Back to Reality

This is going to be long!

The cruise was so much fun and I wish I was still there!! At this exact time I would be eating dinner with Jeremy, Staci, and Brad and we would be waiting for the staff song and dance during dinner. That was one of my most favorite parts of the evening! Anyways, so much to talk about and so many pictures to add. I might just write about it now and then do another post of just pictures because I still need to get some from Staci. She took about triple the amount I did, wowza!

So first let's talk about the tanning situation. This was a main purpose for the trip, I needed to get dark dark dark. Unfortunately, I got red red red. No bueno. The FIRST full day on the cruise Staci and I layed out for about 4 hours while the guys were hanging out. They played in a ping pong tournament and Brad actually brought home the medal. We have a picture of that somewhere, promise. Well, I reapplied my sunscreen a time or two and apparently that just didn't do the trick. Now, I have not gotten a sun burn since before Jeremy and I started dating, so over 3 years ago, but I sure did stop the streak on Monday. My left shin was a little red, no biggie, but boy oh boy, were my ladies RED! Like lobster red, not pink, RED. I put a good gallon of aloe on hoping to just wake up with normal colored skin. Nope, didn't happen. I had to stay in the shade the next day or two and then wear a non-tube top bathing suit. No worries, they are no longer red and I didn't burn any other time.

You may not know this about me, but I tend to get car sick very easy....so naturally I was pretty concerned about being on a ship for a week. Jeremy's mom had some patches she wore on her last summer that she gave to me. Things were going smoothly the first 3 days, not problems at all. I had to switch my patch to a new one and I am not sure if I did it too soon or what because the next day I went to read some papers in the morning and my vision was a tad bit blurred. I thought maybe it was because I just woke up and my eyes were just a little red, so I just went on with the day. Well, I tried to read my Harry Potter book outside and I had to focus so hard on one word to make out what it was that it was taking me minutes to read a page and it gave me a headache. Jeremy and Brad thought I was just making it up but I promise, I brought 4 books to read and I was highly annoyed that I had to just sit there because of my freaking blurred vision! I even tried on Jeremy's glasses to see if that would help, I moved my book really close to my face, really far away from my face, I squinted my eyes and I opened them up as big as possible; but no such luck! My eye sight FINALLY went back to normal on Saturday, the last pool day of the week. Just my luck. But at least I didn't get sea sick!

The shows! Entertaining for many reasons. The dancing was straight out of the 1990's. I am guessing it is the same choreography since Carnival started. The outfits, oh my gosh, the outfits!! Bizarro! haha.. the girls were usually in almost Vegas themed outfits, like thongs or near close to it. Not great dancers, but good enough for a cruise ship apparently. The guys were cheese-balls and I LOVED it! Their outfits were a hoot too... if only we could have taken pictures of them. I loved it. The comedy and magic shows were really good too. The magic one was my favorite. I wish I knew how they did those dang tricks!

We won Name That Tune and our plastic trophy is now front and center on our mantel. We tried to win other things, like money at the casino, but we failed miserably. I dream about getting a Moon on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th lines so I could go to my bonus round. Oh to have won the $100,000! That would have paid for numerous cruise vacations! Staci got me addicted to it, blame her. By the way, Brad dances to every type of music and at any time of the day. Quite entertaining.

Jamaica, Cozumel, and Grand Cayman were great! Jamaica was our first stop and we decided to go snorkeling. Strangely, while we were waiting to get on the boat I met a future student. Her and her mom came up to me and asked if I was a teacher and blah blah blah... I now know one student that will be in my class next year. And I ran into her every day after that, in my bathing suit.. awesome. Anywhom... snorkeling was great, I didn't swallow as much water as expected. A random thing happened, we asked our taxi driver to stop somewhere for us to get some drinks, and so he did... but in the middle of a busy road and someone came running with a cooler full of drinks! That is service right there! Grand Cayman and Cozumel were really nice, hot as heck, but great fun. We walked around both places and did some shopping and eating. I did not buy a single thing. I know, I can barely believe it myself, but when I tried on rings they just looked like a big sparkle on my finger. So I couldn't justify buying it because I was worried that I wouldn't like it when I got home and my eyes were normalized. Jeremy did buy a hat, big spender! Although, he really out-did me because he bought not one, but TWO shirts on the cruise. He ran out of shirts and was THAT guy who wore a Carnival shirt walking off the cruise so everyone knew that he was, for sure, on it.

One more story, amongst the tons that I have. Our last night Jeremy and Brad decided to down the drinks that were stored in their luggage. So we finally made it to dinner and we are having our regular rolls and such and then Jeremy decides to basically yell, while looking at the guy next at the table next to us, "Did you see how much butter he used?!?!?!?!?!!?" I was so embarrassed, I cannot even explain it. The wife just kind of looked at Jeremy and then back to her husband and pretended to not hear it. Well, I asked Jer to not say anything but he was drunk and that means he likes to push my buttons. And push he did, for the next 15 minutes. I promise if we were at home I would have punched him in the stomach. Staci and Brad are hysterical laughing because Jeremy keeps talking about butter and I keep telling him that I am about to get very angry; but it just wasn't working. At one point I looked at Staci and she probably had the same piece of bread in her mouth because she couldn't chew from laughing. I am thrilled that everyone found this comically, but I was not dying with laughter. I did get over it, but we will never speak about butter again.

Anywhom, the cruise was amazing and I can't wait to go on another vacation!

Pictures to come soon :)