Miscellaneous Monday

I realized, last week, that I have a half marathon in about 3 weeks, and I haven’t run over 2 miles in about a month. (I have been too busy and too tired to run lately, I think I’m just burnt out) So I decided that this weekend was as good as any to run a good long distance. I ran 8 miles, and good news – I had no issues! No aches or pains, or any feelings of dying, so I feel pretty good that I can tack on another 5 miles. Wish me luck!

My sister that had been living with me left on Friday. A part of me is sad, because we’ve been having so much fun these last four months, but a part of me is very happy to have my house back to myself. Finally, I got to clean up everything to my liking, and put away so many things. Next up on the list is replacing the carpets in the house, since her dog literally ruined our new carpets. Hopefully we’ll get the new stuff soon, and our house will finally smell good again!

I have recently joined Snapchat. I don’t know if you know what this is, but here’s the gist: It’s a program that allows you to send a picture to someone, they only have about 10 seconds to see it, and then it’s deleted forever. I know it’s a waste of time, I knew that going into it. And I know it’s mostly a thing for teens, but I have used it for about a day now, and it just makes me laugh. I don’t know that I’ll use it forever but for right now, I’m having fun with it.

Pics, Pics, Pics

Like I said yesterday, finally, I got my vacation pics. (I like how I say finally, like it has been more than a week. I’m just impatient, I suppose). After the grouped pictures of yesterday, here are just some candid shots that I thought were pretty fun. Hope you like them too!

It was really hard to get that last one. Basically, you have to grab onto a rope, jump and hold yourself up as long as you can, and then hope the person gets the picture in time. It looks a little like I am getting pulled though! It hurt my hands to hold onto that rope, though. (No arm strength, you see).

Character Meets

I finally got my pictures back from when we went to Florida. A friend of ours had taken some pictures, and he finally sent them my way. I thought I would post a few of the characters we met in Universal.

It was a fun adventure! It was Mardi Gras in the park, hence the New Orleans’ folks up there.

Foto Friday

The other day, I was at a YW/YM mutual activity. I’m going on trek this year, so we went to meet our new families. After we were assigned our family, we had to make some pioneer clothing out of newspapers. We got to work on a “daughter” in the group. I thought we did a good job.

That’s Gonna Leave a Mark

This morning, as I was in the shower, shaving my legs, as one does, and with a new razor to boot. I felt a small nick as I was doing so. I just kept going, and after a minute, I saw a thing in the razor. I looked closely, and unwound whatever it was. I thought, oh that must be some topical skin, like maybe I had shaved off a layer of my peeling skin, since my sunburn was finally peeling. I looked down, and saw a puddle of blood on the ground. I realized then, that my nick wasn’t as small as I thought it was. I took a gander, and screamed a little. I got out of the shower a second later, and took a picture, of course.

Youch! I can’t believe how much this hurts! So basically, I took a whole layer of skin off, and now, I have to bandage my leg, because it just won’t stop bleeding. I don’t like this new razor, and I’m going to get rid of it, lest I have this problem again. I say to all of you, good luck! Be careful!

Closed?!

My sister and brother in law are soon to be leaving. They leave on Friday to Washington, to begin their new lives out there. We’re treating this week as a farewell week, and doing the things we meant to get to while they were here, but have just not gotten to it. Last night, we were going to eat dinner at Porter’s Place in Lehi – I love that place, but my brother in law had never been there, so we decided it was the time to go. We finally get up there, we walk up to it, and:

It’s closed! Of all the times for it to be closed! Oh the humanity! We had to choose a different place, which is just unfortunate, but that’s ok. It was good, and maybe some time, they can come back for a visit, and we can go then.

Miscellaneous Monday

Sadly, the running streak that I started back on November 18, 2013 has come to an end. I ran every date on the cruise. Every day! But then, the last day, Sunday, I couldn’t find the time to do it. I asked one of the cruise ship employees if the gym would be open the following day, at 6:00 AM. We were docking at 7:00, so I thought that would be a good time to run, and get it over with. He told me yes, so I planned on it. I got there at 6:10, and it was dark. The gym wasn’t open. Dang it! So then, after disembarking, and driving to see some of Husband’s family, and then driving to the airport, the flight, etc., I didn’t get home until 10:30, and was just too tired to run. So sadly, my streak is over.

When I was in Florida, we were staying with a friend there. He took us to this restaurant in Orlando, where they have drag queens that work there. Every Friday-Sunday, they do a show every night, and on Sunday, it’s a brunch show of singing and dancing. I met and got my picture taken with a drag queen, a perfectly nice and lovely person who was apparently the subject of a documentary about her becoming Ms. Drag Queen 2008. Pretty cool experience to have, definitely not something I thought I’d ever have!

After finally getting home, and unpacking everything, and putting everything into the right places, it was time to do laundry. We finally did it tonight, and it took 4 loads – 2 white, 2 darks to get all of our clothing done and clean. By the time we were getting to fold the last load, I had had enough of laundry. Finally it is all done, and our closets are full of clean clothes.

That’s Mr. & Mrs. Fancypants

The cruise had 2 formal nights, and we took part in both of them. That also meant getting our pictures taken (Because how often am I dressed up? Not very often.) So enjoy these pics of us looking all fancy-like!

Bermuda…Bahamas…

Today, we sailed into the Bahamas, to Half Moon Cay. Is the word pronounced like “key” or like “kay”? I don’t know, people pronounced it both ways around me. We got onto the island:

And after getting a pic taken:

We just kind of hung out. We didn’t plan en excursion on this island, because we were told it was so beautiful, you could just hang out on the beach and enjoy it. So we got off in a leisurely fashion, and Husband played some beach volleyball for a bit. I don’t really like volleyball, so I just watched and got in some action shots.

After that, we just walked around, and saw this church:

That apparently, a bunch of people get hitched in every year. We went to the beach, and swam. The water was colder than I thought it would be, I thought it would be nice and warm, like the other beaches, but it was kind of cold! After we swam around for a while, we packed it all in and got back on the boat. We had to be tendered back to the boat – unlike the other islands we went to this time, we had to get on a smaller boat that would take us from the ship to the island. Not a bad view on the drive, though:

And then, that was it. The vacation (minus the sailing back to Florida) was over. It was pretty dang awesome. I saw lots of cool things, and did loads of cool things, and had such a good time. I totally recommend this cruise, should anyone want to take one!

I Wish I Had this Skill

Today we were at sea all day, so I really have nothing to report. I thought I’d tell you all about the animals I’ve seen here – specifically, in my room. Our steward, Denny was really awesome. He made these animals out of towels, and they were so fabulous.

Aren’t these just the best? Honestly, I would love to learn how to do this!

Kayak and Snorkeling and Hiking, oh my!

Today, we sailed into St Thomas of the Virgin Islands. We got there bright and early, and had to rush off the ship to get to our activity. We had apparently parked the boat on the wrong side of the island, because we had to drive literally around the entirety of it to get to our spot. Took a while too, and they drive on the other side of the road there, so it freaked me right out! We got there, and after a safety instruction, we got in our kayaks and made our way on over to the snorkeling place. It only took about 15 minutes to kayak over there, the waters were smooth. We arrived safely, and then got our snorkel masks.

At this point, I was nervous. I am scared to death of water, so much that I avoid getting in it if at all possible. Not the shower, but like, pools and oceans and the like. Everyone puts on their masks and swims away, and then I have a full-blown panic attack. I start hyperventilating, and repeating, over and over, that I don’t want to get into the water. Our leader/teacher/guide is trying to help, and he’s just making it worse, so after about a minute, he swims away and joins the other people, and Husband is just staying behind with me. I told him to go, because I didn’t want to get in, and he’s trying to help and be kind and get me in the water, so at this point, I FREAK OUT and start sobbing hysterically that I don’t want to go in the water at all. (Yes, I am admitting this to you all. It’s ok to share weaknesses) Finally, after me telling him over and over to go and I’ll be ok, Husband leaves and joins the rest of the group.

I stand in the water up to my knees, and debate getting in. I put my face in, and bring it back out. Finally after a few more minutes, I lie down in the water, and start snorkeling. Of course, I’m still breathing erratically, but I made it work. I slowly made my way over to the group, doing a sort of running/doggy paddling/no idea what to swim over, since I don’t know how to swim. I made it over in time to see a sting ray, so that was pretty cool. Since they’d been over there for a while, they were done, and went back to the beach. So, I’m kind of proud of myself. Yes, I had a meltdown, but I did it. I got into the water. I snorkeled. I made it. After the snorkel, we had a hermit crab race, and then we did a small half-mile hike, and then kayaked back to shore. Sadly, I don’t have any pics of this one to show, since we couldn’t very well take a camera/phone with us in the boat and water, I couldn’t get any. We did take this one in front of the ship, for fun.

A Puerto Rican School Day

This morning, I realized that there are words on the floors of the elevators. I asked Husband, when we got in, why they had ‘Tuesday’ written down on the floor, because it didn’t occur to me that being on a ship for seven days would make you lose all sense of time.

But it was really helpful to have those! We went to Puerto Rico today, and docked at about noon. Our excursion was again right after we docked, so we had to hurry off to get there. Today, we were going to trapeze school!

I was very excited and also terrified. Of course, I knew that they wouldn’t let anything happen to us, it would be safe, but still, kind of scary! We got all suited up in our belts

And after a quick safety lesson and an explanation of what we’d be doing, away we went! We were told to grab the bar, swing out, get your knees up on the bar, let go of the bar so that only your knees were up there, swing out again, come back in, and then let go of the bar, and sit down on your way down. When they asked who wanted to go first, I shot my hand up, because I was so nervous, I wanted to get it over with. I made the slow climb up the really long ladder, and at the top, they affixed me to some safety wiring. Just fine with me! They took a pic as I was up there:

And away I went! I followed their directions pretty well, I think, and it was so exhilarating! My hands were shaking so hard when I was done, I couldn’t believe I had done it! Here are some pics to give you an idea of what it was like:

It was so fun! Sadly, we never got good enough to get up to partner tricks, and honestly, that’s just fine with me. I had enough traumas just doing the basics! After the trapeze, we spent the evening walking around and touring the island. The streets there are blue stones, it was really pretty!

We went to dinner at a local place, which had me slightly worried, because my stomach isn’t strong enough as it is. We ordered some soda, and I wasn’t as lucky in the soda department, size-wise

Finally, we went to a CVS on our way back into the ship, because I needed some more body wash – apparently there wasn’t as much in the bottle as I thought there was, and I ran out. Thank goodness they randomly had a CVS across from our ship! Then, back onto the boat for more sailing adventures.

ATV Adventures in Grand Turk

This morning, we sailed in to Grand Turk and Caicos Island. Since I’ve never been this far outside of the country, and never to an island, I had no idea what to expect. We docked bright and early, arriving at 8:00. Our excursion started at 8:15, so we had to make sure to be off the boat quickly. Luckily, it was already warm as we made our way off the ship

Sorry that pic is so dark; it’s the best I could do with the sun right there. We hustled over to the ATV people – our activity for the day. We all suited up into our helmets and safety vests, and away we went!

We traveled the entirety of the island on our ATV’s, which isn’t that hard to do when the island is only 6 miles long. We found some sea urchins at a spot, and I held one, but oy did I hate the feel of its little mouth on my hand!

So I gave it back right after that. We traveled around the rest of the island, learning a little bit about the place. I’m sure I would have learned more, but between the static of the earpieces in our helmets, and the guide’s accent, I barely made out what I could. On the way back into the boat, through the duty free shop, I found the biggest bottle of vodka I’ve ever seen:

I wanted to pick it up, but it was so heavy I was afraid I would drop it, and at $360, I wasn’t going to let that happen, so I just touched it for scale. After our adventures, and getting really dusty, it was back on the boat, and ready for our next adventure! Sail on!

Sailing Out!

Yesterday, Sunday, we sailed out on a Caribbean cruise – from Ft Lauderdale. We have taken a cruise before, on our honeymoon, a Carnival cruise down to Cabo and back. That was a good time. This time, we chose Holland America, and the boat is pretty impressive, size-wise.

Soon, we learned we would be among the youngest on the boat, this is more a cruise line directed to older people, and that’s just fine with me. We sailed out last night, and today, we’re just at sea. Basically, that means a lot of loafing around the pool, and just relaxing. When we got to our room, we found this:

Towels for any adventures we might have, a bag to carry them in, and some chocolates. There is also a note there, saying that the captain wishes us a good nights’ sleep as we begin our voyage. I spent the day out in the sun (no burn though, yay!) and I got a hot stone massage, which was pretty dang awesome. It’s amazing what a really warm stone can do, I felt totally relaxed afterwards. And now, let’s begin the vacation!

Send in the Clowns

So, last night, the reason we left Universal early is because we were invited to go to a circus. Our friend that we were hanging out with, he’s a writer down there, and he was invited to go here to write about it, and we got invited along. We get there, and I see it’s like a real life circus, with the tent and everything:

First of all, we rode an elephant!

And then we went in, and watched all the acts. There were tigers, elephants, dogs, creepy clowns, and really good acrobatic tricks. One girl was flying around by her HAIR! It was so crazy! Finally, the circus was over, and we got to go backstage and see all the animals, and see how they’re doing. It was pretty cool, and awesome to see all the behind the scenes stuff. Also, I got a funnel cake:

And that’s always a good time.

Harry Potter + Universal Fun

Yesterday, Husband and I started a vacation. We have finally gone on a vacay, which we haven’t done in a really long time. We opted to take a cruise, and it leaves Sunday, and gets back the following Sunday. We decided to come in yesterday, Friday, and spend today at Universal. It was awesome! We got to the park right when it opened, and immediately went to Harry Potter world.

I tried some Butter Beer

And it was crazy delicious. It tastes like dreams and magic. Then we went on a ride, and then made our way around the whole park. We went to Springfield, IL (Simpsons land)

Then just rode a whole bunch of roller coasters. I’ve never ridden that many roller coasters in my life in one day! And they were all amazing. We had to leave the park earlier than we wanted to, to take part in another adventure – to be talked about tomorrow!

Foto Friday

This week, I have a new niece that has been born into our family. Husband’s brother and his wife had a small baby girl, E-Money (is what I call her). Cute, cute, cute.