Sunday, August 15, 2010

Flat Tires

Well, it seems that flat tires follow me. I've gotten 3 in the past few months... This is what happened today:

We were driving up to my parent's house to visit my mom for her birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM) when Matt sped up and the car started making a funky noise.

Me: your car needs to shift
Matt: no it doesn't
Me: Look at your RPM's, you almost at 4. It needs to shift.
-- at this point, the car shifts, but funky sound continues --
Matt: something's wrong.

So we pull over, and there's a flat. I say, no big deal, there's a donut in the trunk.

Matt's trunk doesnt open. There's half a key broken off in the lock, and the button to open it from the front doesn't work.

So I squeeze into what has to be a 2x2 whole in the backseat and manage, after a few awkward minutes, to force the latch open from the inside.

And when I say awkward, I mean, I could fit through this whole up to my hips. So my bottom half is stuck in the backseat and my head and arms are in the trunk.

Next is getting the tire off.... One of the nuts is stripped. I really have to use the bathroom. So I leave Matt to wait for help to walk to the hotel about a mile ahead. A lady stopped and offered me a ride, but I refused. It ended up being further than I thought, but I made it in time. The lady at the front desk was SUPER nice and let me use the bathroom and even take some ice back for the cheese that was getting warm awful quick in the car. She offered me coffee and water and said I could stay as long as I liked to wait for help to arrive. But the cheese was getting warm. So I headed back --

And as it turns out the Maine Turnpike has tow trucks that just drive around and look for stranded people! And this guy managed to get the stripped nut off of the car and put the donut on, but the tire is ruined.

So we go to a local VIP to see if we can get a new tire real quick and still manage to make it up to see my mom. This guy says he had NO TIRES that were the right size, and that he would have to special order a nut -- odd for a tire store, to me.

Saco to Summersworth, we finally get 2 new tires (keep the treads even) and a rim to put the tire that wasn't ruined on for the future.

$200 later, we have a fun story, but we missed my mom's birthday and my friend's baby shower ...

Interesting day, to say the least.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Best. Husband. Ever.


Where's the practicality, you ask?

The entire house was spotless, as well.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Two of a Kind

Hey, Laura here on Matt's login, simply because I'm too lazy to log out and back in again.

Anywho, this is a picture series I've taken that I've titled "Two of a Kind." Whenever I see my kittens posing the same way, I take a picture. Now, this is a common thing for photographers, but pardon the quality, as I took every single one of those pictures with my fancy pants 2.0 megapixel LG EnV2 phone. Lol.









Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Our Honeymoon: Part 4

Monday, 2/1/2010: Cozumel, Mexico

Let's see... I seem to have misplaced the "Fun Times," which was a daily activity sheet. I highlighted everything we did/wanted to do, which made this job easier.

Alright. Let's see how much I remember.

Mexico was a blast! My favorite port by far! We left the ship early to do some shopping before our excursion that day. Everyone was friendly, but not overly aggressive. There was a nice man who ran a cart who Matt attempted to hold a short conversation with in Spanish, and he sold us some very nice souvenirs.

Then we went BACK through security to drop off our goodies in the hotel room and changed into our bathing suits and back to Mexico we went for our dolphin adventure! It seemed to me that the people working for dolphin cove were very rehearsed. Their favorite word was "okay." "Okay swimmers, okay?" Haha! On the ride to the cove the guide said that they had 4 baby dolphins, but we wouldn't be swimming with them. However, our pool, (we were split up into groups) swam with two adults and a baby. The water was cooler than I thought it would be, but it was ocean water... If I had to guess I would say it was 78degrees. Which I suppose is warm for the ocean, but colder than I expected. We all took turns hugging the dolphins, petting them, giving them a kiss, and then finally they pulled us across the water on their bellies! I was one of the first to get a belly ride, and water splashed in my face the whole way down, so they let me ride again. Matt must've been a pro, because he didn't get any water in his face. Oh well, I got to ride twice, so it was worth the water up my nose!

After the dolphins, we got lunch at the cove and went back to the ship. They actually had shuttles so we could have left any time we wanted before like 5pm or something. I wish we had stayed longer, because there was a shopping area about 8 blocks from the cove that we could have walked to, and we could have experienced a more authentic Mexican shopping experience (lol) than the stores right off the port. But swimming with dolphins was tiring, so we went back to the ship. Turns out it was a good thing too, we weren't allowed to wear sunscreen into the pool with the dolphins, and I forgot to bring some to the cove so Matt got a little sun-burnt. Not bad, but it would have been if we had gone shopping.

Back at the ship we did a little more of the usual (hot tub, ice cream, buffets, ect.) and then went to our couples massage! Neither Matt or myself had ever gotten a massage from a trained professional (hopefully it will become a regular occurrence now with Chelsea's current career choice *wink, wink*) but we both loved it. It was relaxing, but painful where my neck meets my shoulders. Those muscles had been bothering me months before the cruise, and now, two months later they are starting to bother me again. But the massage helped for a little while. It wasn't cool after, though, because they tried to sell us some $40 massage oil or something. I think all together the products they recommended we purchase came to $200, which we passed on.

This may or may not have been the day I passed out so early I missed dinner (served at 5:45pm....) Or it might have been the next day.

Tuesday, 2/2/2010: Fun Day at Sea
Wednesday, 2/3/2010: Fun Day at Sea

The day's at sea all seemed to mix together. We ate, sat on beach chairs, lounged in the hot tub, did some cruise planned activities, mostly trivia...

Even without the Fun Times, I'm pretty sure that Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty relaxing. And that's about it!

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

My Loving Husband

So, sometime in January Matt said something that was just too funny not to share.

I decided that that happens a lot, so I've started a journal with all of the funny/random/stupid stuff my husband says. I call it "My Loving Husband."

One of my recent favorites is this:

"a book can't be that great unless it's got some crazy psychotic dragon fight in it."

Now, normally I like the feeling better when it's read out of context, but the reason this is a favorite is because of the background story...

There's a book I've been trying to get Matt to read. I read it, and I thought it was right up his ally. So, of course, I've been talking it up. He finally borrowed it from the library, and read the first thirty or so pages. I was, once again, talking it up. He then said the statement quoted above. The reason I thought he would like the book so much? It's got dragons in it. LOL. Furthermore adding to the funny, is the reason he had dragons on his mind: apparently he had a dream the night before that there was a dragon and he was about to be manly and save me when I told him, "It's okay, I got this," and a fireball came from my face and slay the dragon.

Yeah.

Saturday, February 20, 2010


Hailey: Let's play puppy dog! I'm the puppy, you're the mommy, and Uncle Matt's the daddy!

Me: Okay.

Hailey: Woof!

Me: Good puppy! *pats on the head*

Hailey: Woof!

Uncle Matt: Puppy, go in your kennel!

Hailey: (sadly) Woof?

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Our Honeymoon: Part 3

Sunday, 1/31/2010 Fun Day at Sea

After falling asleep at 6:30pm the previous night, I woke up all ready to go at.... 2:30am. I quietly unpacked and made things look nice in the small stateroom, and wasted time until about 3:30. I thought for sure everything would be closed at this hour and that I wouldn't be allowed to roam around. But after looking at the Fun Times (the daily activity booklet) I saw that the Internet Cafe was open 24 hours. So I went out into the quiet ship, and much to my surprise NOTHING was blocked off! You could go outside, watch the ocean pass by, get ice cream... You couldn't swim in the pool, but pretty much every place accessible during the day was accessible during the night!

But I can't find the internet cafe. I finally ask the lady at the service desk, also open 24 hours, and she tells me I have to go to floor 5, walk across the ship, and then go down to floor 4. Which I tried. For about a half an hour. Finally I get really smart and start looking more closely at the deck plan, which shows that the casino is the closest to everything that I CAN'T find. Lo and Behold, it's all on the other side of the casino... Where I find not only the Internet Cafe, but about 4 themed lounges, a sushi bar, and a coffee cafe.

So what do I do? I go wake Matt up at 5am. Yes, I'm a horrible person. But once the grumpiness wore off he was excited to see the other half of the ship that we had missed the previous day. He especially liked the piano room. Everything was piano themed, from the chairs and tables to the walls!

Fast forward a couple of hours and we go outside to see the sunrise!

The rest of the day was pretty boring to talk about, we lounged around in the hot tub, ate at the buffets, and did some of the ships events... Like playing sudoku (where we both got our butts kicked by that stinkin' puzzle) that the ship provided, attending a spa seminar, watching an ice carving demonstration, and going to this weeklong muder mystery game. They had daily puzzles for you to solve, clues that the suspects could give you, the whole shabang. But we didn't really participate after that because we had never done the type of puzzle before and we sat there staring at it for like 30 minutes before giving up.

Dinner that night was elegant night, which surprisingly Matt was looking forward to. Unfortunately I had my first bout with motion sickness that night (which for me is just a headache and nausea) and the Dramamine kicked in too late. Add the fact that I was still kindof a sicko, I fell asleep before dinner. 'Cause I'm that cool.

Matt said he tried to go to dinner, tried to go to the show, but couldn't stop thinking about me (the sap shoulda just done it, lol) and came to bed a couple hours later.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Our Honeymoon: Part 2

Saturday, 1/30/2010: Port of Miami.

So. I wake up way too early, way too excited. So I wake Matt up. We go out to the beach not 500 yards away and almost get killed by seagulls. So we run away and go back without muffins. The beach was nice! We spend maybe 2 waking hours in Miami near the hotel before calling a cab, who I think may have taken the long way to the port of Miami :-\.

At the port, people are already swarming. I thought for sure we were way too early, but apparently EVERYONE is really excited and anxious to spend a week in the Carribean. We go through customs and they hand us this paper asking us a bunch of questions about coughing and sneezing and sore throats. Being the honest person I am, I got to be checked out by the on board nurse... Who happened to have an emergency at the exact moment that I got pulled out of the boarding line. So we sat in an office behind the scenes for like 45 minutes, Matt unable to sit still and me reassuring him that we JUST saw a doctor at the ER and it's nothing they can keep us off the ship for. SO I bring out my entire library of puns and riddles to keep him amused before the nurse comes... To take my temperature. Wow. That's it? The only symptom I HADN'T had was a fever, and even she seemed unsure why I needed to be seen by the nurse.

BACK TO THE SHIP! We were escorted to the front of the line, as our boarding number had already been called, and we boarded!

The rest of the day was pretty simple. We walked around, exploring, wishing we had our bathing suits (our luggage didn't get delivered until later on, which is normal.) Around 1:30 we were able to go to our rooms, get changed, and go in the hottub!

Then around 3ish we had a safety breifing, required by the cost guard, which consisted of... Too many people in too small of an area, and too much information spoken too fast, too quietly. But it was okay, since we already knew how to put on a life jacket, lol!

We bummed around some more, until dinner time at 5:45pm, where we felt COMPLETELY underdressed, although we were following the dress code. We got used to it eventually throughout the week. The food was AMAZING! I had steak, but I don't remember what Matt got.
After dinner, we went to bed. (following the theme from our Valentines Day post, lol.)

And Thus ends Day 2. En Route to Cozumel!

Friday, February 12, 2010

Happy Valentines Day!

It may be a couple of days early to the rest of the world, but today Matt and I celebrated Valentines Day!

We watched a couple episodes of Heroes together, went bowling and went out to eat.

Bowling was fun, our scores were kind of sad though, except Matt's score in the second game.

Game 1
Matt: 87 Laura:86
Game 2
Matt: 148 Laura:96

And then, like the old married couple we are, we went to bed.

The End.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Our Honeymoon: Part 1

Forgive me in advance for the seemingly long and boring posts to come, but I want to record all of the wonderful memories from my trip before it's all just a blur.

I also plan on uploading some of the pictures we took from the trip, but there are factors that are keeping me from uploading them right now, including the possibility that my computer will crash if I try to do ANYTHING besides browse the internet.

Friday, 1/29/2010:
Although our travel didn't start until noon-ish, our journey started at approximately 2am. I had a terrible cold the past two weeks, and in the early morning hours at work I was feeling... Well, it was like when you've been sitting or laying down for a long time and then stand up really quick so the blood rushes to your head and things start going black... Matt said he's never felt that feeling before, so maybe it's just me. Knowing that I had limited medical access on the ship and feared that I wouldn't get better without antibiotics (and the fact that I felt like crap) I left work early to go to the emergency room. Turns out, in my hypochondriac state, I was diagnosed with a viral infection. AKA: a cold. And I actually felt much better now that I got to sit down for a while.
Skip past a precious few hours of sleep that Matt and I were not expecting to get (he left work early and met me at the ER as well) and we're counting down the minutes! We were packed, the cats were fed, and the house was spotless. Finally, we can't handle it anymore and go to the airport about 3 hours early, which actually was the amount of time the airport reccommends! Turns out we could have gotten there like 15 minutes before the flight left and been fine, haha!
Random side story: I was wearing all my jewelry for formal night on the ship the day we left. I didn't feel safe with my nice jewelry (particularly the diamond tennis bracelet my aunt got me as an engagement gift) in either the checked bags or carry on luggage. Turns out the bracelet would have been safer in there. because a link broke in the airport, and by a series of fortunate events, I happened to see a good samaritan hand something to a security guard, which prompted me to check my wrist and notice my bracelet was missing! I probably would not have even noticed until later that night had I not seen him hand the bracelet to the guard!
Okay: Now to takeoff. It was windy, so there was a lot of turbulence at the low altitudes and takeoff was sooo scary! Our seat had a perfect view of the wing, so I could REALLY see how much the plane was bouncing aaaand yeah. Not my cup of tea. Matt was fine. I think. At least he didn't grab my hand in fear! LOL
Throw in a delay in Newark, and we get to Miami around 11pm. It's 72 degrees, and although it wasn't HOT, it was humid. And nice. The palm trees were gorgeous. Everything was green! Floridian drivers are insane. I've never heard anyone use their horn as much as our shuttle driver did, lol! Hotel is decent. Nothing to blog about it really, I used my credit card points and got the hotel room free for the night, and it did it's job.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Cruise

Matt and I will be taking our honeymoon cruise in just TWO WEEKS.

I am beyond excited.