Flaming out on Re entry

Ahhh, nothing like leaving on vacation and knowing that you don't have to do anything but relax for a whole week, except coming home and sleeping in your own bed...

And there is where we were all of last week, the Disney Magic. Gorgeous ship, great food, great people, great time....glad to be home anyway.

And here we both are with the ship, the color of the water still amazes me, looks fake doesn't it?

We did the Western Caribbean, Key West, Grand Cayman, Cozumel and Castaway Cay (Disney's private island). I managed to finish my sweater in time and actually wore it on the first day on board. Its kind of a crappy picture, but its the best I've got with the sweater actually on. And I was right, my mom loves it so much that she decided that she just has to have one of her own. I enjoyed knitting it so much that I told her if she bought the yarn I'll make the sweater. Guess I better watch what I promise because I found the yarn store of Key West (and some great sock yarn) and she found some Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece for a February Lady of her very own. She wants it with the sleeves though, so that will make it different and interesting.

Here is the fledgling sweater with the blanket lobster provided by the awesome gentleman in charge of keeping the room tidy. Had some gauge issues at first, knit a swatch with size 9 needles like mine was and gauge was waaaay off, like into outer space off, this wasn't going to be a sweater, it was going to be a house cozy. So I switched to 8's, still way off, but in the other direction, now it was going to be a sweater fit for an infant... Blocking the swatches seemed to help the smaller one expand, but not enough, so I decided to remember that gauge swatches often lie and go with the smaller of the 2 needles (swatch? What swatch? I don't see a swatch anywhere...) Here it is reaxing on deck in one of the comfy old school loungers. This is one spoiled sweater folks, in its young life its traveled to all of the islands we visited, seen 3 broadway style theater shows and been to 2 movies, one of which is still in theaters on land. Its gotten to relax on deck and at the beach at Castaway Cay...its going to be disappointed when it realizes I don't always live that way.
Speaking of Castaway Cay here are some cool pictures we took with the underwater camera:
Here we are getting ready to take the plunge to go snorkeling in the shockingly cold water.

And here we are under the sea with Mickey in the Castaway Cay lagoon. It was Brian's first time really diving like this so he had to experiment a bit before he got it, but it finally clicked.

Taking a quick rest with the ship in the background. Snorkeling is seriously good leg exercise, but I got a really bad muscle spasm halfway back to shore and ended up taking off my left flipper. Ever try to swim with only one flipper? It makes you feel so lopsided, so I ended up ditching both and trying to swim in without them...which didn't go well. Thankfully the water isn't deep once you get past a certain point, and also thankfully I was past it. Unfortunately most of the ocean floor on the way in is covered in thick, slimey sea grass, and I seriously hate sea grass. So in a moment of serious personal growth I ended up walking back through this virtual forest of sea grass in my bare feet! Only losing my cool for about half of the time, not bad considering.

To make a long story short, we had a ball, but are glad to be back home. Where you can flush the toilet in the middle of the night and not worry about waking the planet (it seems stupid, but the on board toilets sound like jet engines taking off) and having a real shower that isn't the size of a postage stamp. Now if only the room would stop rocking.....