Bryan & Brittney Austin

So it has taken me a while but I have finally saved the photos from our wonderful cruise to post on our blog. I realize that I am about four months behind on this task but things have been a little crazy. We left Utah at about 12:30 pm on a Friday and made our way across the U.S. We had an hour lay over in Denver and got into New Orleans at about 7:00 p.m. We got a cab to our hotel the Dauphine in the French Quarter. We had quite nice rooms for ridiculously cheap. We shared a room with my parents and had quite a death defying adventure with the crazy taxi driver to get to the hotel. Once there we dropped off our suitcases and made our way to the Bourbon street where we met up with my mom and dad. We walked the night away taking in all the crazy people around us. We ate some pizza on the street, dance like crazy, did a little souvenir shopping before I absolutely crashed from being so tired with the paper route and I went back to the room to turn in a little early. Bryan and my dad continued walking the street and seeing a good set of boobies. A little awkward. Well here are the pictures. At least the ones that I have.

This was quite interesting. After an adventurous night on Bourbon street we started our Saturday with a city tour of New Orleans. The streets were so small and narrow in the French Quarter that our bus could not come pick us up. So we had to walk about 8 blocks to get to the bus pick up. As we waited on our guide to get everyone together and start walking my curious dad made his way across the street to this used book store and met one interesting store owner. She preceded to tell him how she finds the books and what to see in the town. I thought it made for a good snap shot of the some of the culture that was in this crazy city.

Aww precious moments!! This was us on the bus before we left for our tour of the city. My parents have got to be the best parents in the world. With us having Bryan lose his job we were strapped for cash on the trip and they were so awesome to help with the mu la and made sure that we enjoyed the trip and was not worried about anything. I could not ask for a better pair of kind caring considerate people for parents. They have done so much for my sister, me and even my hubby that adores them as well.

One of the first stops on this city tour was one of the world famous cemeteries. These are fascinating in that I had no clue how everything even worked. This tombs are above the ground because New Orleans is actually on swamp land. If they bury people below the ground the moisture makes it impossible for decomposing and it is too soft to even seal a casket. They buy these tombs for families. It is not based on single grave sites and how it works is once you die they place you in your tomb and since it gets so hot during the summer the tomb turns into a oven and cooks your body until it is completely cremated. Then they take your remains years later and place it in some cloth, tie it, and drop you down a deep hole that is dug when you first get the tomb built. I had no clue and that was pretty cool.

Yes we were there during Mardi Gras. Not the crazy last weekend that is there but we definitely saw our share of boobies. If people think Las Vegas strip is bad they need to walk down Bourbon street. It is a lot worse because there are no stars to block certain parts if you know what I mean. All the houses and stores all had flags, beads, and decorations to celebrate the Mardi Gras. It was really cool to see all these old style homes that are crazy huge have all these decorations of green, yellow and purple.

This was a really cool tomb that we saw on the tour. It was just one of the beautifully detailed tombs that belonged to a certain family. Obviously the bigger the tomb the more money the family has.

This tomb was specially made by the Catholic church just for the priests in the surrounding areas. It said on the top "Once a priest, always a priest." If you were a priest in the area that they built the tomb you had to be buried here no questions asked and the church would pay for everything as well.

A little Kodak moment at the cemetery as we made our way around to admire the tombs. Don't you just love how he turns his head when he is trying to be cute. Although he really does not need to try.

This tomb was quite interesting. This man who is in the statue started a religion and any followers that wanted to he had a tomb built to be buried in. But you had to be a follower to be using this tomb. At first when these cemeteries started you could only be buried there if you were catholic because the catholic church owned all the land and only recently in the past ten years have non-catholic members been able to be buried here. We drove past the millionaire tombs and there were probably 6 times the size of these tombs that this big one probably ran about $150,000. We were unable to go to the fancy cemetery because you have to have a pass just to get on the grounds. CRAZY!!

A lot of tombs had beautiful angel statues and Jesus statues on top and they were so detailed and exquisite.

After driving around town and seeing all the New Orlean sites we dropped off the parents to go do their bar tour while we jumped on another bus for a long ride to the plantations that were about 45-60 minutes drive outside of town. Our bus driver was so flippin' amazing. I am not kidding when I say that she talked the entire way there and the entire way back with fact after fact. She was funny and informative and answered questions and was the best tour guide we had the whole trip. If there is one thing I will recommend on this trip it was the plantation tour. It was so cool. The drive there was through a lot of swamp like areas and open fields with massive trees. These trees are actually the state tree and is called a great Louisiana oak. The branches of these trees reach out and fall towards the ground. Then they come right back up through the ground and continue to grow out. They are amazing trees with such history in all of them. The plantation that we went to see was Oak Alley Plantation. It was originally owned by a french man who yearned for the country but had a wife that loved the social scene. So he bought the plantation from a poor farmer and made it a home for entertaining. He and his wife lived there for many years raising children. They were the aristocrat that is a french person letting his sons raise there horses through the main hall from one end of the house to the other. Once the family left right around the civil war when many of the slaves were freed and the family lost many of its land and some passed away the house sat deserted for many years and actually turned in to quite a dive. Cows even broke in and for years would wonder through the house destroying the original floors and many other things. Then a man bought it and the current owner is his daughter who devoted their lives into turning it into a historical site.

This was taken from the top balcony. We took a complete tour of the house and it was amazing. The old time air conditioning that they would use would be to open the doors that surrounded the house and let all the air blow through. Behind Bryan is a view of why they call it Oak Alley. The front of the main house is lined with great Louisiana oaks that were actually planted by the original owner of the poor farmer way back hundreds of years.

The plantation tour guides all had these cool southern bell type dresses. They all also had that thick southern accent. Gotta love it. Did I mention the humidity was wonderful!

This is Brittney with Bryan's awesome aunt Roxie! Bryan's aunts and uncle are probably the neatest people I have ever met. His other aunt Suzie is the travel agent that made this whole trip even possible and they have taken Bryan and I under their wings. They are so wonderful and due to some situations that Bryan and are in these people have been there for us through it all. I love these people so much and just adore them.

Welcome to Oak Alley plantation. Here is a photo from the front view of the main house.

This was really sad to see. This promenade style main house and plantation had been run down for years and no one could afford to fix it up at all. It was beautiful and so sad to see that something this historic would go down hill. I loved the main house. How a plantation is set up is that you have the main house and then usually the slave quarters right behind the house. You would have the stables further back and blacksmith on the grounds as well. There was so many things that would make up a plantation and were I did not agree with who they used for help and how they used them, but I still love the mystery and style and culture that these plantations would have. Just to imagine what it would be like to be on one when it was in working order would be amazing.

A little bit of craziness on Bourbon street. Mom had a man who was obsessed with her hair, dad and mom enjoyed a grenade drink, we shopped the little shops, enjoyed the "culture" that followed, walked in a few bars and danced, and just had some of the best seafood ever!! So fresh and tasty. The lifestyle on Bourbon is a little different from that of Utah. A lot of sex and drinking are laced into the street and we had a fun time seeing what people were willing to do for some beads.

Well on the following Sunday we made our way to the dock and boarded the ship the Norwegian Spirit. This was our first time on this cruise line and it was a lot of fun. The food was good but not the best, the price was very good, and the service was okay. All in all we give the cruise line a 8 out of 10. Being that we have only been on two cruise lines I am afraid the Princess still has our number one vote! These are some of the little towel folded creations that our steward left for us. Aren't they cute? We just had an inside cabin this time. We could only afford those but my parents enjoyed their balcony and had a blast for their first cruise.

I think the elephant had to be my personal favorite.

Here are my parents again just taking a pose in front of our ship. We were ported in Guatemala here.

Here's our ship. The Norwegian Spirit docked in Mexico!

Here we are in Costa Maya, Mexico. Here we enjoyed an ATV ride to the beach, which included a nice tropical down pour, then some annoying shopping (I have never been so annoyed when looking at souvenirs than in this place), a picture with a monkey (both my parents and Bryan and I took a picture with a monkey, as soon as I figure how to scan pictures to my computer I will post), and struck a pose with this little mayan figure.

Me padre in front of the ship. Mom doing her usual not in the picture or the birdie finger.

Here is one of us on our drive. It is hard to take pictures behind you on a an ATV when your driving and you have a manual adjustable lense on your camera. Thought I did pretty good though. That is Bryan on his ATV. He sure loved this. He loves four-wheeling and the scenery was so beautiful as we drove along the shore line to our beach.

Here are my parents chillin' on the beach at our umbrella table. We met a cool couple on the beach and had fun joking and relaxing. As part of the tour we actually were given some nachos, soda, and water. We had a lot of fun just relaxing and enjoying the sun. Yes we all got burnt that day because the mom thought I was bringing the sun block and I thought she was bringing the sun block so we had none. We got absolutely soaked by the rain and dad ruined his camera because he could not get his camera in a dry place in time. We all followed on another on our own ATV through a small fishing town and through the country to this beach.

This was our beach! Beautiful!

When we first got to the beach we climbed some mayan ruins to see the land from the top and there is a reason that me and dad are still near the bottom and mom and Bryan are at the top. They were some steep mother f***** stairs!

Strike a smile sexy!

Bryan on his favorite toy!

Not sure on the peace sign but that is dad on the four wheeler in front of me and mom in front of him.

This was the small fishing town we drove through. It had been hit by a hurricane two years before and things were still being rebuilt.

These were the waterfalls that we hiked to in Guatemala. We had the cutest little tour guide that told about all the trees and local wildlife as we hiked a mountain to these waterfalls. The water was so clear and crisp but there was no way we were about to drink the water. Unfortunately while we were on the ship we did have an outbreak of some bug that gave a lot of the passengars and crew members terrible diarhea and vomitting. It was not fun.

Me and my madre at the waterfalls.

Mom and dad at the waterfalls.

Me and dad at the waterfalls.

This is Bryan's aunt and uncle that came on the trip as well. They are amazing people and well and were a lot of fun to spend more time with.

Suzie would not pose for a picture so I snapped one of her anyway. This is the one that made the whole cruise possible! She is such a wonderful aunt and we absolutely adore her.

Me and mom at the lower falls. Did I mention that my hubby in Guatemala did not want to go on the city tour bus with us? Oh yes he was back at the ship.... eating..... we were not really surprised he wanted to stay and .... eat even more. I think he ate most of the food on the ship actually. So he did not get to see the Guatemala culture which was so different from what we are used to.

Dad and sexy red at the lower falls of the waterfalls.

This is the Guatemala tree, I don't remember the name of it but it sure was huge.

This is Lori. She is one of Bryan's aunts and uncle friends that cruises with them quite frequently. She is such a nice lady and we really enjoyed getting to know her and making a new friend.

Can anyone say pineapple? On our bus tour that we took our bus driver stopped and bought a pineapple slice for everyone on the bus. The pineapple only cost $0.50. Yep that is right only 50 cents for a pineapple. They are so abundant there and ripe that they are so good. It was the best pineappple I had ever had. It was sweet and not sour. It was wonderful.

This is Bryan's uncle, Lee. He is a great one. We had fun walking some of Bourbon street with him and had a great time talking and walking and just plain enjoying our time with him. He has a wonderful sense of humor and is very funny!

Just had to throw another one in of B. He is just too cute to leave out for too long.

Believe it or not but while on our bus tour of Guatemala, we drove past a home there that had monkeys as pets. Yes monkeys! They were so cute and they had two little monkeys and pets.

This is a story that I could not pass up. Those are live chickens in those netted baskets and well they are sold live or they will cut off the head there for you to take home and cook. For those of you who know my dad, he is a vegetarian. He does not eat chicken even. He was ready to jump from the bus and free all the chickens and we had to hold him back so he wouldn't. The culture in all of these countries were so different. Poverty is quite dominant and you are lucky to own a car. Many people actually travel by scooter or motorcycle. The streets are quite dirty and the trash invades the wilderness. Many people actually do their laundry in rivers and live off of what they can find in the wilderness and jungle. It makes you really appreciate all that you have when you see what they don't and will never have. Every horse we saw was skin and bones and there were so many stray dogs that looked like they were ready to die they were so skinny and looked like they had had nothing to eat in days. It was really sad to see that part of this world.

The Tahji Ma Hal of tombs

Smilin' on our bus tour of Guatemala

Mom and dad on the bus tour of Guatemala. Bryan was still eating at the ship.

Now onto the Belize pictures. We stopped off in Belize City, Belize where we got a bus and traveled 45 mintues to a eco friendly park dedicated to preserving the wilderness that was there and it was called Bacab. It was really cool. They have this entire park of many acres dedicated to preserving what jungle they have there. This is where we rode horses through the jungle, hung out by a gorgeous pool, slept in hammocks and you can see above Bryan snoozin' in one, had some interesting eats, and learned more about the Belize culture. When we first arrived we were led to the horses where they had us mount and follow the leader. We saw an alligator in the small creak beside the trail, got nice and muddy walking through the jungle, my horse Bandit tried many times to run me into a tree, and then made our way back to where the stables were. We then got to eat some beans, rice, chicken that was pretty spicy, and we all tried our first taste of fried plantanes. They are so much sweeter than a regular banana and was very interesting to try. Then we all sat by the pool for about an hour then found these cool hammocks that I thought I was going to break the beam that it was on and slept until it was time to head back to the ship. The ride back was quite miserable though. Our bus was packed and the air conditioning was out completely. For fourty-five minutes we all sweat and cooked in this bus on the way back. It was alot of fun riding through the jungle though. Something we will not forget. "Ya better Belize it."

Here is Bryan and I chillin' by the pool.

Why so serious....?

Bryan on his horse. Did mention these horses were really skinny compared to the animals that we have at home? You could see their ribs and hip bones. Bryan just about out stood his horse though. It was quite amuzing to see such a tall guy on such a short horse. He still looks good no matter what.

We need to alert the media. Dad is on a horse. The very thing that he despises.

Mom was in front, dad and I a few more behind and for some reason Bryan stayed in the back of the line. None of us could really hear the guide except mom.

Mom just always looks good on horses or no matter what for that matter. She makes it look so easy.

Me and Bryan looked for about 45 minutes to find customs to have our passports stamped. They were upstairs in a building and everyone kept sending us to so many different buildings. But we got our passports stamped in each of the ports which was fun.

Now onto Cozumel, Mexico. We actually spent our entire stay in Playa del Carmen at the Mayan park Xcaret. It was so much fun. We floated down an underground river that was lined with tall stone walls and small mayan artifacts. We even got a picture with a man dressed as a Mayan in a lepard paint that covered his whole body. As before if I can ever scan photos I will scan it in for everyone's enjoyment. We then went and snorkeled on a reef that had a lot of fish just in a small cove where the park met the ocean. This was Bryan's first time snorkeling and he had a blast and did not want to get out of the water. Which is rare he does not really like swimming or the water for that matter. We then walked through the park that all these amazing animals such as sea turtles that were HUGE!! They were so big. Since we swam the river went straight to snorkeling and then walked back through the park I did not have my camera and could not get any pictures. This park is so big that in a day we could not do it all. We missed probably about half of it. These turtles though were the size of a dinner table. I did not want to be in the water and see one of these coming at me even though they would probably never hurt me. We saw sharks, moneterays, all sorts of fishes, monkeys, and even manatees, the cow of the ocean. They are so cool and are an endangered species as it is. We had a little spat at first when I asked Bryan to grab my swim suit and make sure that he had both the top and bottom and well, he left my bottoms so my dad gave me his trunks and wore his shorts instead. Gotta love it right. We then wondered the park watching all the animals and different artifacts that we see. It was hard though. We did not make it to the dolphins, the ruins, and even more. I highly recommend anyone to go there if they are going to be in the vacinity. We then took our bus back to the dock well just like in New Orleans we could not just pull straight up to the dock we had to park blocks away. Well it started to down pour as we all got off of the bus. I mean the kind of rain that just gets into your bones it is so soaking. We ran through streets that had turned to rivers, ran under ceilings that were turning into waterfalls and jumped over children to barely make it back to our ferry in time we were almost left because one couple went back to the ship early and did not tell the bus driver so we waited for them. We had fun running through the rain though and really enjoyed the adventure.

There were so many of these birds everywhere in the park and they were so beautiful.

This is George or at least that is what I named him. He decided to strike a pose just at the right time and it sure made for a good picture.

Us walking through the park, chatting, and just having a really fun relaxing time.

These lizards were on everything and were huge and all over the park.

My absolute favorite animal of all that we saw, the manatee. They are so cool to watch.

Well after our final day at sea we ported on the following Sunday back in New Orleans. My parents took the next flight out back to Utah because mom had to be to a meeting the next day. Bryan and I stayed another day at the Hilton in a really nice room right on the same floor with our group. We watched the super bowel in the concierge room like thing that served hot wings, chips, and drinks. It was alot of fun. We then got up the next morning and rode the trolley through the nice homes area and rode it back to eat lunch at this cool little restaurant. We both tried alligator for the first time and it may taste like chicken but the texture is a little more chewy. We then made our way to the airport for a nice long flight home to our two dogs and cat that missed us madly. It was really hard to come back home but we were glad to after suck a wonderful trip. We could not ask for better family and friends to go on this trip with and we really had the time of a life and will remember it forever.