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.