After reading many beautiful and heartwarming articles written by mothers and daughters about Mother's Day, I wanted to share some of the photos and stories of animals I've seen around the world taking care of their young.  Some of you know that I've been involved in animal rescue for many years and have a soft spot in my heart for all animals.  I am always amazed at how protective and caring animals are of their offspring.

  I really wanted to write a post in honor of all mothers and especially those that are often overlooked on Mother's Day each year.  If you have pets you are a mother they could not survive without you!  I wrote a similar post about animal mothers and their offspring for Mother's Day a couple of years ago.  One of my readers was very grateful that I had posted it.  Sadly not humans have a mother at all or one that they are close to. 

My husband and I have also taken in several stray pregnant cats.  We found homes for all of the babies and mothers including the seven orange ones in the second photo down.  We actually kept the mothers - Princess (the black cat) and Peaches (orange cat) for ourselves. 

The monkeys that I saw at the Monkey Forest in Ubud, Bali we're so fun to watch.  The babies were so cute and well taken care of by their mothers.   I thought this mother was showing tremendous patience with her little one.
Here is a mother monkey feeding her baby what appears to be some coconut:
I saw many elephant mothers with their babies in the Serengeti National Park while in Tanzania:

My cruise on the Norwegian Star was my sixth cruise in the past three years.  This was my first cruise with Norwegian Cruise lines.   I had previously cruised with Holland America three times and Royal Caribbean two times.  I was pleasantly surprised with Norwegian as a company and the Norwegian Star cruise ship which has been renovated recently.  I thought the entertainment was excellent, the food was good, and there was a big variety of excursions offered at the ports we stopped at and the prices were reasonable.  I think this is a great Cruise line for families with children which I will discuss later on.

I decided on a short excursion during our last stop in Cozumel Mexico while on the the seven day Caribbean cruise I was on aboard the Norwegian Star.  I chose to do an easy shore side snorkel adventure because I am not an experienced snorkeler.  This excursion only cost $35 for an adults and $25 for children 13 and under.  It only lasted two hours which was fine because I wanted to explore Cozumel a little bit and buy some last minute souvenirs. 

I realize the truck that was "stranded" on the beach has nothing to do with snorkeling, but I thought it was quite picturesque and interesting.  I've shown it to people since I arrived home and I think it's their favorite photo of my cruise.  It is a 1932 Ford.  I have no idea if it still runs are not!

One of the main reasons I did not want a long excursion in Cozumel was because I was reading a book that I had borrowed from the ship's library and still had 250 pages left to read.  I included a picture of the book below as I thought it was excellent.  This was the first novel I have read by Nora Roberts that I enjoyed.