Cruises are the best vacations ever.

Christopher and I have decided this.  Seriously, what could be better than have every meal, activity, and destination provided for you?  We just got back from a cruise in the Carribean.  But for this particular cruise, we didn't care where we went.  We were on the Oasis of the Seas.

Now, if you have ever seen a cruise ship before, you know they are huge.  But the Oasis and Allure from Royal Caribbean are the largest ships ever built.  Our previous crusie was on an average sized boat, which weighed 90,000 tons.  This one was 220,000 tons.  It carries 6,000 passengers and another 2,000 crew.  Most ships have balcony rooms on the outside, and indoor staterooms on the inside.  This one  is so wide that it has balconies that face in to the center "park". 

And we are honestly concerned we were spoiled for life.  For me, the biggest difference was in the shows.  They don't just put on song and dance skits - they do Broadway musicals.  But only for starters.  Hairspray ran for three nights, and then they switch it over to do more shows.  There is an "aqua theater" so you can watch a performance in a pool.

That show was amazing - divers, acrobats, sycronized swimmers, the works.  And they put the acrobats and dancers and singers together in another show indoors later that week.

But Christopher's favorite thing about the whole trip was the FlowRider.

FlowRiders are simulated surfing machines.  Basically, water is zoomed up a ramp, and if you get on a boogie board or surf board in the middle you hover as though you are surfing.  I thought the boogie board was loads of fun, but Christopher was literally addicted.  He started on the boogie boarding side with me, and then worked his way over to the other side where you learn to stand up.

Some things, of course, are just standard no matter what cruise line you are on, it seems.  Your room steward makes towel animals each night . . .

The Cruise Director comedian guy hosts shows like the Marriage game show . . .

And the Belly Flop competition, which was suprisingly won by the scrawny, pale kid.

We also climbed the rock wall,

worked out at the awesome gym, and Christopher played in a Dodge Ball competition.

Oh, and of course the cruise ship did stop places.  However, that is the one thing about this cruise that wasn't impressive.  The first stop was Haiti.  Not real Haiti, fake Haiti.  Royal Caribbean bought an area of Haiti and docks a lot of their cruises there, so it is basically just like being on the ship, but spread out on land.  But you don't actually contact any real part of Haiti, minus the locals that are rather pushy trying to sell you stuff.

We did enjoy the beach, however, and we even played in the water park for a while.

Our next stop was Jamaica.  There are two main, touristy ports in Jamaica.  Ocho Rios boasted adventure parks where you could hike waterfalls, swim with dolphins, snorkel, or ride a zip line.  Monetgo Bay is famous for beautiful beaches.  Well, Royal Caribbean decided to build a port of their very own inbetween those two so that everyone could decide where to go.  That meant there was nothing to do if you didn't want to pay a cab fare and ride for 1/2 an hour or a full hour.  We did end up wandering around Montego Bay, and enjoyed a good authentic lunch, but overall it wasn't impressive.

The third stop was Cozumel.  Since this is known as one of the best dive locations in the world, we booked ahead with the highest ranked dive shop on TripAdvisor so that Christopher could go Scuba diving and I could go snorkeling.

But unfortunately, it was a windy day when we landed in Cozumel.  And it turned out that we were the only people that booked with them that day!  So we ended up on a little boat that eventually contained 4 Mexicans and 4 tourists.  One guy drove the boat, a friend of our guides was there with two divers that he was taking out, and Christopher and I each had our very own guide.  Since the best diving in the area is at Palancar Reef, we headed down there.  Christopher had a great time - Jose led him down on an 80 foot dive, and they even went through little caverns "just like the Little Mermaid!"  They saw turtles, king crab, and some awesome fish.

But unfortunately for me, Palancar Reef is out where the wind could kick up 3-5 foot waves.  And while the others could go under the water where the waves wouldn't bother them, I was stuck snorkeling on the surface.  Up, and down, and up, and down.  I did my best to enjoy it, and made it pretty close to when the divers were coming back up before I fed the fish.  So we went to a local dock to let the divers decompress before their next dive, and I told them that I would rather just stay there then try my luck again.  Ugh.  Sea sickness is awful.

So that is how I ended up on my own "deserted island".

Okay, so it wasn't deserted.  A lot of the divers go there to decompress.  And my guide stayed with me, which made the whole thing quite enjoyable.  He was fun to talk to.  That, and the view was fantastic.

My guide actually said that the water color was rather filthy from the wind, but it looked amazing to me!  We walked down to the restaurant, and it came complete with beach chairs, a massage tent, and a peacock.

And, of course, some cool native plants to take pictures of.

So in the end, I think we both had a great time on Cozumel.  But honestly, this vacation was all about the ship.  It is amazing what a true vacation like this can do to you - we both feel fully recharged and refreshed.  (Being tan doesn't hurt.)  And the kids reportedly had a wonderful time at Grandma's house.  In fact, they didn't seem too eager to come home with me.  Since they had all the cheese balls and donuts they could eat for a week, maybe that makes sense.  But whatever the case, it's back to regular life for all of us. 

Tulip festival

Tulip festival at Thanksgiving point + friends + Macro lens = a great day in the sunshine!

Tulips

I love Utah spring.  We always try to act shocked, but I remember that it snowed at least once during my winter finals every year I was at BYU.  Finals week is the last week of April or so, if you don't keep track of such things.  There is something about seeing the poor tulips get coated that always makes me giggle, though.

Here's hoping true spring comes soon!

Easter

We've had a good weekend!  Little kids sure make holidays fun.  First we dyed eggs.

Then, after a wonderful Easter program at church today, we hid eggs.  My mom sent us the most adorable set!

Then we found eggs.

My husband thought they were the silliest purchase ever, but our kids love the little egg grabbers.  Picking up eggs is much more fun that way!

Then we played with eggs.  Tyler loved that his eggs were cars.

Then we opened the eggs and ate the candy.  Hey, look, a picture of me!  I actually talked Christopher into taking some pictures too.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Panoramas, HDR and Photoshop

Well, I think I am happy with my trickier Moab shots now.  They took a bit of work because it was something I haven't done before in Photoshop - merging photos together to make a panorama.  I have done some HDR by hand, but never tried the automatic feature before either.  I learned a lot about the program, but also about what sort of shots work and don't work.  And since I always appreciate it when other people explain what they did, I think I might talk about them a bit.  If you don't care about photography, you can just skip it.

For example, this shot was a piece of cake.  It is actually three shots stitched together, but Photoshop did it automatically.  Everything exposed well, so all I had to do to take the shot was use a tripod and keep it level as I took overlapping shots.

But let me explain HDR for the non-photographer a bit here.  When out eyes see things, we can adapt to many levels of light.  But the camera can't.  For example, when I took this picture so that the rock came out clear, the sky was gone.  My eye could see the clouds and sunshine, but the camera can't.

So then I took a shot that made the sky crystal clear.  But the rock is now gone.

Photoshop merges those into an HDR shot, to make it more like what you normally see.  Now, what I learned this day is that the further the difference between sky and rock, the less . . . real the picture looks.  So while this shot worked, it isn't my favorite.

This picture, on the other hand, I LOVE.  I did my best mountain goat impression and set up my tripod up in the crevice inside an arch, aiming back out.  If you zoomed in enough, you could see that my footprints are the only ones there, coming out from our white truck in the parking lot.

 If I owned a wide angle lens, I could have done this in one shot.  But since those cost $900, I took four shots that overlapped.  I took one set exposed for the rock, one set exposed for the sky, and merged it all into this.  Since the sky wasn't actually that bad in the rock pictures, the merge looks much better.

And then we have this panorama.  This is actually only three pictures across, but took 7 shots to make it all merge together.  I wish you could see the whole shot in more detail, but this is as big as Blogger wants it to go.

I love digital photography!  I love that I can take as many shots as I want and then use Photoshop to make it all come together when I am done.



Busy Saturday

After getting back from Moab, we had a few hours to recover before Christopher headed to a bachelor party and I went to the ballet with my sister-in-law.  And then, the next morning started off bright and early with the annual neighborhood Easter Egg hunt.  Thankfully, it wasn't even snowing this time!

After that, we headed up to Salt Lake for the wedding.  Christopher's younger brother got married yesterday, and that means all of his siblings are now married!  They are a funny couple.  Jonathan is a very private person on emotions and affection.  So he wouldn't even admit they were dating until close to Christmas.  ("She's just a friend.  Who comes over a lot.")  He proposed at the end of February, and didn't even bother telling his mother (or the rest of the family) until a couple of weeks later.  And then they just decided to do a very casual wedding a month or so later.  My favorite moments of the day were when they were told to kiss over the alter and did so hesitantly (because they barely hold hands in public) - the sealer told them "don't worry.  That will get better with time."  And my second favorite moment was when everyone was congratulating the couple.  A very tall and stocky man from her side of the family walked up to him, said "I hear you're not a hugger", and then gave him a tight bear hug before he could protest.  Classic!

Her dress is the most casual dress I have ever seen - but it was perfect for them, and beautiful.

Speaking of dresses, I made this a week ago and have been bursting to take pictures ever since.  I made Kaitlyn this skirt.  And in my usual fashion, decided to make the leftovers into a bolero jacket.  And a hairbow.  And a bowtie for Tyler.

Are you ready for the best part?  The skirt took ten minutes.  That's because it was originally a curtain valance.  From the clearance bin at Wal-mart - for $1.  All I had to do was cut off the top part so it was the right length, sew in casing for elastic at the waist, and join the edges together.

Sew . . . a needle pulling thread . . . (Sorry, I had to throw that joke out.  I'm not the first person to make kid's clothes out of curtains by a long shot.)

In case you want to do anything similar, I got inspiration for the skirt here and the bolero jacket here and the bowtie here.  The jacket was by far the most work.  The skirt and the bowtie are so easy that I plan to make more soon.

Kaitlyn is easily distracted by flowers.

And so am I.

And Tyler got a flower too!

While we were at the reception, this flower came loose from the bride's bouquet as she was passing us, so she gave it to Tyler.  And he adored that thing for at least an hour.  He showed to everyone - "my beautiful flower!" - he played with it, he admired it.  Such a funny little guy!