back from the islands MON!

Hey, Hey, what's up everybody!?!? "Everybody", that's like all 3 of you who read Renown. Actually, I was surprised to see how many peeps kept reading while I was gone on the cruise. But now I'm back & stoked about blogging for the next several days in a row.


Crystal and I had an awesome vacation! We went with a lot of her family to celebrate her grandparents' 50th Anniversary (CONGRATS to Norm & Dusty - that's a long flippin' time!). It just so happened that this summer is also her parents' 25th & my parents' 30th. So, just a big week of celebration. It was our 1st cruise ever & we went to San Juan (Puerto Rico), St. Thomas, and St. Maarten. We also took a catamaran over to St. John for some snorkeling. Me & Tommy (Crystal's bro) went exploring in the "jungle" of St. John and found our own coconuts & successfully cracked them open to prove that we could survive on our own if we were stranded on an island! I think Tommy's was rotten & he spit out the coconut milk... after that I decided not to try mine.

Probably the coolest part for me was the VIEW! We were constantly surrounded by the amazing ocean that God put out there for His own glory & pleasure (just happens to bring me a lot of pleasure too, which in turn shoots more glory back to Him). i LOVE being around water, especially the ocean. On the cruise, I ate all my meals with a view of the ocean, chilled by the ocean, wrote in my journal overlooking the ocean, danced by the ocean, read 3 books by the ocean, and did everything else in view of the ocean. I'm a pretty experiential/emotional person & the ocean heightens this, so it was a really cool spiritual week for me.

I was shocked by all the FOOD. I bet I gained some serious weight. Dinner every night was like a really fancy restaurant with like 3 waiters per table, 4 sets of silverware, & like 8 courses. The simplest dishes I had were Filet Mignon & Lobster... everything else I can't pronounce. Room service with breakfast in bed every morning. If I wanted a quesadilla or pizza or a reuben sandwich after midnight, I just walked 100 feet out to the deck and ate some. (I haven't weighed yet, but I'm betting I didn't lose any pounds.)

There was so much stuff to do on the ship I was blown away. Basketball, a full scale gym, tons of shopping, putt-putt, and a pretty big casino. Crystal is usually a black-jack girl, but she found a new love for Roulette & actually did pretty well with all the hours at the Roulette table. Also, there seemed to constantly be a place to jump in a conga line or just dance like a fool. These venues seemed to attract drunk people over 50 or girls under 16 - go figure.

We found some pretty cool spots and beaches in San Juan & an old, authentic San Juan restaurant recommended by a friend who used to live there. In St. Thomas we spent most of the day on the catamaran which was really fun. Our favorite was the day in St. Maarten which is where we spent our honeymoon also. We took a "water-taxi" back to our honeymoon spot. We hung out at the resort for a few hours & chilled at the beach there. That was pretty cool & brought back some cool memories.




Oh, and every night our room steward would surprise us with a different towel animal on our bed when we came back to the room. Crystal was diggin' that.



I think I read about 3 books during the week (I know, I know I'm a nerd, but I read so fast by the ocean & I love it). Plus I've got a lot of pimp takeaways I wanna share with you from those books. It was a great vacation overall & I returned home rejuvenated and I am ready to go. I feel like I have so much energy now and am just straight up pumped about what's goin' down at Ridge right now. But more on that later. Anyway, I think that's what a vacation is supposed to be... a time to get away - relax, reflect, & recharge... that's why I loved it.

Tomorrow I'm going to share some stuff I read in Proverbs today. For now, here's a pic of a beautiful sunset in St. Maarten.