Shelly and Branson: Oh yeah baby we cruisin!

Oh boy do I have A LOT to catch up on. This post is gonna be pretty long, so bare with me! November has been an eventful month for us! We left on the 14th for a cruise to the Mexican Riviera. It was a 7 day cruise with Royal Caribbean. There was a big group of us, about 23 people. Branson does sales with an alarm company called Elite Home Security so it was a bunch of the guys he works with and their wives. This trip was one of the funnest I have ever been on. There was always SO much going on and it was just non-stop fun.

First, let me begin by saying that I LOVE the pitch black rooms on cruise ships. I sleep so well and the beds are just so comfortable. Anyways, our first stop was in Cabo San Lucas. We all decided to go to Lover's Beach where we snorkled and played in the sun. It was a beautiful day! We were there for a couple hours and then a few of us decided to go into town for some authentic mexican food. We stopped at this place called La Paisa. It didn't look like much from the outside but man they can cook some MEAN al pastor tacos! They were probably the best tacos I have ever had in my life. There were six of us and altogether we eat like 40 tacos. Just thinking about them makes my mouth water. We also ran into our friends Elise and Dustin who were staying in Cabo for the week. It was quite a coincidence. There was also a local that got us our taxi into town and he went with us to eat. He was telling us that he was engaged and had a baby on the way. It was sad because we could tell he was struggling financially and he was such a nice guy. When we got back to the pier, our friend Danny handed him $20 and he started crying. He was so grateful for a measly twenty bucks. It made me so sad for him but also grateful that we live in such an amazing country and have everything we need at our fingertips.

Anyways, our next port was in Mazatlan. A bunch of guys got together with the locals and we got a group deal for the day where we got to chose from three excursions with lunch included. (It's great to have a salesman as a husband, let me tell ya haha) We got all this for only 21 bucks! Mexico is pretty dang cheap and I like it. So we took a little boat to an island where we went horse back riding and banana tubing. I hadn't been on a horse in so long and that was one of the highlights of the trip. It was so much fun! The next day we stopped in Puerto Villarta. This place is so lush and green! It was gorgeous. We got to take about a 45 minute taxi drive up the mountain and saw some amazing houses. They actually said that 20% of the homes up there were retired Americans. So it's definitely a popular spot. After the tour we made it to the top of the mountain where we went zip lining!! There were about 10 different zip lines and each one got higher and higher. The tallest one was about 650 feet and the fastest was about 50 mph. It was awesome. After that adventure, we found this amazing restaurant in town and had lunch. The tacos were pretty good, but didn't come close to the ones in Cabo. Afterwards we went shopping. Branson and I didn't buy much. We just got matching bracelets that a lady had made. Only a buck a piece. We're cheap. :) At this point I was still SO full from lunch, but the boys wanted to go find a place that had al pastor tacos again since it was our last day in Mexico. So we found a little place and ordered about 13 tacos for 5 of us. Of course, I eat two and afterwards wanted to DIE! I have never been so full in my life. My stomach is still recovering.

Besides the big stops in Mexico, the nights on the cruise were some of the most memorable parts. We had an amazing gourmet dinner every night where we could order whatever we wanted and how ever many meals we wanted. It was divine. There were shows every night with comedians, dancers, singers, and ice skaters. Yeah, there was an ice skating rink on the ship. Pretty cool. One night there was a battle of the sexes contest. People from the audience would come up to participate in different games. About half way through I decided to go up and turns out I got up at the WRONG time. It was a singing contest. REALLY!? A singing contest!? I almost ran back to my seat. I looked over at Branson in the audience and could tell he was just dying cuz he knows how much I hate doing that kind of thing. But I sucked it up and actually almost won it for the girls. It came down to just me and one other guy. But unfortunately I lost. The way the game went was that when the announcer guy came around with the mic, you had to sing a song. If you couldn't think of one or you repeated a song, you were out. I accidently sang a song that someone else had sung, so that was that. But I have to say I am really proud of myself for sucking it up and trying to win.

There was so much that went on, but I don't need to bore you with the details any longer. Here are tons of pictures from the trip....

(p.s. sorry for the random order)

Night one on the cruise

Branson, Travis, Danny, and Jay

We played sardines one night on the ship. This hiding spot didn't work too well.

Okay, so i'll explain. We played a game called The Quest and everyone got into 10 different groups in the audience. They called for certain things, and this round consisted of a man dressing up in a woman's bra, earings, lipstick and a purse. haha. Whoever got their fastest got the most points. And this is how it turned out...