Birthday Cruise Vacation: Let the Fun Begin!

This year, I got to spend my birthday week on a cruise! My hubby was super nice to me and guaranteed a wonderful birthday by taking me on a vacation (what better way to spend your birthday??). We booked on the Carnival Magic for a 7 day cruise with stops in Key West, FL, Nassau, Bahamas, and Freeport, Bahamas. We invited some family along and my parents were the only ones who could make it.

We drove down to Dallas the first day and stayed the night so that I could do some pre-trip shopping at H&M (Happy Birthday to me!!). We then made it down to Galveston, TX on Saturday evening where we met up with my parents and had a yummy seaside dinner (where Isabella had raw oysters for the very first time and LOVED them) and our first walk on the beach for this trip. We then headed to our hotel to get some sleep before our busy day getting onto the ship. (And Jackson was VERY tired, threw a huge fit in the car about not wanting to leave the beach & ended up having to miss out on the beach the next day.)

Sunday morning (my birthday!) we ate breakfast in the hotel (yuck... no real healthy options except fruit) and then Bella, my parents, & I headed over across the street to walk a bit on the beach before we had to check out of the hotel.

Here is Bella loving every minute of being on the beach! (She is definitely my daughter!)

And my self-portrait on the beach.

After a bit of time on the beach, Isabella has to go to the bathroom so we must head back to the hotel. We pack up, check out & take a taxi down to the cruise terminal where we grab a starbuck's lunch and head in to go through security and check in. Surprisingly, this all goes much faster than it has ever before for us (our last cruise was in 2007) and we didn't even have enough time to eat all of our lunch before our number was called to board the ship. 

And here is the first of many to come photo ops that Carnival loves to take advantage of. ;o)

 When we got to our room, I had some lovely flowers from my parents and a yummy plate of chocolate goodies from our travel agent, Laura. (Didn't get a picture for some reason!) This cruise we got a balcony and really enjoyed getting to go out there to see where we were or to check the weather. Here is Mike and the kids before we departed.

Isabella had a few spins on the dance floor while walking around on the ship (above) and then there is Mike and I eating dinner the first night. 

Our vacation started out very nicely and we were looking forward to all the fun to come!