We went to a class today on the ship to learn how to fold some of the different towel animals. It was pretty cool, and of course the kids went nuts and can’t get enough of the fun. We made some pretty good stuff — an elephant, a dog and a seal.

We spent the last full day of the cruise at sea, which meant playing in the pools and water slides on the ship. Fortunately the weather was perfect (as it has been for this entire trip). It was a fun and relaxing day.

Beth and I woke up early and saw that the sun was just rising. We went up to the top of the ship while Jake and Lauren were still sleeping. It was beautiful out there, and so cool with the wind blowing.

Cozumel was unbelievable. The kids really loved it and I had a fabulous time. We spent most of the day on a private beach. The sand was awesome for playing in and there were fun jumpy toys out in the water to climb on and play in. We didn’t take too many pictures at the beach itself because we were having too much fun in the water.

We had an incredible day, and everyone is pretty worn out. But that didn’t stop the kids from wanting to play a round of miniature golf on the top deck of the ship (way cool). They also discovered that they LOVE the animals that the cabin stewards make for us from our towels.

We’ve got big beach plans for our next stop, so it was ok that we didn’t have a ton of time today to spend on the Key West beach. We had done so many other things already today that we were kind of pooped. There were rocks you could climb on, so of course I loved it. The kids were more interested in the water and sand.

We had amazingly beautiful weather today and decided to walk around a bit to see what was around. We saw lots of really great things. We made it mile marker zero and to the southern-most tip of the continental United States (though, looking at a map, it doesn’t even look like it’s the southern-most part of Key West, but oh well, there was a cool monument there).

Just across from the aquarium is a pretty cool museum about all the salvaging that used to go on at Key West. There was a tour at first, then we wandered around and got to go up the huge look-out tower.

The first thing the kids wanted to do was go to the aquarium. We had to wander around a little as we waited for it to open (and got to see wild chickens). The aquarium wasn’t huge, which was perfect since we had a lot of other stuff we wanted to do today. They had some pretty cool sharks to see and we got to pet stingrays and some other creepy water things.

Our first stop on the cruise is Key West. It was a beautiful morning as we pulled into dock. The seagulls seemed to like the food they serve on the ship.

We start our cruise (the first ever for the kids) today. The flight down here was very easy, and boarding the ship went very well. We did some exploring tonight. It’s looking like it’s going to be pretty fun.

We decided that Jake was just way too big for the bike he had, so we took him to get a new one today. He loves it. Out we went for another bike ride. This time, Monkey Grandma was here with us.

Grandma is here for the weekend, and we had a nice fire with her out in the fire pit tonight. Of course the kids had to show her how to make s’mores (but I haven’t had any yet…)

It was a nice day to finally get out on the bikes again. Beth wanted to do her scooter instead.