East Caribbean Cruise (Part One)

Crap...it's now nearly 3 months after the cruise and I still haven't finished blogging about it. It was a great vacation but my goodness. I have to finish this up! So I'm just going to comment on the pictures and try not to miss too much. We went on a 7 night cruise to the Eastern Caribbean on the Princess Emerald. We haven't done Princess before and this was our first time going to the Eastern Caribbean ports. Casen and Shannon also came, too!

SUNDAY
The day we set sail was pretty crappy weather. They ended up shutting down the outside decks not long after we left port because it was so winding outside and not safe. Here's a picture of Peter outside after we took off - you can see how windy it was!

Here's a picture of our room. We went with an inside room again. We really like not having a window - we can sleep whenever we want because it's always dark!

Here's Peter outside our cabin. Princess decorated with balloons to celebrate our anniversary.

On Sunday we explored the boat, watched the show in the theater, played some trivia and had dinner (not necessarily in that order). Exploring the boat was a theme for a first few days...it always takes a few days to figure out where everything is.

MONDAY
On Monday we went to Princess Cay, in the Bahamas, which is owned by Princess. Casen decided to stay on the boat so Peter, Shannon, and I got off and enjoyed the beach. Poor Shannon didn't put enough sunscreen on and paid the price for nearly the rest of the cruise.

That evening we played more trivia, started on the week-long scavenger hunt, and watched 2 different comedians.

TUESDAY

The first full day was at sea. We enjoyed the sun and were lazy most of the day. Peter and I took a break from the sun and watched "It's Complicated" inside the big main theater.

Shannon and I signed up to enjoy the VIP Thermal Suite the whole week at the spa on board. It included a sauna, steam room, aromatherapy room, a rain forest shower, a shower with a mint mist, and these AWESOME ceramic tile heated loungers. It was the perfect way to catch up on some girl talk and relax.

We went to the steakhouse on board and enjoyed a nice meal while we were dressed up. We also enjoyed some trivia and a comedy show.

WEDNESDAY
St. Maarten -

St. Maarten is an island half owned by the French, half owned by the Dutch.

We went on a tour of the island. The first part included a bus ride with a tour guide then we got on a boat (kind of like a party boat with this great guy who sang fun vacation music to us). The boat gave us a great view of the pretty island with some amazing houses.Having a good time!

Us on the boat.

I thought the windows on this housing complex looked like an angry face - here's Peter doing his best impression. Pretty good, huh?

The boat let us off at the capital of the French side. Here's Casen, Shannon, and Peter.

Here's us embracing the French food - baguettes and Nutella crepes!

I loved all the colorful houses. This was a view from a hill looking over a part of the island.

The exact border between the two different sides of the island.

That night after dinner, more comedy, and tracking down the captain for his signature (I was a scavenger hunt maniac!), we went to a late night luau. It was a lot of fun!!! (The cruise staff was great the entire cruise and made it very enjoyable.) This picture is when everyone threw their streamers in the air - very cool!

See how much fun? We danced and had a good time!

Before we called it quits for the night we watched a little bit of a movie outside on the big screen.

The moon was so bright, it had an amazing reflection on the water.

Peter holding up the moon.

to be continued.... actually, read the previous post for the rest of our week

East Caribbean Cruise (Part 2)

Here is how the rest of our cruise went...

Thursday (St. Thomas)

We arrived in St. Thomas early so Shannon and I were able to get off the boat as soon as we woke up. We went shopping first at the typical port shops and I bought myself a pearl necklace and earrings. Then we headed to an area that had tents and was more of a street market. I found a faux Prada purse I liked and a few other little trinkets. Because we got off the boat as soon as we woke up, I didn't have breakfast and was getting really hungry. One of the vendors was eating something that smelled fantastic so I asked him what it was. He said it was a "patty" and told me what was in it. I let him know that I thought it smelled great so he offered me one. I probably should have been more cautious about eating local food from some strange man, but hey it smelled good! It was AMAZING. It was a fried dough almost like a scone that was stuffed with chicken and seasonings. (Shannon bought a purse from him so I didn't feel bad for eating his food.) I should have found a place to buy some more. I would LOVE to find a recipe for these but don't know where to begin because of the generic name he gave me.

After shopping we went back to the boat and I met up with Peter. We took a taxi to a nearby beach called "Emerald Beach". The weather was a little cloudy but that was great because the beach wasn't super crowded (plus we were the only big cruise ship in town). We played in the ocean and laid out. Other than being hot, it was the perfect vacation activity. When we got back to the boat we ordered room service and I went to enjoy the thermal suite for a bit.

Emerald Beach

Here is where we first put down our stuff. Great spot, right? Chairs, under the umbrella...oh so nice! Well, it was nice until we were told that if we wanted to stay that we'd have to pay for that spot. No thanks, so we moved...

Here's where we ended up after we got kicked off our beach chairs. On the sand...next to some comfy lawn chairs. :)

When we got back to the room we ordered room service and I went to enjoy the thermal suite for a bit. It was formal night so we all dressed up for that evening. After dinner we went to watch a magic show and the show in the main theater.

Princess was great about having things going late at night and tonight had adult comedy from a comedian, the cruise staff, and some audience participation. Guess who got dragged out of the audience? yup... Me, Shannon, and Casen. We had to run with a balloon between our legs across the stage (keep in mind us girls are in dresses), put the balloon on Cruise Staff James' lap and then jump on the balloon to pop it. Boys vs. girls. Well, the boys won just before I was to go so rather than end the game, the cruise director drags me even further back so I can get a running start. Basically here's short, well-fed me, charging this poor guy and jumping on his lap. So the audience was well entertained, I tried not to be completely self-conscious, and eventually I lived through the whole horrible thing. I wish that I just didn't care what people think and could have a good time but my weight really gets in the way of that. Anyway, it wasn't as bad as when Peter and I did the newlywed/no-so-newlywed game and everyone on the ship new me after that. Peter took video of the whole thing, we'll see if by the end of my finishing up this post I decide to include it. :)

Our hilarious Cruise Staff

Demonstrating how we'll put the balloon between our legs. Shannon and I are at the end.
This was part of the demonstration but notice James' face (with the yellow balloon). Yup - the same face he put on when I charged at him. So, uh, funny...

Friday (Grand Turk)

Our boat - The Emerald Princess

We got to Grand Turk around 1:00. Grand Turk is a small island (from the ship you can see the ocean on both sides of the island) so there wasn't a lot of exploring to do.
Once we got off the boat we had lunch at Margaritaville. We wandered through the few shops at the cruise pier and then headed off for our excursion.


Grand Turk Power Snorkeling -"Explore one of Grand Turk's beautiful coral reefs with ease, using an underwater hand-held scooter. Upon arrival at one of Grand Turk's beautiful white-sand beaches, your snorkeling equipment and a hand-held power snorkel unit will be provided. Glide gracefully through the water, soaring over the beautiful coral reef and the 7,000 foot wall."


It sounded fun based on this description but I was a little nervous once I saw the actual unit. I was afraid I might not be able to control it or it would go too fast. However, after about 30 seconds I adjusted to the unit and it was PERFECT! We were able to go much further than if we had been swimming without the unit. The weather was overcast which was nice because then our backs weren't getting baked in the sun. I thought it was the best snorkeling we've ever had. Besides tons of fish, we also saw a nurse shark, a stingray, a lion fish, and a couple barracuda (which made me VERY nervous...I DID NOT like them). I took pictures with an underwater camera that I need to get developed - so more to come on this...

The sunset was beautiful tonight!

That night we grabbed food from the buffet and ate it outside while we watch a "Movie Under the Stars". It was fun! Princess put different covers on the lounge chairs and had blankets and popcorn. We watched Avatar.

After the movie we watched the production show in the Princess Theater. I thought it was very well done and better than the usual cheesy cruise show. We followed that up with some late-night adult comedy. Very Funny!

Saturday (At Sea)

I headed to the Thermal Suite in the morning with Shannon and met Peter by the pool afterwards. We had lunch and watched an Ice Carving Demonstration. I tried to lay out a little bit but it was crazy hot so I didn't stay out for long. We finished up the last couple of things we needed for the scavenger hunt.

The scavenger hunt ended today and we met up with the other teams to determine the winner. Only 2 other teams showed up. One of the teams was stiff competition! We tied for points and it came down to a last challenge. Luckily, I found the last answer to the last clue and we won our prizes. Now, we had worked on this basically the whole cruise and had collected 22 items, answered 22 questions, and got 22 signatures. We had to plan things out so we could attend certain functions/events and get these things. The prize for all that effort should be MAJOR, right?!?! Yup. It was. We each got a Princess Cruiseline Pen. HA! That's okay because I really had a lot of fun doing it. It gave us a purpose for exploring the boat, meeting people, and going to different activities.


We were always busy at night which made our "Anytime Dining" nice. We were able to plan to eat around the activities we wanted to do. On our last night, I documented each of the things we did with pictures.


First we had dinner.
Then we went to the Princess Theater and watched two comedians.

Then we went to the Explorers Lounge and participated in "Passenger Feud Gameshow" where you had to come up with the most popular answer. We played this game with a couple we had done trivia with earlier in the week.


After that we headed to Club Fusion for the Final Trivia. Peter must have been in a silly mood.


Our night ended back in the Princess Theater for the International Crew Show (a talent show put on by the cruise employees). It was the best talent show we've seen on a cruise. Notice the balloons behind our head - there were hundreds of these being tossed around the theater. Cheap, mindless, childish fun!

The end came so fast. Usually I'm ready to go home but this time, I hadn't reached that point yet. It was a fantastic vacation and I'm already wanting to book our next cruise.

7 year Anniversary

We celebrated our 7 year anniversary by taking a short trip to Austin, TX. We drove down Saturday afternoon the weekend after our anniversary and checked into the Embassy Suites downtown.

Since we got to Texas and I would talk to people about what I missed in California, I frequently heard "you should go to Austin, you'll love it."

It was hot but we didn't want to be completely lame and go all the way to Austin and only see the inside of our hotel room. So we went for a walk. We walked what I thought was a river but ended up being Ladybird Lake. We didn't go the whole way around which is a 10 plus mile loop, but we did walk for a total of 3 miles. It was really nice to spend the time outside, enjoying nature, and talking. Sometimes I find that when we are home, surrounded by technology like the TV, phone, Internet, etc we talk but it just isn't the same as when we get away from everything.

After our walk (which was ill-planned only because we were both in flip flops) we recovered in the hotel room. Then we were to see the bats. Apparently in the summer, the Mexican bats migrate to Austin. There is a massive (over a million) group of them under the Congress Ave Bridge. So we gathered along with the throngs of people to watch them leave their "bed" and soar off into the night. This is a big thing for tourists to do and was suggested to me by many. We got to our spot about an hour before the sunset. Then stayed an hour after that until it was clearly night. The bats never showed. They are supposed to emerge at dusk and must have just decided to play a big joke on the hundreds of us waiting to see them.

Here's the people waiting down on the grass. This wasn't even all of them.

Here's some of the people waiting in the lake - notice the band on the raft.

When we finally gave up, we were starving. We had breakfast at home before we left but since then had only had junk food and snacks in the car. We walked to 6th Street which is known for all the bars, restaurants, clubs, etc. We went to a Mexican place that had a live band playing. It was fun.

The next morning we were still tired from the previous day so we just hung at the hotel until checkout time. It was sooo hot outside that we decided not to really do much more sightseeing. We did drive around the State Capital and the campus of the University of Texas. Then we ate at a place a co-worker suggested called the Mellow Mushroom. They had yummy pizza and we played boggle while we waited for our food. We had a lot of fun with everything we did!

Anyway, I can see why people recommended Austin because it feels a lot like California. It's in the hill country so it's not completely flat like Dallas is. It's much much much greener, and the vibe is different than Dallas. My co-workers call it a hippy town but I think it's a laid back, more environmentally conscious, college town that doesn't have the small town feel, at least to me. I LOVED IT! Plus I love live music and that's everywhere. My cousin Heather Fairbanks is moving to Austin this summer and I'm so excited because it was only a 3 hour drive and then we won't need a hotel. I'll be back!

30 years old!!!

Ugh. It happened. I turned 30 and now have to officially be an adult. I have always felt that as long as you are in your 20's your still not completely grown up. And now, I don't fall into that category anymore. I didn't think it would be a big deal to turn 30 but it ended up hitting me pretty hard. I just kept thinking about where I thought I'd be in my life - kids, house, city I'd live in, etc compared to where I actually am. I don't have kids, we live in an apartment (and SOLD the house we did have), Peter doesn't have a job, and I live in TEXAS?! So that bummed me out but other than that, I had a good birthday. I got tons of birthday wishes from my friends and family via txt, facebook, and phone (plus I got the birthday call from my Grandma and Grandpa Blank, it wouldn't be a birthday without it!).

Some of my co-workers decorated my desk at work. I love working in an office! :) There was balloons, confetti, a sign, plus I even got a couple cards!

(Also, my new team took me out later in the week to lunch at my choice of restaurants. I chose a Japanese Teppanyaki place.)

When I got home from work, I was touchy and Peter and I argued. So, I left and treated myself to a massage. Ahhhhhhhhhh so nice. Then we went out to Gordon Biersch's for appetizers.

Then that weekend Peter gave me my birthday present. He took me to my favorite Mexican restaurant here. It's called Blue Goose - so yummy. Then, we went to see the musical Wicked. I saw it once in Chicago but Peter hadn't seen it. He was hesitant and not too jazzed about it but by the end he had a good time and said he enjoyed it. He was even humming some of it later, but I'm sure he will never admit this.