Before life as we know it changes forever

We decided to take a cruise!! Now you may be thinking-that must mean Kallen got a job... Well...not exactly, but we decided we needed to take a vacation with just the two of us before the little munchkin comes and turns our lives upside-down :) Any time Kallen gets birthday or Christmas money, he just gives it to me to deposit in our account. I'm a firm believer that gift money should be used for FUN stuff, so I opened a separate account. Every week I put a little bit in it and we were saving to take SCUBA lessons. Did you know you can't go SCUBA diving when you're pregnant!? So we had to do something fun that we both could enjoy. I found a killer deal, so we headed off to California to go cruising for four days. We went to Catalina Island in California, and then Ensenada Mexico. It was the first time for both of us, and it was fun!!

This is our boat- the Carnival Paradise. It was HUGE! It had a few swimming pools and hot tubs, but we skipped those this time-it was still a bit too cold at the beginning of March for us, but the cruise-line won't let preggo girls go if they're past 24 weeks, so we had to go before it was too late.



Doing the lifeboat drill. It was raining when we boarded the boat, but once we got out on the sea, it was clear and beautiful.

The sunset as we were setting sail-leaving Long Beach.

Catalina Island....I think I'd move there tomorrow if I could!!

This is the cool house I would move to.

Kallen got to go SCUBA diving with this fun guy! He had a blast, and i got to go to all of the little souvenir shops that I could handle. I loved just walking around the little downtown area and looking at the cute houses and gorgeous flowers.

They had a ton of beautiful hand-made tiles throughout the city.

Back on the ship-Formal night at dinner. We definitely loved all the food and ate, and ate, and ate. We did try to work out too, but it was difficult to run on a rocking ship. Good thing we did a lot of walking on our little shore excursions.
This is Ensenada- we took a bus ride outside of the city to a "blow-hole." It is in quotes because that is what they called it, but Kallen and I were thoroughly unimpressed with it. There wasn't much blowing, and it certainly wasn't a hole- more like waves crashing pretty hard against some rocks. It was still beautiful nonetheless. It was interesting to ride through the town and our tour guide gave us lots of fun facts and info.
We went to a flea market too. It was fun to walk around, but a little bit too much like Tijuana for me. Lots of pushy people trying to sell you knock-off junk. There was a purse I'm kicking myself for not getting, but I think I'll survive.

It was a nice relaxing break and I'm glad we went. It took about a week to re-acclimate ourselves and feel like we weren't rocking anymore, but we would definitely go again! We for sure want to go with a group of people the next time around...so if anyone is up for a cruise in the future, give us a call.

Another trip highlight was our detour to Ikea on the way home. We got some cool shelves for our bathroom- woo hoo! Kallen even painted the bathroom and hung the shelves last week, so I am thrilled.