A boat to catch...

When we left Biscayne NP, we drove straight up the East coast to Cocoa Beach, Florida.  We had reservations there for the night and a big boat coming to take us on an adventure the next morning :).

That evening, we did some shopping at Ron Jon's, got Tristan some coffee (not kidding), and then headed back to our room to get our bags packed for the Bahamas.  Well...I packed the bags, the kids played legos (and drank coffee, hehe).

I had no problems getting my sleepyheads up and out of bed the next morning...it was cruise day!!!  We were all pretty excited :).  My {sweet} husband booked this cruise for us as a Mother's Day gift to me...I think a Mother's Day cruise should become tradition (right Dan?  SAY YES :)!!!)

There are many different cruise packages that you can choose around the Port Canaveral/Cocoa Beach area as far as hotels, parking, and port transportation go.  We chose to not to...I have done them before where you stay at a hotel, leave your car there, and their shuttle will take you to/from the port.  It has been a few years since I've cruised and the prices have went way up!  To the point where it was cheaper to just drive ourselves to the port and pay port parking (which is ridiculously expensive but in the end cheaper than the packages are right now, so whatever).  Also a factor was all the stuff in my car this time (I left computers, etc in there while we were gone).  I wanted secure parking vs a hotel parking lot.  SO...we drove ourselves.  And it was easy :).  No waiting around for the shuttle to deal with, totally the way to go.

We breezed through the security and check-in lines and in no time at all we were ready to board!!!

We're on the boat!  Woohoo :)!!!...

After walking around checking things out, we stopped in one of the lounges for a drink...

...then joined every.single.other.person on the ship for some lunch (yes, it was crazy busy!).

Dropped off our backpacks in the rooms, grabbed our soda cups (which stayed glued to our hands for the duration of the cruise, oy...), did the muster drill, then headed to the deck to watch the sail-away...

This is the part I wasn't prepared for :(.  Ya'll know that I recently lost my mom...  Well, she was always my cruise buddy.  For years...  Standing on that deck I expected to look over and see her standing next to me.  And she wasn't there...  And it was really, really, really hard :( (and hard to talk about now...).  I didn't want to upset the kids or damper the moment for them, so I kept it to myself (and kept my sunglasses snugly in place). 

I had a choice to make...to focus on the pain of loss, or the gift of love. 

I looked to my right...

I looked to my left...

I looked behind me...

Surrounded by love. 

It's hard not to smile when you see the excitement on their little faces :).

Deep breath, ok...

The sail-away was beautiful, as always.  There was even a sea turtle swimming alongside us for a few minutes...I've only ever seen one other one while sailing, so that was neat :).

our escort out of the harbor

Of course, not everyone on the ship is glued to the railing.  There is music playing and people dancing.  Like this family...

They were so cute :)!  I loved watching the little girl in the bright shades, she was having so much fun dancing with her mom and brother :).

Tristan was missing his newly acquired habit of an afternoon coffee, hehehe.  Funny little boy :)...

This smile, this girl <3...

And away we go!...