Spring Break Cruise: Part VI

(I've been slacking on my cruise posts, but I'm planning on getting them all finished in the next few days so that I won't wait too long and start forgetting things!)

Beautiful Belize and St. Patty's Day!

We awoke bright and early on a cloudy 17th of March....aka St. Patty's Day! Pilar and I quickly suited up, ate our breakfast (room service actually arrived on this day) and headed down to the nightclub to meet up with the boys and with the rest of the people who were going on the snorkeling excursion. Once we had all arrived, we made our way down to the bottom of the ship and boarded the double decker boat that would taxi us to our snorkeling site. As I mentioned, it was a little cloudy and chilly since it was around 8:30am, and there were intermittent rain showers. These factors did not do anything to help my nerves. It may sound silly, but I get really nervous about the smallest things, and this was one of them. I was nervous the water would be cold, nervous I would inhale the water, nervous I would panic, nervous I would get seasick as my brother had when he snorkeled (and we share the same motion sickness issues). Needless to say, I was a little nervous.

Our tour guides on the boat were awesome Belize natives with very thick Jamaican-like accents. They were pretty funny, too. They distributed our snorkles, flippers, and life jackets as we approached our destination. Once we arrived, they gave us the go ahead to jump on in to the water. I followed Pilar out and eased my way on in...and the water was perfect! I fumbled around a little bit, trying to figure out how to breathe and how to make my mask comfortable, and once I got it, I was off. I stayed with Pilar and the guys for a little while, but I soon found myself so completely amazed by all of the life under the water that I ventured way off by myself. I can't explain how awesome it was being out there under the water and seeing the different types of exotic fish and vegetation. I found myself praying a lot while a swam around. This was such an incredible example of just how small we are and how vast God is, that there is an entire world under the ocean that we rarely experience. It was funny, because I would be peaceful and prayerful, and then I would see a cool fish or some colorful coral and would think, "That's fu***** awesome!" I don't generally use a lot of profanity, but this would pop right into my head, and I think that will suffice to say how beautiful it was under those turquoise blue waters.

I think I snorkeled for about an hour and a half or so and then happened upon Pilar on my way back to the boat. We both got back on and ran into Chris who had ended his snorkeling early due to motion sickness issues. There is so much irony in the fact that I NEVER got seasick at any point on the cruise but Chris and Travis both had issues with it. Poor little guys. Anyway, we turned our gear back in and headed to the second deck of the boat for some sun and some rum punch. The sun had come out by this point and our tour guides had graciously made some delicious rum punch for all of us. This was one of my favorite parts of the cruise...sitting atop this boat, gliding over gleaming turquoise-colored waters with the wind flying through my hair, sipping on rum punch, and listening to 90's music. I was sitting next to a really nice older couple from Canada (Pilar and I found that we only ended up meeting older people...not really sure what this says about us,) but this couple was really cool.

By the time we made it back to the ship, we were all in a pretty good mood and I especially was ready to start celebrating St. Patty's day with a Long Island in the hot tub. We did precisely this, and had full access to the hot tubs since everyone on the ship had left to explore Belize. We had decided that the snorkeling would be our only exploration in Belize, espeically since the boys had been there the year before and had said that there really wasn't much to see on land. I believe we made a great decision by staying on the ship because we had pretty much the whole thing to ourselves. We just lounged and enjoyed the incredible water and relaxing day for the rest of the afternoon. Chris worked out and then passed out in the cutest little bear cub position...

I woke up from my sun induced coma just in time to snap a pic of Pilar and Travis mid coma...

And this is what the view from the hot tub looked like:

After our lovely day in the sun, we returned to our rooms, showered, and napped. We joined the boys for dinner...lovely as always, and then headed back up to our room to prepare for our St. Patty's day festivities. I had come prepared with a lime green flashing necktie that I loaned to Chris and I was already wearing a green dress, so Chris and I were safe. Travis decided to safety pin a green apple onto his shirt and fasten some green shot glasses to his head that he would later use to borrow drinks from strangers. Pilar decided to take part of our green luggage tag and pin that onto her dress. We definitely looked ready to party.

We headed down to the piano bar where we enjoyed some lovely "Blue Islands" ...a stronger, much more intense version of a Long Island. We downed a few of those puppies and were good to go. It didn't help our situation that the ship was experiencing some pretty turbulent waters, so it became hard to gauge just how much fun we were having. We met up with Quyen, one of our friends from UMASS, got some seats around the piano, and had a blast. I always enjoy piano bar and this time was no exception! We decided to head over to the nightclub and dance the rest of the night away. This was a great idea, as always, especially when they played Zombie Nation as well as a ton of other ragetastic songs! After a few hours of raging and a missing Travis, we headed back up to the room. Chris recovered Travis outside of their room and we all retired to our quarters. There are many more interesting stories to go along with this night, but unfortunately, I must protect myself and my friends from embarrassment. Needless to say, we had a BLAST!

Next stop: Cozumel!

There's a place in my heart...

I have to begin this by thanking Pilar for inspiring me to write something about my experiences at A&M. I've been wanting to do this for a while and after reading her blog, I think now is the time.



To say that I was born an Aggie would be the understatement of the century. To say that I "bleed maroon" or that I've been raised a die hard Aggie would be like saying that Mother Teresa was a good lady. These would all be major understatements.

My dad has had season tickets since the early eighties...same section, same row, same seats, with the same person: one of his college roommates, Gilbert. We would always rotate who got to go with Dad that week (my mom or brothers usually won) or sometimes we would luck out and get extra seats and would all get to go. At this point, I loved A&M because my parents loved A&M, because my brothers loved A&M, and I loved all of them, so I loved A&M. I stood tall when we were on a losing streak which, let's face it, has happened more than we would have liked in recent years. I never faltered, never jumped on the other team's bandwagon no matter how many of my friends did. We would go to basketball games and baseball games and no matter how bored I got, I always appreciated the atmosphere and warm environment. We bundled for the cold football games. We layered for the Independence Bowl in Shreveport when the Ags played Mississippi State and lost in double overtime after a few inches of snow and a very cold and almost frostbitten 9-year-old Rebecca. I had already experienced a great deal of Aggieland at this point. And then Mark entered his fish year at A&M.

Mark is my oldest brother, almost eight years my senior. I was in fifth grade when he came to A&M and joined the Corps of Cadets, Company L-1. My cousin, Kevin, was a senior in L-1 which made Mark's decision to join. This was an entirely new experience for all of us and I became obsessed. All I talked about was Mark and the Corps. He was my hero, so brave for enduring such hardship and never complaining. He was so old and grown up for already being in college and was just so....cool. We went to all of his Corps events: reviews, barbecues, football game march ins, and receptions. He joined Parson's Mounted Cavalry his sophomore year and helped turn the program around with the help of his classmates. His senior year he was Executive Officer of the Cavalry and of L-1 and by this time he had made incredible, lifetime friends and had matured into a confident, successful man. I couldn't have been more proud of him.

Patrick is my second oldest brother by five years. He was not as sure about joining the Corps as Mark had been, but decided to in the end. His fish year was Mark's senior year, so they had one year together. Pat blossomed throughout his time at A&M and in the Corps. This was his place, where he was meant to be. He was chosen to be guide on bearer for his outfit, which meant that he was in charge of carrying and protecting their flag, a much more daunting task than it sounds as these outfits like to steal each other's flags. The biggest thing to happen to him occured in the spring of his sophomore year. Patrick was elected to be a junior yell leader. This experience was huge for him and for our entire family. It was like he was royalty...instantly famous among Aggies. We were opened to a whole new world full of experiences including marching down the streets of campus in the torchlight parade before midnight yell practice and then entering a stadium of thousands of screaming people through a tunnel on the arm of one of the people that they were ALL waiting for. It was incredible. As a sophomore in high school, this was probably about THE coolest thing that ever could have happened to me. Patrick was also chosen to be a Ross Volunteer, head yell leader, a class agent, and was voted the outstanding senior in the Corps of Cadets his senior year. On top of all of this, Patrick had been very involved with St. Mary's Catholic Church and had always talked about Aggie Awakening. He was always striving to be a good example to his underclassmen and to the rest of the student body as he was an ambassador for A&M. I was a junior in high school when Patrick was a senior at A&M and had grown to be friends with his buddies as we were a little closer in age than Mark and I. It was a lot more emotional for me to watch all of them graduate because I had watched them evolve from shy, timid, bald, scrawny freshmen into secure, confident, mature seniors and I knew things would never be the same with everyone gathered at the outfit barbecue or all the guys hanging out in Pat's room or summer house because they would all scatter to different cities. I also knew I was next in line.

Whether or not I would go to A&M was never a question. I wanted to go to A&M because I wanted to go there, not because my parents wanted me to go there (they did, of course) but because it was my decision. I couldn't imagine going anywhere else and I didn't apply anywhere else. I would go to A&M right off the bat and if I couldn't get in, I would go to Blinn and transfer. That was that. Fortunately, I got in! On December 23rd of my senior year I was working at Hallmark and my parents came in wearing their Aggie gear. "We're going to the Holiday Bowl!" my dad had said. "Really?" I asked. "No, but you got into A&M."

I think I rose five feet in the air. They had been checking the website that showed current students and my name popped up. A few days later, my letter came in the mail. It was happening.

I had a very clear picture of what I wanted from A&M. I wanted to join Kappa Theta Beta, the Catholic sorority that my sister-in-law had been in, and I wanted to be involved in something on campus like Fish Aides or CARPOOL. I wanted to make some awesome friends, guy and girlfriends, and meet a handsome, Catholic Corps boy. I wanted to be engaged by the time I graduated and married within a year of graduating. These were my plans.

It's so funny how much things change, how much you evolve, how much I've changed. I had a rough freshman year. I hadn't realized how hard the transition would be for me, coming from a small town that I had lived in since I was three and had had the same friends since about that time. Making new friends didn't come easy to me, and although I did end up making some awesome ones, I still found myself feeling lonely a lot of the time. I didn't get into Fish Aides or CARPOOL and wondered how my brother could be elected yell leader and I couldn't even get into one of these organizations? I did end up joining Kappa Theta Beta which opened the door for me to so many opportunities and friendships at St. Mary's.

I don't want to drone on with a fact by fact overview of exactly how college panned out for me, I just want to talk about how I've changed. I went into college with plans and a closed mind. I had opinions and prejudices and expectations and plans and all of these things have been radically thrown out of the window. The thing that has kept me sane through college has been my faith. I've definitely faltered at times and made some shady decisions, but God always takes me back. The relationships that I have cultivated are what have allowed me to grow. I've kept a solid friendship with Rachel since high school and through her I've met so many different people at UT. I found that I like people that are different and I enjoy being friends with people who have different opinions than my own, something I never valued before meeting these people. I met so many people through volunteering for Breakaway and being an IMPACT counselor who challenged me in my faith and drove me to do the research and soul searching I needed to do to defend my Catholic faith so that I would have a knowledge of what I believed. These people did this out of love and always respected my beliefs, despite our differences. I have learned so much from them. I have found a solid group of bros with whom I could tailgate with, watch sports with, and get boy advice from. I've always related well with boys and am so thankful for these relationships. The people that I owe so much to, who are always there for me to talk to, who provide me with endless encouragement and advice, are my close lady friends. As much as I value my guy friendships, there is something so special about girlfriends because there are so many things about girls that only girls can understand. I have become independent and satisfied with myself because of Pilar's independence, focus, and unconditional love, and I cannot thank her enough for that. I have been made sane in some insane situations because of Katie C's level head. I have been blessed to have been surrounded by so many lovely women. You know who you are, and I am eternally grateful. I think the most important change that I've seen in myself is comfort and satisfaction in who I am and where I am. I used to think happiness could only come from being with a guy and I didn't think this because I'd always been dating a guy, I thought this because I'd NEVER been in a relationship with a guy. I used to look at girls who were graduating single and think, "Oh, poor girl." Now, I have found true happiness and joy in friendships and am treasuring those now while still keeping an open mind about relationships. I mean...I have the rest of my life to be married :)

So here I am, at the end. I graduate in a week and am in a much different position than I imagined I would be. I am so satisfied with my experiences and knowledge gained and I am grateful beyond words for Texas A&M for providing me with this experience. It's so true that God's plans are always so much greater than you could ever imagine. I don't know where he is taking me this year and it's scary, but I know I'll be safe, that he has a plan, that I must keep my head up and my heart open.

I leave you with this song that I listened to on my move up to A&M before my freshman year. I was following my parents and my mom told me (via walkie talkie) to turn to 106.1 because "We Bleed Maroon" was on. I heard it for the first time in a very long time the other day and thought it was a great example of how things have come full circle. Gig'em and God bless :)

http://youtu.be/vsz8sJ68udc

Spring Break Cruise: Part V

Stop numba two: Mahogany Bay, Isla Roatan, Honduras

After our time crunch in the Caymans, we decided to set more than one alarm in order to get up at a decent hour and make the most of our Wednesday in Honduras. We landed a little later on this day than we had in the Caymans, arriving around 10 AM. At this point in the trip, we had been in the sun pretty much constantly for two entire days, so we spent extra time applying sunscreen to our already burned selves. Once lathered, we headed down to breakfast and to a spectacular view of Honduras!

After breakfast, we headed down to debark from the ship. From what we could tell, Mahogany Bay was made specifically to be a destination for cruise lines. The ship pulled right up to the dock, so there were no taxi boats involved. We sauntered down the dock admiring the scenery and looking forward to another lovely day on the beach. As we neared land (the dock was really long) we started to hear an Usher song drifting over from one of the restaraunts. This was entertaining to us since we were in practically a third world country surrounded by beautiful and exotic vegetation and it still had somehow managed to be Americanized. Despite this fact, I was happy, because it meant I could dancewalk.

Those who constructed this port were very business savvy because you had to walk through a souvenier shop to get to the beach. On another tangent, this souvenier shop housed ample amounts of liquor at very competitive prices. There was a display for Crown that was being sold at two bottles for $35. I still regret not stocking up because I loooooove me some Crown. Anyway, we were anxious for more beach times, so we scooted out of the souvenier shop, through the very Americanized outdoor mall area and down the path to the beach. It was a lovely walk through trees and over bridges with the scent of exotic flowers wafting through the air. I had had a sneaking suspicion that the beach would be crowded, judging from the droves of people that were walking in with us and the fact that there was another cruise ship docked as well.

My suspicions were accurate. The beach was small and packed. It was wider than the seven mile beach in the Caymans but was not near as long. It also had a lot more palm trees and was loaded with lounge chairs, which was nice. I just think after having space to stretch out at our last beach, we were a little disappointed by the fact that we were practically on each others laps were pretty sure the beach was man-made. We were finally able to find two loungers next to each other (no way we could have found four) and set our stuff down. The boys wanted to take a walk down the beach and walk down the dock that was a little ways down the beach so we joined them. We hung out on the dock for a little while and then decided to head back to our chairs and take a dip in the water while the boys explored the uncharted territory on the other side of the dock. We had surmised that there may have been another beach on the other side of that forbidden forest so Travis and Chris set off on their own little bro journey. Unfortunately, it was short-lived. Their intentions were discovered by a beach cop and they were sent back to lounge with the commoners.

Despite the downsides of this beach, it was still lovely. The water was a beautiful greenish blue and was a perfect temperature. We also happened upon two little boys who had a football which was pretty clutch as we had regretted not bringing our own football.

You can see Trav out there rocking the shirt because of the horrible sunburn on his back. Poor guy :(

We played with them for quite a while (another regret of mine was wearing a strapless bikini top which hindered my ability to dive and tackle as freely as usual.) After a group of bohunks took over our football game, Chris and I headed to the beach bar for a beer and a hurricane while Pilar and Travis enjoyed coconut water straight from the coconut. All of our beverages were delicious :) We spent the rest of the day lounging under the shade trees and eventually headed back to the shopping area where I bought a cute little multicolored purse which I have been using ever since. Once this was purchased, we were headed back to the boat.

This night was another pretty chill night. We went to dinner and then went to see a magic show in the Ivanhoe Theater. I believe we also went to watch some karaoke. We went to bed fairly early because we had a snorkeling excursion at 8:30AM the next morning AND the next day was St. Patty's day. We knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we would want to be verrry well rested for St. Patty's day!

Stay tuned :)

Spring Break Cruise: Part IV

First stop: Grand Cayman!

"Pilar...what time is it?"

"I don't know, let me look at my phone. It can't be later than 9AM because that's what I set my alarm for...uh oh..."

"What?"

"Phone's dead...and it's 10:45!"

Allow me to backtrack. Today was our third day on the cruise and the first day to dock at a port, this one was Grand Cayman, in the Cayman Islands. The ship docked at 8AM, and we had put out our order for room service for breakfast the night before, so we had planned on waking up, getting ready, and eating breakfast quickly while giving the crowds leaving the ship time to die down. We had also assumed that our cruise director would come over the intercom with a "Good morning!" greeting as he had done the previous day. This did not happen, nor did our breakfast arrive.

We frantically got up and called the boys and then threw on our clothes and headed down to breakfast. We wolfed down our food and hightailed it off the ship. We had to take a boat from the ship to the island and made it to the island around 11:30. Our first order of business was to find a watch so that we could keep up with the ship time and make it back before the ship left. In case you've never cruised before, if you don't make it back to the ship on time, they'll just leave you. You have to pay out of your butt to get back to the ship and we didn't have enough money in our butts to consider doing that. Ipso facto, we needed a watch, Chris needed shades, and I needed some rum for my padre. (Here goes another tangent...)

Upon my leaving La Grange, my dad did some research on rum in the Caribbean. He discovered that out of all of the stops we would be making, the best rum would be found in the Caymans and would be called Seven Fathoms. This was his only request and since he paid for my trip, I felt obliged to honor his request. This is, yet another reason why our lateness was stressing me out.

Once we reached the shopping area which was right inside of the port, I hightailed it into the liquor store and was told that the rum I sought could be found in the original Seven Fathoms distillery which was two blocks down. We made our way down the busy street, dodging taxi recruiters and found the rustic looking little house that said "Seven Fathoms" on the front. There were two doors, neither of which looked very inviting, but we opened one of them anyway. This wasn't a store by any means, it was more of a workshop-looking place. We asked the people inside where we could purchase some Seven Fathoms rum and they told us to go around to the back and up the stairs. I forgot to mention that this place was right on the water and had a pretty cute little outside bar area attached to the back of it. We meandered around and up the stairs and opened the door to, yet another room that was not a public place where rum could be purchased. There was a guy sitting with a huge barrel and was running rum through a filter into the barrel. There was another guy in the other room who told us to go back downstairs to a little hut where a lady would be selling the rum. After venturing back downstairs, we finally found the place where we needed to go to buy the rum. There was a very nice lady who sold me the much sought after Seven Fathoms and I breathed a sigh of relief, grateful to have this beverage for my daddy. Rum in hand, we ventured off to find a taxi and head down to the seven mile beach.

After a quick ride with our spunky little British cab driver, we had arrived at the beach. We had already glimpsed the water from our boat ride from the ship, but nothing could prepare us for the beautiful white sands and sparkling, crystal clear waters. Since we were on the seven mile beach, we had plenty of space to find our own spot where we wouldn't be surrounded on all sides by our fellow cruisers. We laid down our towels, lathered up in sun screen, caught some rays, and then got in the water.

THE WATER! The water was this incredible shade of light turquoisey aqua blue but was also crystal clear while you were in it. It literally was more clear than a swimming pool. We floated and swam and played and frolicked and just drank in the fact that we were in the Cayman freaking Islands.

After enjoying this beautiful beach for a few hours, we made our way back to the port and were back on the ship in no time. Because of all of the hectic activities that happened earlier in the day, we decided to chill and watch "The Town" in our room (great movie!).

The rest of the night was pretty chill. We were still exhausted, if you couldn't tell....

We went to dinner and then spent some time at the piano bar, which was awesome and was the source of much entertainment a little later in the cruise. If I remember correctly, this was the night that we saw the comedian perform in the Eagles Lounge. I believe it was not too much longer after this that we retired to our quarters.

Next stop: Mahogany Bay, Isla Roatan, Honduras!

Spring Break Cruise: Part III

Part III: Fun Day at Sea

I awoke to the sounds of Pilar stirring and a dark room. It wasn't until I felt the slight rocking of the ship and looked around that I remembered I wasn't dreaming....we were actually in this incredible room on board an awesome cruise ship sailing full steam ahead through the Atlantic. Before Pilar had a chance to open the shade, I grabbed the camera in order to give others the full effect of the room. Unfortunately, this blog won't let me upload that video for some reason. Just imagine waking up in a dark room and then someone hitting a switch and you hear "vvrrrrrrrr" as light streams in, and then there is the wide open ocean!

Pilar and I lathered up in sunscreen and our bathing suits and headed down to join the boys for breakfast. After a hearty buffet meal, we set out to find four available lounge chairs together....a daunting task. Since laying out was the popular option for the day seeing as how most people on the ship were pasty northerners, there were few available loungers. (Mid revision, Pilar reminded me that a great deal of the northerners were not indeed pasty, they were orange from their artificial preparation. The exception to this fake bake rule was the occasional chubby, middle-aged, speedo adorned, hairy man.) We did eventually happen upon a stack of chairs and were able to soak in the rays together.

Our location at this point was on the very top deck right behind the waterslide so obviously we found ourselves shooting down the slide. It was a pretty legit slide. Post waterslide shenanigans we witnessed a hairy chest contest. Yes...men who felt they had competitively hairy chests volunteered their talents in a contest that tested hair texture, hair smell, and dancing abilities. There were three female judges with ages ranging from early twenties to early seventies, and God bless these ladies. We were very entertained throughout the duration of this contest. Ironically, we still had an appetite when it finished so we headed down for lunch.

After lunch, Chris and Travis decided to beast it in the work out facilities while Pilar and I decided to return to our sun deck and enjoy cocktails. See!

I was lucky enough to happen upon a couple who had a bracket for the NCAA tournament and got to take a gander at all of the match ups. One of the sacrifices I made for the cruise was not putting together a bracket for March Madness....but seeing as how my spring break the previous year consisted of sitting in front of a TV watching basketball all week and talking trash to my friends about their brackets, I felt that a cruise would be a better trade off. We were even able to catch some of the games on TV when the TBS channel was working. Anyway, we caught the last of the rays coupled with residual beer and cigarette smoke from the feisty UMASS spring breakers next to us and then headed back to the room for our naps and showers.

This night on the cruise was our first formal night, so Pilar and I put extra effort into our beauty preparations (psh, as if that were needed). Our lovely, strapping men came to our room and escorted us down for cocktails. There was a happy hour in the casino/lounge part of the ship (and by happy hour they mean that instead of $10 the drinks were $6...ok maybe that's an exaggeration but drinks were pretty expensive.) We finished our drinks, then took some lovely formal pictures, and headed down to dinner.

As we strolled into the dining room, all of us looking like a million bucks, I commented on the grand Titanic-like stairwell that led down to the main part of the dining room. I said, "Wouldn't it be funny if we acted like Jack and Rose?" I didn't even get through that sentence before Travis and Chris hustled down the stairs and waited at the bottom for Pilar and me. We glided down the stairs and met our boys who met us with smiles and kisses on our hands. It was like something out of...well...Titanic. (Travis and I continued this reinactment every night at dinner and towards the end of the cruise, when people would see us coming, they would turn around and watch our grand entrance. It was pretty sweet.)

Dinner was lovely, as usual. We were entertained for the first time with a show put on by all of our waiters dancing on tables. I don't remember which song they danced to this night, but one of the songs was "Jai Ho" and another was "Apple Bottom Jeans". These waiters were pretty good dancers! After dinner we headed back to the room for some wine and a brief photo shoot and then we moved on to Latin dancing night. There was a band in one of the rooms playing all different kids of Latin music including salsa, cumbia, merengue, etc. Pilar gave us all dancing lessons and we traded off dancing with sitting and watching the smooooth older Colombian man with the legendary mustache work his magic. We stayed here most of the night and then headed back down to the club for more dancing. After dancing until our feet were ready to wither, we headed back to the room to have a quick gaze at the stars and then headed to bed around 4 AM. This was a very smart decision, considering we were arriving at Grand Cayman at 8AM.

"Oh well...we'll set an alarm and surely they'll come over the loudspeakers as a wake-up call."
...or so we thought!

...to be continued...

Spring Break Cruise: Part II

Part II: Come Sail Away!

Our excitement built as we rounded the hallways that brought us closer and closer to boarding the ship. Finally...we were on! They snapped a quick picture of each of us that they would use each time we entered and exited the ship and then we were free to go find our rooms.

Pilar and I had an ocean view room, which meant our room had a window, while the boys were in an interior room. We walked down, down, down the hallway on the ninth floor, made a left, and boom! There was our room on the right, next to a lovely, floor to ceiling sized painting of a beautiful beach. We opened the door expecting to walk into a pretty nice room with a small square window and two beds. What we saw rocked our worlds! Not only did we have a sitting area with a couch, coffee table, minifridge, wet bar, etc, we had a window that took up the entire far wall and overlooked the BOW OF THE SHIP! We could sit in front of that window and have a panoramic view of the open ocean. The window also had an automatic blackout shade complete with a switch for moving it up and down. So legit!

So, after drooling over our room for a little while, we joined the boys for a little meal, went to our emergency drill, and then donned our bathing suits and headed to the "sail away party". We were very lucky that our rooms were on the same floor as the Lido Deck which had the dining rooms with all the buffet lines and 24 hour food places as well as the swimming pools, hot tubs, bars...basically it was where all of the action happened during the day. Pilar and I were on such a mission to get our long islands at this point that not even the mob dancing to the Cupid Shuffle could get in our way! Finally, long islands in hand, we headed up to watch the ship debark from Miami. After a little while the boys met up with us and we had our first official toast on the cruise as a group!

We soaked in the last of the rays and enjoyed some hot tub times before heading back to the room and getting cleaned up for dinner. We were lucky to have the later dinner time at 8:15pm, especially since we could never seem to make it on time even then. Our table was on the bottom level of the beautiful Lincoln Dining Room. We had a booth on the edge of the room which was great because we were still a part of the action, but had our privacy at the same time. We had the same waiter every night, Jose, who was from El Salvador. He was always very cheerful and provided us with great service. The food offered and served at dinner was incredible as well. There was always a great selection and it was always fresh and well prepared. We did have the fortune of sitting at the table next to Sarah Palin's voice twin who spoke very loud and about things like poopy diapers. It definitely added a little something!

After dinner, we headed back up to our room where we made a toast to the night and then we headed down to the Eagles Lounge for karaoke. Pilar and I are seasoned karaoke singers, so we jumped at the opportunity and signed up to sing "Faithfully" by Journey. Unfortunately, I had to use the ladies room which was pretty far down the hall, and they called us before I got back. Travis stood in for me and did a fantastic job, especially for not knowing how the song went, but insisted I replace him when I arrived back. Pilar and I finished strong, I believe, and captivated the audience with our glowing stage presence. When we tired of karaoke, we headed over to the club to dance a jig. Now, I had some preconceived ideas about how a club on a cruise ship was going to be, but those ideas were DEAD WRONG! The DJ in this club was one of the best I've ever heard. He played an awesome mix of new and old music that made us never want to leave the dance floor! Pilar and I were very lucky to have two very good dancers accompanying us, so it was always hard to leave the club at night. After a few hours of shaking a leg, we retired to our quarters.

Fun day at sea tomorrow!

...to be continued....

Spring Break Cruise: Part I

As promised, I'm going to write about our cruise partly so that everyone will know how AWESOME it was and partly so that I can remember all the little details that made it so memorable :)

Part I: The Drive

The story begins on Friday, March 11th. I finished teaching for the day and headed down to La Grange to wait out the Houston traffic. I got a pedicure with my Madre and then hit the road headed for H town. I met Pilar at our friend Katie Mac's house and had a fantastic dinner with her and her parents. That was such a pleasant surprise...Katie's parents were a riot and I'm so glad I got to see her before we left! After dinner we headed over to Travis' house where he and Chris were waiting. (Travis and Chris are Pilar's friends from her years at St. Thomas Episcopal School in Houston. They've all been friends since elementary school... it's really cute.) After catching up, we took care of some last minute business for the cruise and then hit the sack.

On Saturday, we woke up before the sun and got ready for our journey. In order to save a little money, we had decided to drive to Florida and leave from Miami instead of Galveston. Something that had not occurred to us up until this point was how in the WORLD we were supposed to fit all of our luggage inside of Chris' car. Thanks to all of our masterful packing skills, we managed to get every piece of luggage inside the car. Little Pily was all surrounded!

After a quick breakfast stop at Mickey D's, we were on our way! I just have to give so much credit to the boys for drive the WHOLE WAY! Chris' car is standard which meant I couldn't drive and Pilar has dabbled in standards but didn't feel capable of flying it solo, so our manly men beasted the drive between the two of them (with the help of our friend, Red Bull).

Seventeen hours, three ipods, at least 30 oz of Red Bull, some gas station parking lot dance parties, a Lady Gaga rage, a shady Orlando gas parking lot near death experience, many naps, Travis near hallucinating and falling asleep at the wheel, and something north of a thousand miles later, we had arrived at Ft. Lauderdale! We made incredible time considering we made the drive in seventeen hours and it was supposed to take around twenty! We did lose two hours thanks to daylight savings time AND traveling across time zones, so instead of arriving at 2 AM we arrived at 4 AM. Pilar's Aunt Jenny was our gracious host and provided us with warm beds which were very much appreciated after such a long drive.

Sunday morning we awoke bright-eyed and bushy-tailed! We had a leisurely breakfast and then crawled back into the car to head down to Miami. We stopped at the friendly, neighborhood Publix (we were very amused with the name) to pick up the necessities like wine, champagne, and Red Bull, and then we hit the road, once again.

It was a beautiful day in South Florida and the perfect opportunity to jam out to "Miami" by Will Smith. One of the most beautiful things for my eyes to behold, after such a long journey, was our ship: the Carnival Valor, waiting patiently at the port for its guests. We were lucky enough to get a parking spot in the lot right next to the ship so we just walked across the street, handed off our luggage, and got in line. Everything went very smoothly and before we knew it, we were taking a picture in front of a cheesey sunset backdrop and boarding the Valor!

....to be continued.....