That's amor

Scandalous! Here start the adventures of married life for Mark and Charity Miller, but the plane
tickets and cruise passes do not reflect this.


For those who do not know, we went on a cruise to the Mexican Rivera for our honeymoon. Okay and we loved it!! We could just end this post at that, but we wanted to post some pictures to remember it and make you all a little bit jealous :).


The ship was amazing! For those of you who have never cruised before it is hard to imagine that all that can be inside a boat. From 3 swimming pools and 5 hot tubs to a mini-golf course overlooking the ocean (I got a hole in one and won the game!) and rock climbing wall. They had an ice skating rink, theater and a promenade filled with shops and restaurants. They had dance clubs and karaoke competitions. And there were so many rooms. We liked ours. It even had a nice window view. The bathroom was very practical (I guess)-you could use the toilet, brush your teeth and shower all at the same time. I guess they figured you wouldn't be spending much time in there.


As for food-we were never hungry and most of the time stuffed. The first couple of days we loved the options and ate as many things as we could fit on a plate (or two or three). Breakfasts and lunches were generally buffet style and dinners were 5 star dining every night. We loved our waiters Achmaad and Ben. Mark was a little more adventurous when it came to ordering new things off the menu: escargot, lamb and watermelon gazpacho are a few things he ordered. (The escargot was amazing by the way!) I stayed safe and ordered salmon, strawberry cheesecake and seafood pasta. We both loved lobster night! Wow, that was yummy. Achmaad even snuck us a third lobster tail to share! By the end we were sick of food and all wanted was normal stuff. Our serving size shrunk considerably and we stopped ordering midnight room service (oh but right now a vegetarian panini sounds amazing. Oh room service. . .)

Our first port of call was Cabo. We tested our skill on the beautiful blue waters of the Pacific Ocean in a two person sea kayak. And, if we must say so ourselves, we were good. Neck-and-neck with our guide the whole way there. We saw whales and sea lions. We snorkeled and saw many tropical fish (until Mark lost his snorkel to the bottom of the ocean-oops). Relaxing on the beach and swimming in the ocean was refreshing. Mazatlan, here we come!




Mazatlan brought on an excursion we can't wait to repeat. We went on a zipline canopy adventure. If the drive up to the first zipline was an indication of the events to come, I wasn't sure I wanted anything to do with it. We almost drove off the edge of the ravine (even our driver was a little shaken with how close we got). The first zipline was absolute scary for me and a complete adrenaline rush for Mark. Phew, one down, 8 to go. By the time the third one came around I got it figured out and Mark was already on to flying down the zipline upside down (I thought I was doing good just going right side up). We would definitely do that again sometime. We rappelled down at the end and headed back to the ship. Yipee!













In Puerta Vallarta we decided to relax on the beach and enjoy the the water, that is if the beach vendors would leave us alone for 5 minutes. That got annoying fast! I put my Spanish to good use and used my new husband as my excuse not to have my hair braided or buy and of the jewelry. (I actually thought he wasn't understanding my conversation and that I had used him as my scapegoat but when I finally confessed, he already knew. Busted!)

On the way back to LA I thought it would be fun to go to a towel folding class. (Mark has some amazing turtle towel folding skills-you should ask him about it sometime. He will act modest and try to deny it, but check your nearest you tube for a demonstration soon.) He was a good sport because he really didn't want to go. Mark wanted to go ice skating, but the way back home was very windy and walking was hard enough. I couldn't imagine trying to skate. The water in the pools was splashing out 7 feet out of the pool and by the time we docked in LA the pools were almost empty.

I'm not sure we will ever again have the chance to watch whales out our breakfast window or while we exercised at the health spa, but we sure enjoyed it while it lasted. One morning I think I even saw a shark!

It was hard to leave all that behind and go back to real life. I mean we kind of got used to being together. The longest time we were apart in our first nine days of being married was 20 whole minutes. The only bad thing is that it had to come to an end.