Well, I’m writing this post as a shameless plug for my husband. He has been challenged at work to sell out a huge amount of inventory over at the cemetery…so morbid, I know! But, that being said, he’s asked me to share this special that they’ve got going on with everyone that I know…and so here it is. During the month of July, Brad’s cemetery is offering two burial plots for the price of one.
Please take a moment to look and see if you or ANYONE you know might be interested. These spaces are fully transferable to any SCI location in the US (locations in every state), so even if you bought the spaces from Brad here in Abilene you could transfer them to another city if you move (or don’t live here currently). You can transfer as many times as you need throughout your lifetime. Oh, and it’s for THIS MONTH ONLY!
So, that’s the extent of my knowledge, for more info, call Brad at the number below! For a full size version of the flyer, click here.
Ok, so apparently I have a thing with taking pictures of the backs of people…
Here is Brad and Brian Stark as Brad helps carry Colin out to their car after church on Sunday. I actually caught the front of Brad here!
"Yeah, I'm a natural at carrying babies!"
And then to go along with my back-of-people theme, the Starks and Brad again as we are leaving church.
Pictures of the front of people are so over-rated!
Now, on to some pet moments!
First, this is a video of my parents’ bird from a few months ago. Dakota (so named because my brother actually found her at the car shop where he works – and he drives a Dodge Dakota) was wanting to build a nest to lay her eggs…so I put some paper in there for her while I was cleaning her cage…she immediately got to work on tearing strips apart to work on her nest! I had never actually seen her do this – I love how she tucks the pieces away under her wings!
Next, last night I was getting ready to let the dog out, when I saw this sight in my kitchen! Noah is notorious for crawling into bags…and apparently we forgot to zip this one closed the other night.
"I found your gym bag"
"It's very comfy"
"Don't judge me!"
And lastly…on Sunday night we decided to give Titus a bath! He always, of course, has to do the little shake-down dance that all dogs do after being in the water…we just love the sound it makes on the hardwood floor (does that make us cruel?), lol! Now you can enjoy it as well…
As you might have already seen on Christi’s blog, her and I participated in the Mayor’s Hike this morning! I had seen a flyer for the walk at the gym the other day, and figured we’d give it a shot. The walk was at the Abilene State Park, which I had never been to before…which turned out to make sense, since the park is actually about 20 minutes outside of Abilene!
Here are my pics (which pretty much similar to Christi’s but that’s ok! LOL!):
Our view of "beautiful" Lake Abilene
The Mayor leads us on our way!
Titus really had fun, and enjoyed seeing all the other dogs (he told me all of this himself!)
A lovely view of the Abilene red dirt...
...and the red lake!
Christi walking...unfortunately by this time I was too lazy to run ahead to take her picture...
It was pretty fun – but definitely HOT! I was surprised when they said that the walk last year was at 2pm! Since getting home Titus and I have been recovering…he’s still at it:
That’s how long I took a break from the blog-o-verse after my insane vacation posts…needless to say I didn’t have anything all that exciting going on after the cruise!
This last weekend though, Brad and I met up with his mom and her husband, Lonnie, and nephew Cooper in Granbury to go to the wedding of a good friend! Brad’s best friend’s litter sister Anna was getting married, which totally made the rest of our old “gang” feel very old indeed! It was so great to see so many old friends…I just wish I would have gotten more pictures!
Speaking of pics…
Waiting for the wedding to start
Anna and Chris - with Ben officiating!
Officially Married!
It really was a beautiful ceremony, and a short one! Oh and it, as well as my other friend John’s wedding – which was a week earlier, was one of the first weddings we had been to that we didn’t have to work! Definitely made it much more relaxed! So, we got to hang out with old friends at the reception.
Brad taking a picture of Dara and Ben
The "Boys"
Brad with his Mom
Brad with Jayden, Mark and Angela's baby boy!
Angela and Jayden
I snapped this pic while waiting in line for food – it’s Dara’s little girl, Aidan, on the left, and Bethany’s little girl, Elliot, on the right.
"Let's cut a Rug!"
The Obligatory Self-Held Camera Shot
We finally made out way over to the bride and groom!
Brad and the beautiful bride!
And of course Brad had to take Chris aside and offer some advice from and old married man:
"Don't ever ask her to pull your finger..."
After the wedding, we heading to my parents’ house that Sunday for Father’s Day – we only got to see them for a few hours, but I was happy to see them!
Reading the Cards!
A Tie-Tack from my brother
Brad found this present for my dad while he was away in Houston earlier this month…apparently there is such a thing as a funeral museum…which is slightly weird but hey, what can you do?
My dad got a kick out of it!
So that’s my update, FINALLY! I need to start taking more random pictures so I have something to write about!
Hope all is well with my bloggy friends…now on to stalking and catching up with you!
Today I’m in a great mood and it’s for no particular reason, so I thought I would share it with you guys!
This weekend is gonna be kinda laid back, we’re going to a friend’s wedding, and then just gonna take it easy the rest of the time. In fact, we have ANOTHER wedding to go to next weekend – it’s definitely that time of year!
Nothing much new on the “home front,” Brad is working a lot and really enjoying it, and we’ve both decided that being fat just isn’t all that fun, so we’re doing a lot of walking in the evenings and trying to watch our food intake – downloading episodes of the Biggest Loser from iTunes definitely helps with the motivation!
Oh, and got to have lunch and catch up with old friends today – Brad’s old boss Joel from the campus center and his wife Ruth, who is amazing – she ran/walked 10 miles this morning, and was still alive at lunch today to tell the tale! Check out her blog here.
Anyway, so ends my short update, I’m about to head off into the bright world of “the weekend,” I hope you all have a great one!
Ok, so as I’m sure anyone who has been reading my blog would attest to, this vacation post has gone on long enough! Sorry for the slow updates, but I’m just suspensful that way.
Anywho, so there isn’t really much to say about the voyage home – it was pretty much like the voyage there…lots of water and boat things to do! So…on to the pics!
So, that Thursday morning, Brad woke up feeling a bit under the weather…which we’ll get to later…so he ordered some hot chocolate to the room!
Morning Cocoa...
Here are a few pics from us hanging out after breakfast that morning:
The Mens
More Mens
Jeff, Me, Dad
Me and the Huz
A view of my goofy dad, Brad and Jeff from the bottom floor of the atrium area.
Helloooo!
So…that day’s activity for the boys consisted of participating in a 3-card poker tournament…my aunt was just gonna relax, so me and mom went exploring. I wanted to take her to all the parts of the ship that she hadn’t seen yet.
I'm on the Sun Deck!
The bow of the ship - interestingly enough no one is allowed on that little deck...I guess there's been too many "king of the world" incidents
So, after walking around a bit, we wanted to go find the guys…we made our way to the casino, but they weren’t there. I ended up asking a guy about the tournament, and he told me that they were about to start the final round in about 30 minutes. Then he pointed to a sign that showed who the finalists were…imagine my surprise!
Is that MY BRAD at the top??
We spent the next 30 minutes looking for the guys, but it turns out they were looking for us at that same time. Then we got distracted by shopping for a few minutes.
When we made our way back to the casino, Brad was up at the table playing, with Jeff, Dad and my Uncle Jesse all behind him cheering him on. Mom and I stayed back behind, I didn’t want to jinx Brad! So, Jeff kind of gave me a few play by plays to keep me updated…then, suddenly, Brad WON!!! Yay!
I get $500 and this little trophy!
Lol, can you tell he was proud of himself!?
Of course we had to go have a celebratory cigar (Remember I said he woke up feeling kinda sickly? Yeah, cigars and sore throats aren’t friends, kids, remember that!)
I'm a player, Baby!
That night there turned out to be a 2nd Captain’s dinner – I guess they had to think of SOMETHING extra to do on those two additional nights!
Handsome Moss-Men
My man looks good in a suit!
Jeff and Mom
Of course there was much merriment at dinner:
Let the dancing commence!
Mohammed...a little scary!
After dinner we all hung around to play one last round of bingo…which we had been having NO luck with….and we still had no luck! But as you can see, we went to bed shortly after that:
Is it time for bed yet?
And Thursday night’s towel monster…
Dinosaur!
You know, I’ll be honest at this point and say that I don’t really remember too much from that Friday. At this point everyone is starting to be ready to be home. Brad is feeling sicker, everyone’s packing, etc. We did go to the disembarking speech, where they tell you what procedures they’ll use to get everyone off the boat in an orderly manner. Then they brought some employees up to thank them for their great service!
Thank you, Carnival Peeps!
So, after much packing that afternoon, we got ready for our last fancy meal (we weren’t disembarking until 9am that Saturday morning). Some really nice people at a table near ours gave us a free bottle of campaign. Oh, and that was on Friday, May 8th, which was my parents’ actual anniversary!
Mohammed bringing us champaign...he looks like he's had some already!
Anniversary Cake!
Plus, Jeff, Brad and I had a surprise waiting for them in their room.
Where did THAT come from!?
Happy Anniversary!
From the Kids!
So, on to bed, and one last towel creation:
We Loved our Cruise!
Hehe, here is the LAST picture taken on the boat, while we all waiting in Mom and Dad’s room for our turn to disembark…don’t we look ready for it!?
(My aunt and uncle were in a disembarking group apart from us)
Ahh...tired but fullfilled!
The disembarking process was really easy! We were soon on the road to head home, which is probably the only un-enjoyable part of the trip. Brad at that point was feeling really bad, that morning my dad had woken up feeling kinda crummy too, and after about 30 minutes on the road I started feeling a tickle in my throat! So…the trip just seemed really LONG and we made a lot of stops. Luckily my mom and Jeff felt fine, so he drove us most of the way.
It was great to be home – especially the next day when we made it back to Abilene, but it was truly the best vacation I’ve ever been on, and I would go back in a heartbeat! I hope that we get to do another family trip like this one soon.
Thanks for bearing with me as I relieved my trip in an agonizingly slow way! I promise to have a “real life” update soon.
If you like a lot of pictures, you’ll like this post!
So, where was I…oh yes! That Wednesday, we had already arrived at Grand Cayman by the time we woke up that morning.
Not the most lovely view...
The cool thing about the Grand Cayman was that the ship was not able to dock right on land, so we had to take little boats called tender boats to take us from the ship to land and back again. It was really neat, not to mention a bit disconcerting to step off your ship and see it just floating there as you leave it behind…
Um...you'll be there when we come back, right?
Really - no leaving!
When we arrived there, we had no set plan for that morning. Jeff, Brad and I had to meet back at a certain place at 12:30 to head off for scuba, but for that morning, we just decided to walk around and explore. The Carnival guys had been hyping the shopping that was available at Grand Cayman…but unfortunately all the great “deals” were all for jewelry…don’t get me wrong, I like jewelry and everything, but I didn’t bring that type of money!
So, here are just a few pics from us walking around and exploring:
Proof that we were here!
Brad trying on an island hairdo
While we were there, this crazy shark jumped out from nowhere and tried to attack me!
Don't worry, I'll protect you!
Then my brother…
He's really light for a shark!
And of course my parents…he must have been a really strong shark to just hover around on his tail like that…I think those are the most dangerous, right!?
I think he's ticklish
Once we escaped with our lives…my dad and brother got a little distracted…
Do you need saving? One of us is single...
We went inside this Harley shop, but we were a little disappointed…there was only one motorcycle in there…the rest was just t-shirts and jackets (typical tourist-y stuff), the best part was that it connected to a little indoor shopping plaza, where we were able to get a few cheap souvenirs, and where Brad tried on his hairdo-hat (don’t worry, he didn’t buy it!).
We were here!
Also interesting to see was that there were I think 3 or 4 other Carnival ships there that day, it was like our own little fleet at the Grand Cayman.
It's a reunion!
Before seperating and heading for scuba, we decided to grab a bite to eat, and so we headed to Margaritaville. It was pretty fun, overpriced of course, but now I can say that I’ve had a (sip of a) margarita in margaritaville!
Right outside of the restaurant...I guess they're party birds??
My parents really liked it
Wastin away again in margaritaville...
Searching for my lost shaker of salt...(yes, I'm a nerd and took this picture!)
Peace out!
Ok, so after eating a bit, it was time for the three of us to go scuba. Now, don’t hate me here, but I did not take my camera! There was really nothing to take a picture of (since my camera doesn’t work under water!), but I do wish I had a shot of us in our gear.
But, just take my word for it – it was AMAZING! I really enjoyed it. We sat through about an hour of a lecture, and then went into a pool where we were all broken into groups of 4, with an instructor assigned to each group. Luckily the head guy was totally cool and saw that we were a group of three and decided to lead our group, since we seemed relaxed and groovy. After about 30 minutes in the pool, where they have you practice breathing under water, and properly weighing you down, then it’s off to the shore, were you dive right in! It was seriously one of the coolest things I think we’ve ever done – visibility under water there was about 60 feet, and the water was beautiful! My brother and Brad kinda stayed a bit near the top (for 2 different reason – Jeff had a bit of trouble adjusting to the breathing under water bit, and Brad’s ears were hurting past about 20 feet), but I stayed near the bottom the whole time. I’ve always loved the water – and especially the deep end of a pool (I’m a weirdo like that), so I was in pure bliss for about and hour or so – the cool instructor guy let us stay a bit longer too, cause he’s nifty like that.
So my many thanks to Moke (who’s name is actually Mike, but his niece apparently couldn’t say that, so he’s now known as Moke), and the Don Foster’s Dive Cayman!
Another reason I did not have my camera was that my mother’s camera ran out of battery power – so I lent her mine until she could go back for a charge. Here are a couple of pictures she took as she and dad went back to the ship:
The colorful dock area
Oh good, the ship's still here!
We got back, got showers, changed, and then headed up to my parents room to wave goodbye to the Grand Cayman, as well as our little mini-fleet.
Bye bye, Carnival buddies!
The closest thing I have to a sunset picture...
Squinty-Mom
So, of course by the time we were back and settled, we were starving! Luckily, as I mentioned before…it always seems like it’s time to eat on a cruise! My mom was looking forward to the dancing that night!
Dance for me!
So, as I said, our little waiter, Mohammed, was a pretty good dancer. I took this little video, of course now that I look at it, I didn’t catch very much of it, but hopefully it’s good for a laugh or two!
After dinner, Jeff, my Aunt, and my Uncle went to a “previous cruiser” reception, and Brad and I walked around a bit with my parents. The name of our dining room was the Wind Star, which was named for another ship, which they had a model of:
The Wind Star
They had another ship in the little library, but I can’t remember it’s name off the top of my head.
Mom and Unknown Boat
They also had a giant globe, which my dad really liked for some reason!
I think we're right...here...
Let's spin it real fast!
Me with the Unknown Ship
So…that’s pretty much our Grand Cayman experience!
Of course, I would never forget the last picture of the day:
A Sting-Ray!
Oh, and if you were so patient to stay til the end of this post, then you get a special treat! In my previous post I mentioned a certain embarrassing video of Brad dancing around while slightly inebriated…well for some reason (I say insanity!) he said that I could post that video, that he thinks people will find it funny – so, if you are interested in seeing my husband being a goober, click here.
Ok, prepare for my picture heavy post about Montego Bay!
That Tuesday morning, Brad, Jeff and I went up to my parents’ room to something we hadn’t seen in a few days – land!
Land, Ho!
Dad looking at land
Of course we weren’t actually going to reach the island until Noon, so we played out our morning routine of eating breakfast and getting ready. Around 11:30 we were all in my parents’ room again and spotted the pilot boat leading the ship into dock.
"Follow Me!"
Finally around Noon the boat docked…of course I guess after being on the ship for three days, everyone on board seemed to be a little ansy to get off! There was a huge crowd leading down to the 3rd deck waiting to disembark. So, we all went down to Brad, Jeff, and my shared rooms to wait out the craziness. My Aunt and Uncle were supposed to meet us in the crowd, but we got a bit separated in the process!
After the crowd disbursed a bit, we ventured down to the 3rd deck and off the ship. Once we were on land, it we noticed just how huge our ship was! While boarding at the very beginning of the cruise, you go across a ramp structure that takes you up near the top of the ship, so we never had really gotten a sense of how tall it was…but now we could see it!
Our Floating Hotel...
Like I said in my previous post, we had signed up for a beach party. So we followed the crowd to the “find your excursion group” area…where local excursion operators hold up signs for you to find them. We found ours with no problem, and then just kinda hung our for 15 minutes or so while we waiting for other people on the boat to get there.
My mother's first picture in a foriegn country...with weird Brad in the background...
Once everyone who was going got there, and we reunited with my Aunt and Uncle, we boarded the bus to go to the Irie Mon beach party! I think they said that Irie means “Alright!”
My brother, sporting his beautiful excursion braclet
I had to redirect my dad so I could get both of them in this picture
The trip to the beach didn’t take more than 15 minutes or so, where our tour guide told us about what all would be there – pulled chicken and pork, snorkeling, limbo lessons, as well as their open bar – featuring something called Rum Punch…which he said is so named because it will reach up and punch you when you least expect it!
I found a Jamaican Bobsled!
Once we got to the beach…well, it was gorgeous!
This picture doesn't even do it justice!
Perfect day for the beach...
Our little Jamaican bar...
I really wish I would have thought to take more pictures, but I spent probably 90% of our time there in the water. The lunch was fabulous, though they were definitely right about the punch! Lol, I could feel myself getting a bit tipsy by the time we ate, so I stopped drinking pretty much after that, but Brad kinda charged on ahead! We hung out in the water a lot – but unfortunately Brad lost his wedding ring! It’s ok to me – it wasn’t his original wedding ring, it was just one that he had found that fit him a bit better…so he got off the hook there! But of coure in my semi-sober state I told him to go fetch me some snorkel gear and I would find it for him! Lol, I never found it, but me, my brother and Brad really enjoyed the snorkeling – just a small taste of what we’d get to experience the next day with Scuba-ing!
So…of course time seemed to go by entirely too quickly! Before we knew it, it was time to board the bus to head back to the ship
After drying off and gathering stuff, I was able to take a couple more photos.
Brad and the bartender...apparently they are best friends now
I'm not drunk! Can I have some more punch please?
We all made it back to the bus safely – no one left behind! Of course everyone was a LOT more quiet by that time.
View of our ship from the bus
I was able to grab this pic of my parents as we were heading back to board the ship.
One of my favorite pics from the trip!
You can’t really tell from this picture, but as we were boarding the ship there was a little band group right by the steps to send us off…Brad starting dancing with them, which he doesn’t exactly remember doing…
Yeah Mon!
Of course we were back on the boat by 5:30…so the sobering up had to begin! We still had an evening to spend! So, after showers, water, and a fresh, dry set up of clothes, we headed back up to my parents’ room to see Jamaica off.
My brother, Brad and I were looking through the binoculars and saw this guy over on the land…they swear that he was talking to himself or something weird…so of course I had to capture that memory!
This strange little man makes his way to my blog...what next!?
So that night we headed off to dinner – this is where that dancing comes in. Every night once everyone has their entrees, the waiters do some sort of performance…they usually all start by singing while dancing up the isles between the tables…our waiter, Mohammed, is the one in the yellow hat:
My dad doesn't look as thrilled as the rest of us...
I think that night they did the funky cha cha or something…
I'm embarrased! Yeah right!
I ended up catching a bit more of the dancing – I’ll share more of that later!
So, pretty much after that we all crashed – lots of sun and a bit of alcohol will make you tired, don’t you know!?
That’s our day in Jamaica – I’ll leave you of course with the towel creation of the day – no guesswork here!
Elephant Towel!
Is it sad that I came pretty close to buying the book that shows you how to make these? Don't worry, I resisted!
Well after going over all the pics I wanted to post I figured I’d just show pics from our first two full days at sea in this post.
That first morning on the boat, we kind of established a bit of a daily routine. Brad, Jeff and I would go up to my parents’ room, and then we would grab my dad to go grab breakfast. My mom usually is a bit slow going in the morning (due to her arthritis it takes her awhile for her joints to kind of “warm up” and get her moving around, plus she just like to take her time putting on her makeup, etc )
After having hung out at the back of the boat the night before with my brother, we wanted to show Brad and Dad the view – and plus we just wanted see it in the daytime in general.
Have you ever seen water so blue?!
I took way too many pictures of the water - I'll just torture you with 2 of them
Of course we had to get a couple of photo ops!
Dad and "The Boys"
My brother though that this would be a cute pic - hehe, Brad's face makes me laugh here!
Of course it was so pretty outside, we thought we might hang out and relax for a few minutes – you know, to give mom a little more time to get ready!
Awwww...this is the life!
Brad's thinking about needing sunscreen here...
My dad just let it all hang out!
We spent some time walking around – just exploring the ship. Eventually we ended up in a bar of the ship that allowed smoking. The guys had already gone to find cigars and wanted to smoke them. Me, being the only non-smoker entertained myself with taking pictures!
Brad...getting all smelly! ><
All the smokers!
That night was the Captain’s reception and dinner.
My Uncle, Aunt, Mom, Dad, and Jeff
We went to dinner that night and then saw a show, but of course you’re really not allowed to take pics at the shows. So, we end day two with the Towel of the day…
Still not really sure...maybe a seal?
Day three was a lot of fun too. That day of course we went to my parents’ room first that morning and took a look out of the balcony.
Still water out there?
Yep...still just water!
That morning we all went and heard about all the shore excursions. Since we didn’t know where we were going until just a day before the cruise, we had no idea what there was to do! We had already signed up for shore excursions when we thought we were going to Mexico, so those had been refunded. After hearing about what all there was available, we decided that we would do the Irie Mon Beach Party in Montego Bay – this was something that the whole family could participate in, and we wanted to all stay together here since they kind of warned about going off on your own in Jamaica. For the Grand Cayman, we decided that we would all walk around the shops, and then Jeff, Brad and I would go scuba diving! I was so excited when they suggested it. I have always wanted to try it but I figured that Jeff and Brad wouldn’t go for it! I’ll have more about that later…
So after hearing about the excursions, we went down to sign up. The middle of the ship is really quite amazing to me – it’s got a huge open area that is about 7 decks or so high! We were on the bottom floor at the sign-up desk and I had to grab this shot of the skylight at the top.
So glad for beautiful weather!
After getting signed up, the guys practically ran to the casino to go and play, and the girls walked around doing a little shopping. That afternoon we found them out by the pool (I guess they had lost as much money as they had wanted? )
We are sun bathing beauties!
My Uncle Jesse was a little too worried about getting sun-burned, I think…
Sun is Bad!
So, of course we had to join them for awhile!
Ahh...sunglasses keep me from making weird-eyed faces!
After we were sufficiently sun-kissed, we all headed back to our rooms to shower and get ready for dinner – my brother had to do a few poses first though!
I want YOU to cruise with me!
Today's Drink Special is the Blue Margarita!
As we got ready to leave our room for dinner (which is the time when room turn-down service occurs, and towel creatures show up!), I decided to leave a towel creature for the staff (yes, this might have been due to blue margarita ingestion…):
My groovy "hi"
That night we just did the buffet for dinner, my mom was pretty beat after walking around and sun-bathing, so we just brought her something to eat back. Jeff was exhausted and SUN BURNED (he neglected the sunscreen), so he crashed, and so we all pretty much turned in early that night. We came back to our room and I was surprised with:
Surprise!
Brad had these beautiful flowers, champaign and chocolate covered strawberries waiting for me!
My little chocolate covered, tuxedo-clad strawberries!
Isn’t he a sweetie!?
Oh, and of course the towel creation of the day:
Pig-Dog-Rabbit thing!
Alrighty, that’s our first two days at sea in a nutshell, coming up next will be Montego Bay, Jamaica (and Brad’s adventures with Rum Punch… )
Let me start off by saying this: that was definitely the best vacation that I’ve ever taken! This had to have been the first vacation I can think of where not ONE thing went wrong the entire trip! Seriously! On every vacation I’ve been on before this one usually something goes wrong – from running late for a flight, to a plane being delayed, to getting rained out, to an argument…SOMETHING! But, seriously, I must say that cruising must be the way to go – and I would highly recommend Carnival to anyone!
Ok, on to the nitty-gritty and PICS! In my typical, drag-it-out fashion, I’ll break up the trip into several posts to make the fun last (or to torture you endlessly, your choice!)
We arrived to Fort Worth on Thursday night, the 30th of April (gosh that seems like yesterday!). My parents were so excited, which was so fun to watch. Let me insert here in case I haven’t mentioned it before, that my family has never been on a vacation with all of us before. Growing up there wasn’t really money around, so a “vacation” was maybe going to see family in Houston for a weekend, and it was never all of us – it was usually my dad, brother and me, and my mom would stay home. Or it was me and both my parents without my brother (who is 10 years older, so he was moved out by the time I was 8!). So, I was super excited to finally have ALL of us going together, and I could tell my folks were too. We had Brad for good measure, of course!
We had decided to drive down to Galveston that Friday morning, since we were supposed to board the ship on Saturday around noon and we didn’t feel like rushing around. The drive went great, after some fun packing adventures, and it seemed like we got there in no time! We stayed at a Motel 6 for that night, with my parents in one room, and Brad, Jeff and me in the other room. As soon as we got there, the boys decided that it was time to shed the jeans and break out the shorts and flip-flops:
It's Officially Summer!
After getting to Galveston, we were all pretty hungry, and my dad was eager to go down to the Sea Wall and see what was still around after Hurricane Ike hit Galveston last year. According to my parents, who had been to Galveston a few years back (and who apparently used to hang out there a lot in their younger days!), there was so much missing from the Sea Wall area…if you know the area, then you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say that everything on the sea-side of that street is just gone. We saw a few buildings that were still there with walls and roofs missing.
So we made it down and drove up the Sea Wall to take it all in, and we finally landed at Landry’s Seafood. As you might remember from my previous post, I’ve been watching Deadliest Catch, so I decided to be brave and try the Alaskian king crab on the menu. Lol, it was pretty good, although unfortunately I can’t say that I really tasted a difference between it and regular crab…I guess I just don’t have a refined enough seafood palate!
Anyway, here are my parents outside of Landry’s:
My Dad is Channeling Gilligan here...
And here is Brad, trying to “smile big” for me outside of Landry’s, with the ocean behind him!
What is the water stuff? It doesn't look quite like red Abilene dirt!
That evening after dinner we drove around Galveston, literally up one side of the island and down the other, just checking out Ike damage and seeing where the port was for the ship.
Just a sampling of the damage...
So, we went back to the hotel after that where the guys spent a considerable amount of time trying to break into the motel’s TV…it was actually kind of frustrating – the hotel had just remodeled and had these lovely tempting ports on the wall that led us to believe that you could hook up a laptop or a game system (which my brother had brought his Xbox 360!). But, we found out later that the ports had not “been programmed” with the TV’s for use yet. So…the guys spent more time than necessary trying to figure out this little puzzle. I was amused enough to post this picture on Twitter. That’s my brother, in case you can’t tell! (Oh and in case you are just really curious, they finally gave up and resigned to watching DVD’s on the laptop screen instead)
Hehe, so, enough of this landlubber crap! The next morning we met my Aunt and Uncle for breakfast, got our gear and headed for the port! I must say here I was worried that it would be much like trying to go through an airport – lugging luggage, and just a general headache. But, it was actually a very simple process! Within probably an hour of driving up to the pier, we were getting on to the boat and settled in. After making sure my parents knew where their room was, we went down to explore our rooms – Jeff and we had adjoining rooms, with a door in between, so we could open that up to make our little tiny baby rooms look bigger. My parents had a balcony room, which was really cool. Lol, it was kind of funny, cause the “kids” were on the bottom deck, my aunt and uncle were 2 decks above us, and my parents were I think 5 decks above us.
After the safety drill, in which the ship went ahead and took off, we finally met back up with my parents and set about exploring the ship. We were heading into some crazy winds those first few days, so everyone’s hair is looking a bit scary…(that’s my uncle in the background, btw).
"Is it going to be like this the whole time? I need more hairspray..."
Weird hair...
My brother spots all the satellites and radar equipment on top of the ship
My parents decided to get out of the wind and start unpacking, I thought this was a cute pic I caught while they were walking back:
Cute Parents!
Now, if any of you have taken a cruise, then you know that there is always ONE constant going on on the ship – it always seems like it’s time to EAT! Luckily I think I was pretty good…for the most part That night we had our first experience in the formal dining area (there’s a buffet available all day as well!). Our waiter’s name was Mohammed and he was so funny! What was amazing was that he memorized our names that first night – of course I’m horrible with names so I thought this surely was a PhD level skill! He really was a great guy, and a good dancer! (more on that later…)
May 8th was my parent’s 44th wedding anniversary, which was part of the reason of the cruise (can you say Christmas, Valentines, Anniversary, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc…) So, that first night Mohammed got a bunch of the waiters to come over and sing Happy Anniversary to them (which is just Happy Birthday with a small change in lyrics ) He told them that they had to kiss the whole time they were singing or they would start over. Hehe, photo op!
Happy 44 Years!
After dinner we were all getting pretty tired, so we headed back to our rooms and saw the first of many cute towel animals that the Carnival staff left for us each night:
I think it's a rabbit...maybe a dog?
That night Brad went to bed pretty early, I think he had just a tiny case of sea-sickness that first night…it did take a while to get used to the floor constantly moving beneath you! And my parents and aunt and uncle were pretty exhausted from all the unpacking and walking, so my brother and I just walked around and talked. We finally found a place and sat at the back of the boat and just had a good time talking and looking out at how dark it was! We did see another cruise ship, unfortuately this was the best pic I could grab:
Hellooo out there!
So that is cruise part one! Lol, I really don’t mean to drag it out so much, but I figure I want to chronicle everything in detail before I forget! Hopefully I’ll have part two up tomorrow.
I'm a New Media nerd living in West Texas. This old frontier is full of new experiences! I'm married to the most wonderful man on the world, and we're working on expanding our family (which is turning out to be a difficult task!)
