View the Vacation Pictures here.

Cathie and I are back from vacation after having a great week. Not sure that anyone cares, but I'll document it here for my own records:

We left bright and early on Friday morning and our friend Marge helped make sure Cathie and I were able to sit together up in first class on the way down. Cathie's suitcase weighed in at a hefty 65lbs. We cabbed it over to our hotel, which was a beautiful resort right on the ocean, the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort and Spa. As nice as the hotel was, they nickel and dime you to death on everything over and above the room. When we got in, we called the kids and Emily told us that no one had shown up to watch her and that her big sister Madeline was babysitting her. We headed out that night to the Las Olas strip in Ft. Lauderdale, which is a great part of town filled with lots of great shops and resturants. We then headed over to the beach and checked out some of the bars and listened to some pheomenal bands.

We hung out on the beach the next morning. They had a million things you could do there, including a 'Weenie Ride', which it turns out is being pulled on a large inflatable thing in the water. We got to the cruise ship port, and there were people literally every 10 feet greeting us and pointing us to the next person 10 feet away, who also greeted us. As soon as we got on board we were greeted with Champange and began wandering around the ship. Our rooms were beautiful. Our room was were Ritz Carlton quality (check it out here), everything was beautiful. The bathroom was huge, the balcony was huge. We were greeted by a number bottle of champange on ice along with two liters of alcohol of our choosing, along with a fully stocked fridge, replinished daily. The funniest part of the day was the lifeboat musteirng, where we all had to put our life jackets on in the lounge and sit there listening to how to jump off the boat, get into life boats, etc. We were greeted that evening by a huge reception, with waiters bringing fresh rum punches every time our glass got half full.

We discovered the next morning how good room service can be. The night before, I'd filled out my room service card and selected anything that sounded remotely good. That morning we were greeted with a knock and a waiter wheeling a cart full of 15 different covered plates. We gorged ourself on the best of everything. We had a business meeting in the morning, which, for tax purposes, is basically a 2 hour recognition event for awards and what not. Cathie and I headed into Key West and did the standard tourist stuff: Frozen Choclate Covered Key Lime Pie, Picture at the southern-most-point, Hit the standard bars: Hog's Breath, Captain Tony's and Sloppy Joe's. After lunch, we took a chartered Catamaran out to go snorkeling in the reef. It was beautiful, just like a Jacque Cousteau episode. We saw millions of beautiful fish, including barracuda and shark. I got talking to the Captain of the boat, who was a 26 year old guy who'd lived down in Key West for four years after graduating from College in Cleveland and never left. His parents have pretty much given up on him doing anything meaningful, but he felt pretty content doing what he did, captaining a boat year round, doing what he loves. We went back, took a nap and got ready for dinner. The only downside for the whole ship was the dress code. My idea of relaxing is not getting dressed up. After 6, you had to have slacks and a collared shirt or sports coat. Sitting at dinner, hanging out with a couple of friends of ours, sipping wine and watching the sunset, I had this great feeling of contentment. We finished the night at the casino, Cathie won $100 at the slot machines and I lost hard at the blackjack and craps tables.

We started the next day off with another huge breakfast in bed and had a great day at sea. We hung out at the pool, I played ping-pong, hung out in the pool and enjoyed a few drinks. We had our big gala event that night where we got all dressed up, took pictures, had a big dinner and called it an early night, I think.

The next day we hit the Bahamas and I had a blast a the Straw Market, a collection of hundreds of native vendors selling crap. I loved the negotiation part of things, getting them down as cheap as possible. I bought a couple of fake rolexes, a necklace and some stuff for the kids. We went over to a bar, Senor Frog's, for drinks where we ran into a bunch of people from the cruise (as if we weren't getting enough booze on the cruise ship). I got roped into a beer drinking content, which turned into a monkey imitation contest, which I proudly won. One of my co-workers was kind enough to take video of the event and show it around at a cocktail reception that night to a number of our Senior VP's. We finished the evening off with another big dinner and after losing again the blackjack table, we called it an early night. We had to have our suitcases packed and ready to go at 11:00 that night, so we packed and went to bed.

The next day, we flew home. Pretty uneventful. We got home about the same that my brother Jon and Emily did. In good uncle fashion, he had taken Emily to the Detroit Zoo and Build-a-Bear.

Special thanks to Diana Kohne, Kathy Hannigan, Kasey Harmon, Mom and Dad Lebbon, Susan Mayes and Jon Kurt for all of their help with the kids while we were out of town! The kids had a blast with all of you and we couldn't have gone without you!