Our Amazing Cruise!

I really want to write about the whole cruise but it will take me forever so I'll do it little by little. Go ahead and skip the details if you want because I really want to write this for us to remember everything.
The reason for our trip was to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary. I can't believe it's been that long! We started saving about 6 years ago knowing that we wanted to do something special at 10years. When we booked it in Oct '09 I knew that I wanted/needed to lose weight before the trip. I didn't want my self conscienceness to affect my fun so I really needed to do it for myself. I even bought a swim suit in a way smaller size for motivation! I worked really hard for those 7 months and lost 20 lbs. I had a goal weight and wasn't sure that I'd lose those last 5 but I made it just 2 days before we left. Yay! I have NEVER set a weight loss goal and actually make it so I was super proud of myself. I still have 20 more to go to get to my ultimate goal but I'm not stressing about it.
We are so blessed to have Ben's amazing mom to be there for us when we need her. She was more than willing to come and take care of the kids while we went on our trip. The kids were excited but my sweet mama's boy was getting a little apprehensive the closer it got. When they took us to the airport I promised myself I wouldn't cry first. As soon as we pulled up to the drop off Ethan started bawling and it killed me. That boy can cry some major tears! Then Meredith started crying which was unexpected and made me cry even more. Clara tried to squeeze out some tears with no luck, that is just her personality though. I felt so much guilt and missed them terribly the whole time we were gone. It started to get easier after a couple of days but then the last day it all came back. I couldn't wait to get home to them!
I can't remember the last time I flew without kids. Ben and I just relaxed and watched a movie on the Ipad and it was great. I felt very liberated the entire trip not having to be responsible for any little ones. We were both like "we can do whatever we want!" and it was exciting. I forgot what it was like to just hang out with Ben and to just hang out with myself. Since I had never cruised before I had no idea what to expect. It didn't even hit me until the cruise ships were in view. We got on the Freedom of the Seas (Royal Caribbean) at about 1:30 and just explored the ship for a while. It was a beautiful day but very very windy (and I had a skirt on!). We set sail at 4:30 and it was so exciting! After the set sail party we went and checked AGAIN to see if our luggage was there and it wasn't. I was very annoyed and almost in tears because we wanted to go to the Welcome Show at 7:00 and we both needed to change into appropriate attire. I think it was about 6:00 that it finally arrived and by that time the nausea had set in. I did not come prepared with a patch or Dramamine because I didn't think I'd need it. We'd only been sailing 1 1/2 hours and I didn't even feel any movement, yet I had major motion sickness. I was on the floor of the bathroom not sure I'd even make it anywhere that night but Ben went and got me a sandwich and I pulled myself together. When we got to the theater I ordered some ginger ale and that helped too. After dinner I called the ship doctor and they said that the ship store had Bonine which would help and it definitely did. I must say, though, that me getting a little sick was the ONLY negative thing that happened the entire trip. It was so perfect!

To be continued....