The Lymans: Cruising Cousins

In January we went on a cruise with Riley’s second cousins. That’s right. I said second cousins. They’re his dad’s cousin’s kids. I don’t even know my parent’s cousins, let alone their kids, so I think it's pretty awesome that they are so close.

When I met Riley, I already knew his immediate family and I absolutely loved them. (In fact, two of my friends and I wanted to be Lymans so bad, we made a plan that each of us would marry the 3 oldest Lyman boys. I was supposed to marry Riley--obviously I followed through with my part of the plan--but I was the only one who did...) When I met his extended family before we got married--even though there were so many of them, and it was a little overwhelming--I loved them too. So when they invited us on a cruise almost 2 years ago, we were going to make it happen.

It was nice to have a warm break in the middle of January. There's seriously no better time to go on a cruise. There were 7 couples and even though there was a little bit of an age gap (us and Garrett and Kellie were the youngest there), it didn't seem like it at all. It was a good group...a really good group.

We did the Western Caribbean, and we went to Half Moon Cay, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, and Grand Turk. Riley and I had only been on one cruise before (on our Honeymoon to Hawaii), and it was really great. But going with a group of people was SO MUCH FUN! We did almost everything together as a group and I loved every minute of it. Every night we played cards, tried out the shows (which were sooooo lame. Come on Carnival!), waited until they started playing good music at the club, and danced all night long. We were usually the only ones dancing in the club (if you can imagine 7 Mormon couples just cutting a rug), but there were a lot of other drunk people watching us. Creepy. When it would get too hot in the club, we'd start a dance party on the deck. One lady actually recognized us the next day at breakfast as the dancers from the deck party the night before.
Hey oh!
Dancing Reputation.
Dream come true (if any of you people from Jerusalem read this, you know how much I loooove dancing).

I had heard that the food on Carnival isn't always good, but we thought it was great. There was one night at dinner when Riley couldn't decide what he wanted, so he literally ordered the entire menu. Appetizers and all. And he ate all of it. I have a hard time keeping him full at home, so I was glad he was getting enough to eat. We definitely got our money's worth...

These two were always sleeping on the hammock together. Good thing they're brothers....

Basketball-playing-model-twins

I just want to draw attention to Riley and Garrett's wardrobes. They BOTH bought white pants for the cruise (without talking to each other) and they stole Rodge's Hawaiian shirts.