The very best Christmas!

Josh and I celebrated one of our very best Christmas' ever with my family on a Carnival cruise ship!  My parents decided to take my entire immediate family (all 9 of us) on a Christmas cruise and we had an incredible time.  I cannot even begin to explain how much I cherished the time with my family.

I purchased this first picture on the ship.  None of us thought it was going to turn out well (With Greg leaning over the railing and Brad lingering in the back), but the fact that we are all genuinely laughing in this photo made it absolutely priceless to me.  It really captures the fun and joy that we all felt together!

On the ship!

Greg feeding the seagulls as we pulled away from Key West.  Hilarious!

Josh and I sang  karaoke for the first time!  I've always wanted to sing karaoke and, well, this was the perfect opportunity.  The room was almost completely empty except for a table full of my brothers and sisters.  Could there be a safer environment to take that kind of risk?  I think not.  There was even a live band to play the song we chose, "I believe in a thing called love" by The Darkness.  It was so. much. fun!

 My favorite part of the trip was sharing dinner together every night.  Josh enjoyed being an adventurous eater and tried new things like Alligator and escargot and I decided to stick with familiar things like.. turkey and lasagna. (I eat vicariously through him.)  The best part of dinner every night was the "Chocolate Melting Cake".  Oh my goodness it had to be the most delicious thing I have ever had in my entire life.  Seriously.

Friday night was "Formal Night" on the ship and everyone had a great time getting dressed up!  I was just excited that I finally had an excuse to wear my "Taylor Swift" dress, as I call it.

It was a beautiful Christmas and I am so incredibly thankful for my parents' generosity and all of the memories that we made together. I am so blessed to have family that I love and enjoy so much!

I will probably have more pictures to post in the next few days, but this will have to do for the time being.   Now we are heading off to Pennsylvania to ring in 2012 with Josh's family!