.. planes, planes and more planes. did i mention planes? ..

the last stop on our cruise was to st. maarten. cody had done alot of research on this island and couldn't wait until we could get there. if we could have stayed there the whole time i am sure he would have loved it. we woke up around 7 and ate breakfast and were off the boat as soon as they would let us. 9am. we found a taxi driver that would take us to the infamous beach, Maho beach. he drove us around the island to the french side, this island is half and half one side is dutch the other french. he dropped us off at the beach around 10 and we stayed there until 2p. yeah, lived there you could say. here is why.. 

{welcome to st. maarten!}

cody, as you know is a pilot and studying to be one so naturally this would be the ultimate island/ beach for him. so we stayed there all day.


{m* & cody waiting for the plane}

lucky for us girls the beach and water were way nice and so it wasn't terrible being there for a while. we watched about a million planes land and take off, ok probably like 20 but still.. a lot.


{girls r to l c*, e* & me}



{we could hear it and didn't know how close it was until right after this picture}


{side view so you can see how close it gets..}

 the boys even got daring and went and held onto the fence when the planes took off and got sand blasted in the process. goofballs. after being there the better part of the day we left.


{board is updated daily with the flights coming in}

 we stopped at a mcdonald's there cause we were all hungry and needed to decide what to do. m* and e* wanted to go to a nude beach and t* and c* wanted to get on the ship and cody and i just wanted to shop. so we were tossed. well we asked the cab driver if he could take t* and c* to the boat and then just drop cody and i off near town and we would walk and then drive m* and e* to the nude beach. sounded great, until we hit traffic. we sat for a while in just a line of cars waiting to get out of the town. they only had a one lane road so no way to side track that one.


{girls in the back of the van!}

so, after debate m* and e* decided it wasn't worth the risk of being late to the boat to go see the beach. so we found another flea market and they got out with us. t* and c* went back to the boat. we shopped for about 45 minutes. way cool shopping, i wish we had more time there. we started to walk back and then realized that we had about 15 minutes to get on board.


{took this right before warning honk}

we entered the harbor and heard the ship honk giving us a warning to get on in 10 minutes or they were leaving. so we ran. we made it on, barely. after getting on we headed straight for the pools and showers to get all the sand off from maho. after we dipped in the pool we showered up for dinner.

tonight was a special night, it was our last dinner on the ship. we had grown to really like mario and jr. they were awesome. predicted our needs and were fun to add to it. so we decided to give them an extra tip on top of what we were charged for already. when the guys pulled out money to give to them, mario started to cry. he didn't want to take it but we told him we wanted him to have it. he told us that it meant a lot and he was so grateful for it. it touched my heart, i felt so bad. he has a family and kids that live in nicaragua that he never gets to see because he is on the ship and he just sends money for them to live. how sad! so we were all emotional. after this we decided to cheer up with another stop at the comedy club. after an half hour show cody and i headed back to the room to pack. our flight we were trying to catch left at 11 and we had to be off the boat by 8 to make it in time. so we packed and hit the hay. we got up the next morning around 6.

we did the self assist off the boat which was nice cause we each only had a backpack and a carry on bag. however some people trying to get off with us had like 17 bags and kids, what were they thinking. the cruise offered to take your luggage off and have it for you when you got off. should have done that crazy lady. we found a cab to take us to the airport and got there around 7:30. we got through all the customs and what not and to the gates. we realized there were two flights that left at 9 and 9:30 that we could try and catch. so we decided to try for it. we missed the atlanta flight, it was full and ended up making the NYC flight, yep 3 weeks in a row in new york. love my life. we didn't get to sit next to each other but that is alright. we made it to new york and ran straight to the direct flight to salt lake. it was pretty tight and some how we both made it on and sat next to each other. what are the odds? we got home around 6 and to our house by 7. it was so nice to be home but i seriously missed the vacation.

so we highly recommend a cruise if you haven't been on one. it rocked. we for sure will be doing another one!