Caribbean Cruise Vacation Post #3

Day 4 was spent in Aruba.  Aruba is such a beautiful island.  It has some of the best beaches in the world but also looks like a desert in parts.  While it was probably not our favorite island of the whole cruise, it was our favorite excursion.  Luke and I rented a Jeep with another young couple and got to drive it around the island.  We stopped at several sites along the way such as a natural bridge, a beautiful outdoor church and a lighthouse, and ending the day at a beautiful beach.  It had rained for a week prior to us getting there so parts were very muddy and it was a lot of fun to go off-roading in the Jeep through the mud puddles. 

Day 5 was another Sea Day.  Not much happened that day especially because it rained all day again!!

Caribbean Cruise Vacation Post #2

The third day of our cruise was spent in Curacao.  It is in the far southern Caribbean very close to south america.  We were supposed to go snorkeling that day, but as was usual for much of the vacation it was raining and it looked like storms were coming in, so it was canceled.  We were pretty bummed about that, but we decided to just go to the beach instead.  Fortunately after about 30 minutes of hard rain, it cleared up and was sunny for most of the rest of the day.  Oh yeah and we got to see dolphins on the way back from the beach!

The afternoon we went downtown at the port and did a little shopping.  We didn't buy anything, but have some great pictures of the architecture.  The colors of all the buildings were so awesome. Then there is also a floating bridge that connects one part of the island with the other that has a motor in it and will just move out of the way when big boats come through.  They even let you stay on the bridge while it is moving, which seemed pretty crazy to me.  Here are some pictures.

Caribbean Cruise Vacation Post #1

Last Monday, Luke and I got back from our cruise.  With all the holiday stuff and work, I haven't been able to post any pictures yet.  We had a lot of fun.  We left from Puerto Rico and then went to Aruba, Curacao, Dominica, and St. Thomas.  The weather wasn't the greatest, but overall we had a great time.

Day #1 was the day we left Puerto Rico.  We got to the ship around 3:00pm and explored it.  It is such an amazing site to see.  It is crazy how big the ships really are, liking a floating city or at least a floating hotel.  There were 2 pools, a rock climbing wall, putt-putt golf course, movie theater, theater for shows, a "mall", restaurants, bars, clubs, casino, and many other things.

Day #2 was a sea day so we pretty much just hung out on the pool deck all day, or at least when it wasn't raining.  That night was our first formal night for dinner so we got to get all dressed up and take a few nice pictures.   I'll stop here for now and start back up later showing pictures of Curacao.

Our Stateroom Attendant would make us animals out of towels every night.  Our first night was this elephant!

It's Official

Congrats to my hubby!  Yesterday was his swearing-in ceremony where he finally became a licensed attorney!  Yay!  His hard work finally has paid off!  It was a fun morning.  The ceremony was downtown and by far the biggest one in the state of Illinois.  There were probably about 10,000 people in attendance.  Three IL supreme court judges performed the ceremony.  I have quite a few pictures from the day.

Happy Halloween!

Luke and I had a pretty uneventful Halloween this year.  No crazy costumes this year.  My mom and dad came up to visit yesterday and last night we went over to Luke's mom's and John's house for dinner.  We originally were planning to go to a haunted woods or something but we decided it was too cold and we were too tired.  Instead we just hung out and played games. 

In order to celebrate Halloween we at least finally carved our pumpkins, which we have had for nearly a month since going to the apple orchard.  At least they will be fresh for our trick or treaters...that is if we get any......so far not a single one.  Oh well, that means I get to eat all of the candy!

Here are a few pictures of our pumpkins.  I'll try to add more if I get any pictures after dark with candles inside them.