Cruise

The first week of January James and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary a bit early on a cruise to the Caribbean. We asked our good friends Krista and Ryan to come along, and it sure was fun. we loved cruising, and plan on doing it again. krista and ryan already have another one booked. (lucky) We went on Holland America, i chose this line because it hit alot of different islands for diving (james) and had cooking classes on the boat (me). We had paid in advance to do 2 cooking classes but there ended up only being one so we were pretty sad. James got to dive at each place. I forget all the islands, but the Bahama island was my favorite. i loved the 80 degree weather every day, sitting on the beach relaxing, eating anytime i wanted, sleeping in everyday, watching movies, time with James and laughing with friends. We had a great time eating the food was good, not top notch like I expected but there were a few nights where we really loved some things like the Thai Lime soup, and the goat cheese salad. We were all very disappointed in the desserts, there were alot to choose from but all really dry. except for this chocolate cake with ganuche filling, chocolate fudge icing with ice cream that i got a couple of time. (i don't usually like chocolate but hey i'm pregnant!) it was a great vacation and i did miss my kids alot. but i can't wait till the next trip.

James and I in Grand Turk (i think) loved the blue water and the perfect soft sand it was like powder.
one of the nights the boat had a dessert show, they had everything made out of chocolate, sugar, bread, and more chocolate. this is the choc Eiffel tower and a white chocolate swan, they also had awesome ice sculptures. but have to say we didn't find one dessert that really tasted that good, most just looked good.
More pictures of the beautiful beaches there. loved it!
This is our boat. we were in the middle, somewhere. but a huge ship with 5 restaurants, 3 pools, theatre, movie room, cooking demo kitchen, casino, shops, and more.
This is Biplop. my chef on the cruise. he is the executive chef on the fine dining restaurant on the boat, we never could get reservations. (and i asked if we could eat in the kitchen). i pretty much saw him every day. there were little cooking demos every day that he did, he was very entertaining and likable. (i don't know about a good teacher though) Also for our class that we got to cook at he was the teacher, well kinda he just gave us a recipe and told us to get to it. i was kinda disappointed with it. especially because there were just people walking by that would sit and watch, and take picture that we had to tell we paid for the private class, and this couple from canada who thought they knew everything about cooking that were annoying me. (they tried forcefully to tell me the Gorgonzola was not a bleu cheese) come on people! anyways i really liked my time with Biplop.