Hello from Shane Kelli and Little Morgan!!

Kelli and I just got back from our summer vacation trip. We took a 3 day 4 night trip with Carnival Cruises on the ship "The Paradise." We had an awesome time and thought we would share our photos with you.

We embarked out of Long Beach California and journeyed to Catalina Island and into Encenada Mexico.

Here are some photos of the ship itself, inside and out.
There were over 2,500 people onboard the vessel, lots of fun activities, and TONS of food to eat!

On the first full day of the cruise, the ship docked in port on Catalina Island, which is off the coast of California heading south.

We enjoyed our first day by sitting at the beach on the island for a few hours.

Honestly the most enjoyable part of the cruise was actually being on the boat itself, so we never ventured of the vessel for more than a few hours at a time.

Little Morgan enjoyed her first vacation with Mommy and Daddy too!

On the second day of our journey the boat docked in port in Encenada Mexico, which is just a short distance across the Mexican border. We spent a few hours in Encenada but the city was a bit run down so we headed back to the ship after a short while.


Here Shane stands with some of the natives of the city.





Kelli in front of "The Paradise."





Kelli in the shopping district of Encenada.

Our final day of the cruise was an "on ship day" as we made our way back to port in Long Beach. The deck was full of people enjoying the pool and soaking up the sun.


This was our favorite day because we just sat around reading and relaxing for most of the day. We are covered in aloe today because we didn't use enough suntan lotion.


Morgan was happy to be on vacation with us and I think she really enjoyed all the food that we got to eat. After dinner each night she was rolling and kicking all over the place.

The ocean was absolutely breathtaking with the sun sparkling on the water all day long. Here Kelli watches a sunset and you can see how beautiful the water was during the daytime.

As you can see, we took our safety on the vessel very seriously, especially during the evacuation drill.




Shane enjoying one of the many towel animals that were left in our room each day.



It appears that Shane is hitting his midlife crisis about 20 years early here as he gets a fake tatoo on the trip.

This was a much needed vacation of R and R. It's probably also our last vacation by ourselves before the baby comes, so we were happy that we got to enjoy our cruise. It was something that we always wanted to do. Thanks for sharing our vacation with us. We hope you enjoyed the photos.

We had an awesome 4th of July celebration with our close friends. Dan and Michelle got us private beach access on the Camp Pendleton Marine base in San Clemente. (just north of Dan Diego)

We had a fun day of BBQing, relaxing and hanging out at the beach!

We hope you had a great holiday weekend too!

Kelli had an awesome day with all of her girlfriends. Jen Smith (in the green dress) is actually due July 7th. She is having a baby girl too!



Kelli sits with Jen and Michelle and soaks up some rays.



Here is Kelli with all her bestfriends! Anna, Jen, Ellie, Michelle, Kelli, Emily and April.

The guys had a great day at the beach. We got a couple of hours of beach volleyball in and did some pretty cool body surfing in the high waves.



Dan and Shane recover from a long day in the sun.

Ah my sweet "Mama" Kelli. Mama is my new nickname for her. We are 22 weeks pregnant this week. We are almost 5 months through the pregnancy! Only 4 months to go before Little Morgan Sue joins us. We need your help. Do you like Morgan or Morgen?

We had an awesome day at Manhattan Beach with our friends Phil and Emily Keith. We always have fun when we go to the beach with them. Standing next to me though, it's obvious that Phil needs to work on his tan. We are excited to take Morgan on her first trip to the beach next year!

Aren't we two cute couples? We had a great day at the beach including a restful day in the sun, dinner at a local Manhattan Beach pizzaria and we finished the day off with a hot Starbucks while watching the sun set on the pier.