Towel Animals?

Coming back to our cabin every night always held a small surprise...what animal would be on our bed? Our crafty room steward created a new animal every night - with towels! We had a bunny, and elephant, turtle, monkey.....there is even a class at the end to teach you how to make them!

Turtle

Elephant

Monkey

The dinner table....

Jason had meticulously planned every detail of our trip and after talking with some friends that are cruise enthusiasts, they recommended being seated at a big table at the early seating. Because you eat with the same people every night a big table gives you the opportunity to meet people from all over the world. Well, as Deaton luck would have it, we got a small table at the late seating. After really looking around the room and realizing the median age was about 60, we were becoming discouraged.

Then, walked in Julie and Chris. Newlyweds from Virginia. Our age, our interests, our kind of people! They had just been married two days before and were absolutely adorable. They had a really great love story, one that every girl just loves to hear. You know, the one where they look across the room and BAM! Kind of like that. In any case, Jason and I were excited to see that there were some people our age. We chatted until late into the night - easy to do when dinner is at 8:30!

Cruises are all about one thing - food. And a lot of it. For those of us - like myself - who love to eat and have a hard time turning away food it is a miserable place to be :) There is always a buffet open somewhere and you always have access to just about anything you want. I was worried about this. As I mentioned, I really like food. But, amazingly enough it was not nearly tempting as I thought it would be. But, dinner was a new experience. It is nothing less than gluttony. All you do is eat. And eat. And eat. Want 2 lobsters? No problem! How about 4? Sure thing, coming right up. And, that's how every dinner we had went once we met Chris and Julie Matthews. I've never seen such skinny people devour that much! Chris and Jason routinely had 4 servings of shrimp cocktails every night...so much so that the wait staff had them waiting for us when we got to the table. There were usually at least two entrees eaten at every meal and no less than 6 desserts at any one time. After the first night's dinner we decided to make a pact that we would take the stairs everywhere we went or we were going to gain 100 pounds before we got home!

There is usually some kind of singing act from the wait staff...boy, do they love to sing! One of the servers behind us made a bunny rabbit out of a towel and used that as his prop. Here's just a taste of what we saw every night.

We ended up spending most of the trip with Chris and Julie. We had so much fun hanging out with them and getting to know them! The picture below is from the Captain's dinner. Lobster, Filet Mignon, great wine....yum!

Eastern Carribean Cruise 2009

I know, I'm sorry! We've been back for almost two months and I'm just getting around to posting these pictures....what a slacker!

In any case, Jason and I had a great time. It was the first vacation we've taken without kids since.....well it's been a long time. Jason did such a great job and planned this entire vacation entirely on his own. I had absolutely no idea where we were headed. All I knew is that I was to pack clothes for summer weather. This absolutely killed me! You all know how crazy I am with the control "thing" and it drove me nuts not knowing what we were doing or where we were going.

After a couple of hiccups with childcare arrangements (thanks to Jeff and Gina for staying with our kids!) we finally got on our way early on a Saturday morning. While we were on our way to the airport (thanks to Mike for getting up at 5 a.m. to take us!) Jason was telling Mike the story of our Hawaii trip and how he lost his ID in the car right before we were to check in at the airport to leave. Mike and I must have asked Jason at least 3 or 4 times whether or not he had his ID with him this time and Jason said, Yep, my wallet's in my pocket. We all got a good laugh remembering the story of how Jason totally freaked out at the airport and how the lady behind the counter felt so bad she let him through without it....needless to say we were in for another Jason forgetful moment when we tried to check our bags in curbside. Jason pulls out his wallet and....NO DRIVER'S LICENSE! My heart sunk because we only had a little over an hour until our flight was supposed to leave. And we live 45 minutes from the airport. Jason almost passed out when he realized he left his ID on the copy machine in our office the night before. Mike didn't say a word...he just said I'll be back and off he went to retrieve Jason's ID. Luckily, Jason thought to call our friend Keith at 6 a.m. and Keith offered to get the ID off the copier and drive like the wind to get to the airport in time (thanks Keith!!!). Keith was able to drop off Jason's ID about 20 minutes before our flight left.....it was absolutely nuts! I don't think Jason or I took a deep breath until we were on the plane. Here is the first pic from our trip:

By the time we settled in I had figured out that we were on our way to Ft. Lauderdale. By then Jason had told me we were going on a cruise, but I still didn't know where the cruise was headed to. We had a nice flight from Phoenix to Atlanta, and then from Atlanta to Ft. Lauderdale. We got in around 7 p.m. that night and headed down the the arts and shopping district a mile or so from our hotel. We walked around for a couple of hours and poked through the art galleries and other shops. We were both so excited for the cruise the next day that neither one of us slept very well that night. We took a shuttle to the cruise liner in Miami the following day. Jason finally told me that morning that we were heading to the eastern Carribean with stops in San Juan, St. Thomas and St. Maarten!

Pulling into the port is so amazing.....there were at least 5 cruise liners parked within about 20 feet of each other and these ships are just so massive it's hard to describe. We made our way through customs - after of course checking to make sure Jason had his ID with him - in about a half hour and from that moment on I did not have to worry about a thing! There is nothing like getting on this giant ship and having to do nothing but decide what swim suit I'm going to wear and what day I'll get a massage :) It was so amazing! We walked around the ship for an hour or so just to get acquainted with where everything was located before our luggage showed up at our room. Once our luggage arrived we started to watch the Cardinals in the playoff game while we got settled. Then it was off to the boat drill and then off we went! The pics below were taken from the balcony in our suite as we left the port of Miami.

After we left port Jason and I settled in some deck chairs to finish watching the Arizona Cardinals playoff game on the giant 50 ft. big screen! The entire city of Phoenix was going nuts for the game before we left and it was really interesting to see the dynamics of everyone on the ship. There were people everywhere with Steelers and Eagles gear on but only a few of us with Cardinals gear. We sat with a couple of Eagles fans and had a great time harassing each other about the game. Never in a million years did any of us predict our Cards would win the game and go on to play in the Super Bowl! I must admit, it was pretty nice hangin' out on the deck with drinks with little umbrellas watching the game....

Well, this only completes days 1 and 2. I'll post more later.

I know, I'm a slacker....

Hi all...I know, we're all tired of seeing Christmas pictures on my blog :)

Since Christmas Jason and I went to the Carribean, Dom started track, we went to Jack's birthday party, Jason and I went to the PCH BeachBall fundraising event and I helped give away a million bucks.....all in two months. I'll start posting the best pics from the cruise this afternoon. Stay tuned!