Everybody needs a little time away...

...especially new moms and dads! Cliff and I had a fabulous time on our cruise. Even though I missed my baby like CA-RAZY every day (and may or may not have cried about it at least once every day), I'm glad Cliff surprised me with this trip because it's something that we as a couple and as parents needed whether I realized it or not.

Of course I have a gazillion photos. Why can't I ever narrow it down and post just a couple? Sorry! For the first time on this blog, they don't include Amelia. And I know that's why most of you are here, so feel free to ignore these and just pop on in later for some cute new pics of her.

We only took about 5 photos on our honeymoon and most of those were self portraits and photos that looked like this:

or this: (We took these of each other relaxing on our first day on the boat)

But this time I made an effort to take more photos and to actually ask others to take pics of us together. Like this one:This was before going to the Captain's cocktail party before dinner on our second night.

Here's Cliff doing his best Leo impression. Don't tell him he has rolls in the back of his head. He won't believe it. He thinks Chris is the only Furr sibling with a roll head. Sorry, buddy. Photos don't lie. Which is why you won't see me doing my Kate impression.

After dinner each night, all the wait staff put on a show and danced to something ridiculously American like "Shorty Got Low" and they try to engage the guests. Guess who got picked by our awesome waiter, Al?

I love how they treat you like royalty on cruises. Every night after dinner this is what our room looked like. Our precious little steward would apparently watch us like a sniper to see when we left for dinner, so when we came back our room would be clean and we had these fun little towel animals on our bed. This is what I saw from my window when I woke up the next morning as we were arriving in Cozumel. Fabulous. This was on the beach in Cozumel. We were kind of disappointed that this was the beach we ended up at because the water wasn't very pretty close to the shore and it was more of a tourist trap than the exotic Caribbean fantasy beach I had in mind. But we had a great time.

Behind us in this photo you see what I mean by tourist trap: water trampoline and a slide, plus huge mats floating in the water to lay on. Even though they didn't contribute to the natural surroundings, I really enjoyed laying on that mat. And we actually climbed up and went down that slide together. I'm sure it was not a pretty sight, so glad we don't have pics of that adventure.

Here we are getting back to the ship after a long day of shopping and hanging at the beach.

We sailed all night and arrived the next morning in Calica. I was so excited about the excursion we had planned for that day- until the next morning when we found out it had been cancelled. We were supposed to have gotten on a catamaran similar to the one in the photo below and travel out to several fabulous reefs to snorkel.

At the last minute we booked a cavern tour in which we thought we would be snorkeling in some awesome caverns. Wrong. It was hot and muggy and there was barely more than a few muddy puddles in those caverns. After visiting the fabulous caverns in the Ozarks where Chris and Kathryn live, these were just disappointing.

Here we are attempting to make the best of our excursion:

Here's when I realized that this was nothing close to the cavern snorkling tour I thought we had paid for. I also kept thinking about that catamaran we should have been on.

Cliff kept telling me to suck it up and quit complaining until he realized why they made us wear the hardhats. This 6'3" boy had to duck almost the whole time. This wasn't just a cavern tour. It was real, live speleunking.

Here he is finally agreeing with me that this bites.

So we amused ourselves by taking silly photos. Here's a couple who thought the caverns were awesome and did not show up wearing beach wear like us.

The tip bowl at the end of the tour. I think the photo speaks for itself.

Just when we thought it was over, we had to hike a mile through their "jungle park" to get back to our bus. We got to see some exotic Mexican animals, such as these white tailed deer.

At this point I am so over this excursion, but then I met a cool monkey. He freaked me out grabbing onto my dress. I think he wanted me to bust him out of that terrible park.

Being dorky. After that was finally over, we were pumped for the second half of our tour, another beach. They redeemed themselves when I got to my chair and saw this:

No touristy stuff at this one. Just natural water and beach. And some huts made out of limbs and grass. Loved it.

Back on the boat for dinner. The sunset was too bright to get a good pic.

I tried to rock that flower at work a couple of weeks ago, but it was determined that wearing flowers in your hair is only acceptable when you're on vacation. Or if you're Amelia, in which case they are always acceptable.

Ouch, Cliff's legs look really painful. Boys never listen regarding sunscreen.

Another attempt at a sunset pic on our last night, but my camera lens kept fogging up. And the wind kept totally ruining my hair in pics. But it felt fabulous.

Sunset over the Caribbean:

Ahh, paradise. But as fabulous as that was, I think this is the most excited we were during the whole trip:

Almost home to see our sweet baby! It was like waiting for Christmas. We couldn't get there fast enough. We thought we might hurt her we hugged and kissed her so hard. And we haven't stopped loving on her since! Thanks to Grammy and Papa for making the sacrifice and keeping her. I'll be back later with an update on her 8 month old tricks and perhaps even a couple of photos if you can believe it.