Beauty and the Beast

Brooke and I are truly a modern day version of Beauty and the Beast. There has never been any doubt in my mind that I married well above myself when I tied the knot with Brooke, and cruising with her I was reminded over and over again that she really is the sexiest woman/mother of two in the world. If you have been on a cruise you will understand what Im talking about here. When the boat docks at any particular port you have to go through 2 stations of airport-like security, both getting off and back on the boat. I understand the security getting on, but getting off? I guess they dont want their crew jumping ship. Each of these security checkpoints are manned by the same people for pretty much the entire cruise. After leaving and re-boarding the boat a few times the guys at the first checkpoint said "we remember you" and they would just waive us through, which was awesome because while everybody in line was digging through their bags pulling passports out of the secret hiding places, Brooke and I were strolling on by. I thought it was kind of strange, but then I reasoned that we were easily the tallest couple they were seeing so we were probably pretty recognizable. On the third day of the cruise we were docked in Key West getting ready to do the jet-ski tour and the lady that told me we could just pay cash for the tour failed to mention that we had to leave a Credit Card imprint incase we wrecked their SeaDoo. I had not been bringing my wallet off the boat with us so I had to run back and grab it. Brooke decided to stay at the SeaDoo place to save our spot on the tour so I was on my own. On my way back to the boat I was thinking, at least I won't have to stand in line because they know who I am. Not so. I ran up to the checkpoint, made eye contact with the fellas and they stopped me. They gave me the whole "sir, we need to see your documents" line. See, every time before when they had said "we recognize you" they were'nt talking to us, they were talking to Brooke. Although I was slightly annoyed with the security guys I was, at the same time very flattered at the fact that they had been checking out my wife. They would have had to have been blind not to.
My second story is far more creepy. There are several cruise photographers that just go around taking pictures of everybody and then the pictures are displayed so that if you like one you can buy it. Its pretty cool. The second night of the cruise was formal night. Its like an adult prom. They have several areas set up to take formal photos and Brooke and I decided to do ours in front of the Centrum. Its a modern looking statue in the main area of the ship. After we did our pictures we were walking to the dining room and one of the photographers chased us down and asked us to come do some pictures at his little booth, the white piano. He was very persistant so we went. He snapped some shots of both of us, then he said "Sir" and just waved his hand at me to get out of the way. So I stood there and watched this guy take pictures of my wife and realized that the shots of Brooke and I together were just a decoy. He had a plan all along. The next morning, the same photographer must have just been following us because we went to a pretty far off and secluded place to test out our snorkel gear and he just appeared. He reminded me of the sneaky butler on the movie 'Mr. Deeds', he was just all of the sudden there. He even had the accent. The same routine from the night before followed, only this time he took fewer courtesy pictures of both of us before giving me the "Sir" and get out of the way wave. For some reason the fact that we were on a cruise made this tolerable for me, sort of. None of the pictures of Brooke by herself made it to the display walls. I asked him why he did not display any of them and he just gave me an embarrassed smile and said "whats wrong, you don't like the other pictures?" Im pretty sure the creepy photographer kept a few for himself. On the last night of the cruise he found us and had us sign a waiver so he could use our pictures (I mean pictures of Brooke) for Royal Caribbean advertising. He had me sign too, it was the least he could.
So, like I said Beauty and the Beast.
I love you, Brooke.

These are some of my favorite pictures from the trip. Brooke would never put these up on her own.