed...possibly by a volcano or tsunami.  Has anyone seen this cartoon movie?
We were all joking that we needed to watch it now!

This was the most fun lazy river EVER...it was kind of a mix between a lazy river and the thunder river
from Six Flags...there were parts with huge waves and rapids...I don't know how someone thinks
about inventing this!

Racing down the water slides!

What five year old wouldn't be obsessed with playing here?

And the craziest water slide I've ever been on...a straight drop through a shark tank...no big deal!
This was on the Amazing Race several seasons ago.  The girl refused to go down and missed out
on a million dollars!  Ryan, Tab, and I all went down it and it WAS scary, but not that scary!

Sharks around the slide...
There were LOTS of other super creative and fun water slides, but we didn't take any pictures.
They even had baby slides that kids would go down to get from pool to pool....yep,
I'll admit it.  I waited in line behind four year olds to go down some of them...it was that fun!

 ,

Atlantis was just the most INCREDIBLE resort.  Of course they had exclusive restaurants, a casino, super high end shopping, and gazillions of acres of perfectly manicured lawns, aquariums, and a bazillion hotel rooms.  WOW...that's all I can say!  We had a BLAST and if you are thinking about going...DO IT!

Let the Cruise Begin - Welcome to Miami and Day 1 on the Ship!

The Sunday immediately after my sister's wedding we got up, finished packing, dropped Brynn off with her grandparents at church, and headed off on an anniversary cruise.  Ryan and I celebrated our fifth anniversary, and Erika and Tab are celebrating seven.  Even though the timing was a little hectic, we planned it that way, because Erika and Tab were already in town for Lindsey's big day.  That way they wouldn't have to fly in again (from Dallas) to drop their kids off with Erika's mom (my Aunt...my mom's sister Tina).   So we headed to the airport and flew to Miami.

I hope Brynn is as close to her cousins as Erika and I are!

LA ROSAS!
We flew to Miami a day early, just to make sure we were there bright and early to board our cruise ship.
The night before, our hotel shuttle took us to an authentic Cuban restaurant for dinner.
It was really good, and we felt so cool eating authentic Cuban cuisine...Tab only said "La Rosas" (the
name of the restaurant) about a billion times on the cruise.   HA!

Look at Erika's shirt...that was the Sunday night that the Bachelorette finale was on TV, so Erika wore her Team
Sean shirt (her best friend is Sean's sister Shay) even though he wasn't really on the episode.  After dinner
we headed back to the hotel to watch!

Monday morning we woke up and got ready to head to the cruise ship!  We got on the ship around noon, but didn't set sail until around 5ish.

This is how you get ready when you have to shave your head every day...looks like a lot of work!

That's the Miami Heat arena in the background...pretty cool! 

Miami seemed to go on forever in lots of directions!

Sailing Away Party!

After sailing away from Miami and soaking up some sun, we looked through our cruise guide at all of the activities for the evening.  I saw "team trivia" and thought that sounded soo much fun.  Everyone else was laughing at me, but our motto for the trip somehow became "no regrets" and they decided to play!  It was hilarious...as soon as we walked in the trivia room we saw this team that all looked like they had just graduated from MIT and had IQ's in the 200's, but we laughed and had a great time anyway!

When we walked in there was only one team (the MIT team) and us and these guys playing music.
HILARIOUS!

Here's how Ryan felt about being forced to listen to elevator music and play trivia.

There actually turned out to be quite a few teams, most of who did just about as well (or not well)
as we did.  I'm not lying when I say it was so much fun!

And then we got ready, watched a Welcome Aboard Show, and had a DELICIOUS meal!  

Our first day on the cruise ship was a success!  Next up...waking up in Nassau, Bahamas!

Wedding Part 2

I obviously don't have ANY pictures during the wedding, although I wish I did.  The wedding was beautiful.  I think my favorite thing about it was that they each wrote special "vows" (letters really) to each other and read them out loud.  I would have probably been way too nervous to do that at my wedding, but it was the coolest thing.  Their video of pictures was also really neat!  It was just a beautiful wonderful ceremony and day!

Signing the marriage license.  Isn't our pastor the cutest thing ever?  I just think he is so handsome
and I love his bowtie!

Ebby Lee's little bro...Nixon.

Oh my goodness...precious!

My parents and my grandparents (mom's parents).

Whole Hency family!

The whole wedding party rode together in a bus to a couple locations to take pictures after the wedding.

SO FUN!
They also had us make a serious face in some pictures...I CANNOT do the serious face.
Curt's dad was his best man, and Mike and I had a lot of fun posing together!

I did a terrible job of taking pictures at the reception...it was so beautiful!

Here is Curt's groom's cake.  Why did I take a picture of this and not the real wedding cake?  AH!

Lindsey and Curt with Travis and Monica.
Travis is one of Curt's best friend's and a couple of years ago he came to Cape with Curt.
Travis met one of Lindsey's best friend's Monica, and they've been dating ever since.
I definitely see an engagement in their near future!  Isn't that crazy!

Ansley was getting with it on the dance floor!

We had these huge sparklers that lasted a long time, so the sparkler send off was so cool!

Leaving in Adrian Toole's BMW!

I can't believe my little sister is MARRIED!  Curt is such a great guy and we are so proud to officially welcome him to the family.  They are in Antigua right now, and we can't wait to see them soon!