WOOHOOO! We have now been married 1 year!

For our one year anniversary, Ryan had a vacation package that he had bought before we even met to the Bahamas. It was going to be awesome. We were going to be staying in Florida for 5 days and then get on the cruise ship to the Bahamas for one night passage. Stay in the Bahamas for 3 nights and then get back on the cruise ship for another one night passage. I had never been on a cruise ship, so I was a little nervous and excited at the same time. I'll just explain it as you see the pictures.

Here we are at the Marriott Hotel we stayed in Florida. We were in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for 5 days.

This is the view from our hotel.

Favorite thing that we did!! We went to Islands of Adventure where the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is located. So much fun!!  

We spent most of the time in Harry Potter World, but there was Seuss Land, Ancient Lands, Marvel World, Comics World, etc. Our favorite was the Hogwarts Castle ride, but loved the Dragon Ride, Jurassic Park Ride, Amazing Spider-Man, and the Hulk. (The Hulk has a cobra head, I think it's the craziest ride I have ever been on.) We spent most of the day there, long enough that we couldn't drive all the way back to Ft. Lauderdale. At first we were going to just sleep in the car, but I had nightmares of an alligator coming out of the swamp and attacking our car. So we went and found a place to stay for the night and then drove the rest of the way the next day. Better to not drive drowsy. We were super tired after a fun day at the park, so it was best to sleep. My feet hurt so bad!! 


The next day was horrible!! We wish we could have just skipped over this part. The reason Ryan got the vacation package was to of course from Ramada, so they wanted us to listen to their sales pitch on why we should buy into one of their timeshares.  We knew this ahead of time so we knew that we were not going to buy, but the guy was persistent and wouldn't give up. He kept taking us to all of these places. I think we met with him at 10 AM and we weren't done until 3:30. When he found out that I already had a timeshare (that I'm still trying to get rid of), then he tried to change tactics and we still said no. We could tell he was upset, but we had told him all day that we were not going to buy anything. We were so glad when that day was finally over. We stayed on the beach we visited that day for a while longer and then left. We tried to be honest, he just didn't want to listen.

This was apparently where a lot of celebrities keep their private boats. :)

Another view. I can't remember who's boat was behind us. Someone famous. :)

Different pictures while we were on the pier.

The bridge that goes back to the main land.

There is an island out there.

This was just funny! I used the bathroom and this was the soap that the gas station had for us to use in the bathroom.

On to another good day. We actually hadn't even planned on doing this one until we talked to my mom on the phone. I didn't even know about the Everglades and how cool it was to go visit it, so when she suggested it, we were totally excited to go. These pictures show what we saw there. Lots of alligators of course.

This is called the chocking tree.

This was where we went to dinner for the day of our actual anniversary (Aug. 6, 2011). It was called the Fish House. It was raining so much! We originally were going out to Key Largo (like in the Beach Boys song Kokomo) for the beach, but it was too wet. As we left, the sun eventually came out, but it was too late.

Ryan running out to the car while it's raining.

Now we are packing up to leave the Marriott Hotel and get on our Cruise Ship.

Here is our tiny cruise cabin. It is on the top deck, so in case there are any problems we can get out easily. Ryan understands my fear of water and drowning. So grateful for his thoughtfulness. I was already nervous enough being out on the water in the middle with no land around us.

Ryan's been on a cruise before, so he knew what to do and was totally at ease.

All you can eat food! However, according to Ryan it was not as good as the other cruise he had been on.

The buffet (it's closed now) but this is where we get to sit and eat. The pool for kids is behind Ryan in the above picture.

No land on the horizon! Only other time this happened was when I was on a bus crossing a bridge from Sweden to Denmark. That was pretty crazy to see water forever in both directions. This time it's a boat and not a bus.

Enjoying the sea breeze. It really was breathtaking and beautiful!

The sunset. Sorry it's blurry.

The ship.

Ryan showing me the safety gear on the boat. He just wanted me to know we were protected. :)

The name of our cruise line. Bahamas Celebration. (We later found out that it was a pretty crazy party Cruise) Ryan and I were pretty tame compared to the rest of the occupants.

At nighttime.

We stayed up pretty late.

Changed to leave the next day. It was just a night thing on the Cruise. I learned that we actually stopped for some part of the night. I didn't know that was what happened until Ryan pointed it out.

Getting off on the island. We are now in the Bahamas! This was why I needed my passport. That was a funny story.

We couldn't check in to the hotel yet, so where did we go? THE BEACH!! We learned very quickly that the sun in the Bahamas is a lot stronger than anywhere else we had been. We needed to put on sunscreen a lot more than normally. (We still got a bit red)

The beach is so beautiful! Love the white sands and the clear ocean.

Ryan was loving it

My model poses. :)

Ryan relaxing in the water. He loves to relax laying on his back in the water. One of his favorite things to do.

I think Ryan snuck in a picture here. :)

This is the Radisson Hotel that we stayed at on the island.

The view from our hotel room in the Bahamas.

Look a lazy river!

A blurry picture. Lots of palm trees. Love it!

Ryan decided to not shave during our trip. He said he was on vacation so he didn't want to think about it. He shaved it into a goatee in the end for fun. The sign below is to go with this picture. It was at the hotel because they were doing some construction, but we thought it was pretty funny.

They had a luau we could go to that we paid for. In the end it was another excuse for people to party, so we just stayed on the beach for most of the time. It was really a bonfire.

Ryan was excited at first for the bonfire.

Both of us relaxing. We were kind of laughing at the party girls trying to take model poses in their bikini's in the ocean.

Yes, we took a selfie of us relaxing on the beach.

Sitting in front of the bonfire. (Not really a great bonfire). I've seen better. The best yet, was in Sweden. :)

We stayed on the beach while the others partied.

This is a collage of when we went to Ben's Cave. It is the same cave that they used in Pirates of the Caribbean 4. It was pretty cool to go there. The bad thing was that it started to rain while we were there. Our camera got soaked and started to not work. It was such a sad thing, but these were some of the pictures we got.

We had a little bit of time before we got on the plane. (We had already come back on the cruise ship). So we took some crazy pictures by this park.

Oh my cute husband!

So we didn't take any more pictures after this since we thought that we were getting on the plane to go home. Nope! The plane was delayed because of weather in Texas and some mechanical difficulties (You never want to hear that), so it was just cancelled. They changed our flight to the next day and gave us a free stay at a hotel nearby. They even called a shuttle for us and paid for it. We also had a dinner voucher at the place we stayed. I had to call and tell my 6th grade team that I would not be there for a meeting we were supposed to have with our principal (he was moving some kids around). There's not much you can do when your plane is cancelled.

We had to get up early the next day and leave. At least we got to sleep on a Sleep Number Bed. That was pretty cool. I can never sleep on the plane, so it wasn't really relaxing. Of course Ryan slept. Eventually we got home and it was great to be there. I'll post later about us eating the wedding cake(s) from a year ago. Happy Anniversary Ryan! It's been a wonderful first year!