Imagination Cruise Day 5: Last Day - Booted Off :-(

The Last Breakfast, boo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

My loverly neice, Kirstie, who didn't get to go on the cruise with us because of school :-(

After leaving the ship, we drove back to my sister's in Lakeland and spent a couple hours, seeing their new house they are buying and went out to eat at the Alehouse.
Then we drove to my Mom's place in Steinhatchee, Florida to spend the night.
The next day, Saturday, we came home :-(

Some miscellaneous photos taken onboard the ship:
*The Blues Bros* lol,

I did it, I went there, I wore the Pink.

On a cruise is the only time we get any family pictures made, so I took the opportunity to have a family Christmas picture done.

Imagination Cruise Day 4: Thanksgiving Day

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, we had no ports-of-call and spent a nice, leisurely day at sea. John went for breakfast and brought it back to our cabin. After breakfast we napped until noon, then got up and went for lunch.
The talented server created these ice cream Turkey treats,

Then we spent the rest of the afternoon lounging in sunchairs up on deck - me reading my book, of course! Later we watched a lovely sunset at sea.

We dressed then went to catch the Show before dinner. It was a nice production with singing and dancing. (I was just mad they wouldn't let me take any pictures).

Our super terrific Waiter, Robert from the Phillipines,

Thanksgiving dinner; Slowly Roasted Tom Turkey with our Thanksgiving Stuffing, Sweet Potato something, and something else (can't recall),

And for dessert; Spiced Pumpkin and Chocolate Pie,

Thanksgiving Family Dinner,

This Pilgrim was chasing this Turkey around trying to shoot her for dinner, lol.

We didn't notice until later that Ryan wasn't with the group.

Ryan had to have his picture took with the Pilgrim and Turkey special like, lol

Alfred made us a Walrus tonight. Guess there's no Turkey towel animal,

Imagination Cruise Day 3: Cozumel

Panoramic daytime photo of where we were docked at Cozumel. The water was so blue and clear and clean and beautiful.

Beautiful blue water, blue sky,

Cozumel is really neat and clean and colorful.
I messed it up, but I was trying to get a picture of this yellow, yellow building contrasting with the blue, blue sky,

Mom and Kevin with their funny balloon hats, on the taxi ride back to the pier,

The Senor Frogs at the pier was apparently called 1/2 Senor Frogs. It was nice, though, they played good music and had a small beach we were able to wade around in the warm water.

A nighttime panoramic shot of the piers and Coz,

We went back on board the ship for lunch and to relax a bit, then later after dark went back ashore at the pier. Went to Senor Frog's for more margarita and moseyed around the shops a bit.
Some of us *ahem John* got a little toasted, lol,

Alfred made us a froggy friend tonight :-)

Imagination Cruise Day 2: Key West

Jello shots at Fat Tuesday,

Went to Kermit's for Frozen-Chocolate-Covered-Key-Lime-Pie-on-a-Stick. Kermit came out and tried to smash Kevin with a pie in the face. BTW, Ryan was helping Kermit to throw the pie, not trying to save Kevin, lol!

Back on board the ship, John and Hunter played some mini-golf,

John enjoying some of Carnival's famous Warm-Chocolate-Melting-Cake. YUM!

Family portrait, Big hug! lol

Alfred made us a cute Puppy friend tonight,

Imagination Cruise Day 1: Miami Port/Boarding

Embarkation photo they took on our way to boarding the ship:

 
Let's get this party started!

First order of business...BEER!

LOL, not really. First we ate lunch and had to do Muster (practice emergency drill).

Me and Johnny's cabin. Our cabin steward was Alfred.  He had already turned down our bed and made us a cute Lobster towel animal.

The other side of the cabin, showing the door that goes out into the hallway. To the left is a vanity and a closet, to the right is the bathroom.

This was the first cruise Ryan was old enough to be able to go in the casino. Gave him $10.00 to gamble with. He won his money back on the first couple of spins, but then when he lost a little less than $2.00 he decided he didn't like gambling so much anymore. He didn't gamble again until like the last day. I told him to go either win big or lose it all. He won his money back, plus $0.85, and cashed out! LOL, that's Momma's stingy boy.

Imagination Pre-Cruise: Welcome to Florida

We left Sunday to make the drive down to my sister's house in Lakeland, which is about an 8 hour drive from home, to spend the night before making the remaining 3.5 hour drive on to Miami Monday morning.

I like to have us stop at the Florida Welcome Center to take a picture with the sign about once a year, and since it was last Christmas since we were in Florida, with no plans to go again this year, it was time.

I was also able to pick up some brochures for some things to see/do around Key West, and some free maps that helped us find our way around down there.

Wings Over Atlanta

Today we visited the Wings Over Atlanta 2010 Air Show. It was grrrrreeeeeeeaaaaat!

I'd read that the 2008 show turned out to be a logistical nightmare, so I wanted to plan ahead and make sure we got there early to get a parking spot, and to just be patient and go with the flow the rest of the day and getting back home later.
My biggest concern was getting to one of the parking areas to be able to get a parking spot. So we got everything packed and ready, and I made a pan of biscuts and John fried some bacon the night before, and this morning we got up early, packed a cooler with jelly and apple butter and drinks, and headed out.

We got to the park where we parked plenty early enough, beating the majority of the crowds. We sat in the car and ate breakfast and then headed to the bus shuttles. Had to go through the Security Check-point, but we were early enough that weren't many people in line and got on through pretty quickly.

We rode a large Charter bus over to the Base, which I liked pretty well. Made me feel like I was a tourist on vacation somewhere.

There were all kinds of planes and displays of all sorts set up. We went inside the C-130H Hercules, and got to go up into the Cockpit and the boys sat in the Pilots seats. So cool!

The Aerial displays started around an hour after we arrived and continued pretty much non-stop for the rest of the day. Stunt planes, aerial acrobats, helicopters, a hang glider, a rocket car, fighter jets, and the Canadian Snowbirds and the Blue Angels.
I love the Blue Angels, but the fighter jets were really my favorite.

(Thanks to a camera misunderstanding, I don't have video of any of the Canadian Snowbirds or fighter jets, but I'll check John's and Ryan's and see what they have later.)

We looked around at the displays a little more, and John and Ryan rode in the Flight Simulator, then we found a spot to park our rears to watch the rest of the aerial shows. It was about an hour before the Snowbirds, I believe, so me and John left the boys to sit and watch the air shows (guard our area) while we went to grab some lunch and drinks.

A heart made by the Canadian Snowbirds:

Here's some Blue Angels video I took:

After the Angels flew the Aerial show was over, so we walked around and looked at some planes somemore, got another drink, and sacked out in the shade under the wing of a B-52 Bomber and waited until the lines for the busses got shorter.
Most of the crowds were gone when we arrived back to the car, so getting out and on our way back home was easy, too. Good deal!

To see more pictures and video, click here to visit my photo album.

Summer vacation: Beach

The Beach wasn't walking distance from the condo so we'd drive to one of the public parking areas, pay $2.00 and play on the beach for about an hour. It was so hot, and the water was so rough it wore you out, that about as long as we could stand at a time.

Here's a Panoramic taken with the isweep feature of my new Sony Cyber-shot H55 camera. I think it's about a 180* view (you have to click on it to see the whole thing):