Cruise!

Last week Steve and I had the chance to go on a Cruise!  It was our first real vacation (longer than just a weekend) since our honeymoon, so we were so excited to go!  And since we were leaving the kids behind, I was extra excited to go!!  We left Long Beach on Monday and cruised to Catalina Island on Tuesday, Ensanada, Mexico on Wednesday, and were back on Long Beach on Monday.   While I didn't take too many pictures, here are a few!

Here is a view of the cruise ship, the Carnival Inspiration, from Catalina.  While it was a bit of an overcast morning, it turned out to be a beautifully sunny, warm day!

A view of Catalina!

This is the home of one of the Wriggly grandsons who lives on the island about three weeks a year.  The Wriggly family purchased the island in the 1920's (or about 1918!  I think!!), and still own a portion of it today.  Since the family also owned the Chicago Cubs, the Cubs used to do their spring training on Catalina!  Pretty cool!

Here is the Casino on the island. There is no gambling that occurs here, it is a place to dance or see a movie!  After taking a waking tour of the island in the morning, we did a tour of the casino in the afternoon!

Inside the theater portion, there are beautiful hand painted pictures on the sides.  It is really beautiful inside, and it was interesting to learn all about the history of the casion, and how people used to come over just for the night to go dancing in the 1930's!

Overall, Ensanada was not very picturesque!  We didn't go to Papas and Beer, but I thought I should take a picture since it is so well known!  We didn't spend too much time off the ship in Mexico!

Instead, we went to Hussongs, which was not such a "party" spot, but had a fun Mariachi band providing some entertainment!

Finally, one picture from the ship!  This was the lead waiter at our dinners, Albe.  He was from Costa Rica, and he was very fun and friendly!  Dinners were always a highlight as we had a great table with which to eat, and of course it is such a treat to have all the meals made and served!  We had such a nice vacation as it was a treat to just relax, spend so much time just the two of us, and eat!  And we were pretty excited to see the kids again on Friday!