FUN VACATION; NOT SO FUN RETURN HOME

Ashley waiting for the muster drill to begin.

In August of 2009, I turned 50. In celebration, our family took a cruise. My oldest son was unable to come, but our other three children came, and so did my mom. We had such a good time! We left out of Port Canaveral, as we always do, since that is the area I grew up in. It makes life a lot simpler; my dad takes us to the boat, and then after the cruise, he comes and gets us. We never have to pay to park. It's great!

Had to snap a picture of one of our fav restaurants as we were headed out to sea.

This was a short four day cruise to the Bahamas. Our first stop was Freeport.

This is my mom and my daughter having a fun time

There really isn't much to do in Freeport. We pretty much did a little shopping and then stayed on the boat and enjoyed the slides.

That's my mom and me racing down the slide....I won!!!

Heading out to sea and toward Nassau

After our day in Freeport, we all got ready for our "formal" night.

This is my youngest son being silly and waiting for the rest of us so we can get us some good ole lobster.

The next day was Nassau!  Now I had some plans in Nassau. We didn't do any excursions, but aside from a little bit of shopping, I know of a really pretty place where I love to take pictures. 

I thought it would be so nice to get some family pictures for Christmas cards.  As always, though, I had very little cooperation!

The boys kept nudging each other....

Then there was the look, "Hurry up!!!!"

Then there was the teasing....

Never mind, I look fat anyway....

We did a little shopping, and then the kids went back to the boat. The water slides were open; and Scott was just getting over knee surgery, so he really didn't want to do much walking around. In fact, he had just gotten rid of his knee brace days before we left for the cruise....bad timing!

After the adults finished shopping, we headed back to the boat.

Our last day, was just a day at sea. I actually like the sea days. Time to sit back and relax!

After we got back from our cruise, we still had a few days to visit with friends and family. Of course, we spent time on the beach, but there were other things going on too. 

I really didn't catch on too much and it was a good thing, because my family and a surprise party for me.

Here's my cake. Yes, that's me when I was probably about three.

We had a family cook out and time to just hang out and enjoy each other's company.

Then, it was time to go home. We have always lived far away. It takes about 15 hours to get to my mom and dad's place, and we do it all in one day. We had had such a nice vacation, but boy, were we ready to get into our own beds.

We usually leave pretty early, so we can get home at a somewhat decent hour. We managed to get home around 9:00 pm. Everyone takes a load in. We all had our hands full of pillows, suite cases, etc, and once we hit the door......OH MY!!!! PEEEEE EWWWWW WEEE!!! What on EARTH smelled so bad?! My husband, the quiet man that he is, didn't say anything. He just walked right into our bedroom, only to turn around and walk back. All he said to me was, "Honey, our bedroom is flooded." Bill can be a jokster, and I really thought he was kidding. I headed to our room. The carpet was SOAKED! Then I turned to look at our bathroom, and this is what I saw...

In the state of Louisiana, many times, the hot water heater is put in the attic. When we moved here, I fought it, and fought it, but I lost. I knew this would happen! While we were gone, our hoses exploded off the hot water heater, and we had water EVERYWHERE!  I will have to say, though, we did count ourselves lucky, because if it had been one more day, our whole house would have flooded.


Sometimes, you just have to look on the bright side of things. Besides, I did get a whole new master area...