Here is the picture we got from the Behind the Fun Tour on our last day with the captain. Nice of him to pose with the 16 of us!

Imaginaiton Vacation continues.......

Thursday Feb 9th ~ Sea Day!!

Today, as a mutual gift for  one another, we decided to do the "behind the fun" tour, in which you get to go behind the scenes on the ship. we were really looking forward to the this most of the week, and it was a great way to spend a few hours. The down side was that we couldn't take any pictures!! :-( and we actually got checked and scanned by security beforehand too, so there really was no smuggling then in either. No cell phones either.

We met with our tour guide, Debbie, in the Library and went from there. After meeting and getting our group of 16 together, we headed down to the galley to meet Chef Russell.

What a neat thing to see. It was breakfast time, so we got to see of the prep going on, and we learned lots of fun things. He really needs to know his stuff! He needs to know the demographic of all the passengers sailing for each week, so he can decide how much of what to make.

We found this in our room after the tour, signed by chef Russell himself!!

After the Galley, we also got to tour, the Laundry room, Garbage Room, Prep areas and storage on Deck 1. Back Stage of the theatre, and the Crew break room, and crew "lido" deck, as well as there dining area, where they eat. It was pretty neat to see and experience life behind the scenes. We also got to visit the training class rooms. they actually have "colleges" on board, there is hospitality school, bartending school and I can't remember the other one.

After all that fun stuff, we headed to the engine control room. This was amazing. We were able to see all the computers working hard. In case you didn't know the ships are run on 6 generators, the size of school buses. And we were sailing at 16 knots, which is about 18 miles per hour. not very fast, but when your outside watching that water go by, it sure feels faster!

After this were able to go up on the bridge!! This was SO neat!! We got our picture taken with the captain as well. I'll post that in a different post. We learned that in order to become a captain, you have to make that decision very early on in life. Most of them start nautical school by the age of 14! Can you imagine making a career decision at that age!! Most captains too, as we know are of Italian decent. Being on the bridge was such an experience. On each far side, where the bridge dodges out from the side of the ship, there are windows cut out in the floor, you look down directly into water. freaky!! These are used as guides when pulling into port. There is actually an X on the docks, and when that X is lined up in this window, your ship is parked where it needs to be! I am SO going to look for that X now at every port from now on. (this was our last sea day so we didn't get to look this time :( )  After this, we were all done :( The whole tour took over 3 hours but was amazing informative. You watch this stuff on TV all the time, but to experience it first hand was so awesome. I have a face sheet at home, I'll have to put some of the facts on here. We were also given, a copy of the picture with the captain (2 of them, one for each of us), the desert that was delivered to our room, we each got a baseball cap that said honorary crew member along the back, and we got lanyards to keep as well. Which is nice to keep your sign and sail card attached too.

So that was the end of that, moving on to the rest of our last day :(

The Piano bar. VERY small. I have to admit, I really really miss the piano (schooner) bar on Royal Caribbean. It was always our favorite hang out.

Freddy one last time for Colin

Relaxing up on deck with some drinks. It was really windy though, so instead we ended up going to the room, and fell asleep for about 3 hours!

My nice tan legs... that is gone now, 2 weeks later.

Empty deck below.

See down there??? that is Chef Russell!! He was getting ready to do the Chef's Table with those lucky passengers, I had to take a picture!

This last night, we decided to have a group dinner with our roll call friends. We made some real life long good friends this cruise, thanks to Cruise Critic and the roll call! We now have a "cruise" family. Nothing can be better then vacationing with friends, that your not committed to doing anything with!

So here's our group. Gloria, Me, Cyndy and Frank (it was their first cruise) Mike was taking this picture. We had a great dinner this night.

How cute are Frank & Cyndy??

They just happened to be celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary this night!! What great honor it was to be able to share the joy with them! It really was a pleasure to talk with them, hang around with them and get to know each of them. They are a wonderful couple.

Ah.. My Gloria! She was in serious need of a shot this evening....

Or maybe 2 shots????

Shots must have worked. We found her later on, back on stage where she is most comfortable!

Terrible picture, but oh well!

LOL - One guy who was walking past us saw this shirt on Mike, and said HEY, I have that same Family!

Spending some last quiet moments on serenity. It was only us, the millions of stars in the sky and the sound of the water below us. What can get any better then that?

Hot tubs

Doing some last minute shopping in the gift shop for the kiddos!

And our last night heart. We get one of these every sail.

Our long sad hallway

And back to Miami we arrive. Bright and early!

Blah!!

Up next? The ride home!

Gas Prices

I know, I know, Who really wants to read about gas prices? I wouldn't if I was visiting someone Else's blog, But I thought today, maybe I'll start tracking it. We've heard rumors that by Summer, gas in our area, should be nearing $5.00 a gallon. Seriously. When I got my first car many years ago, I remember paying $0.97 a gallon! I could fill up for under $12.00. Now I am lucky if I get away with anything under $60.00 a week. (Just driving back and forth to work!!)

So. I am going to put a sidebar up tracking gas prices from now until maybe the end of summer. Each week, unless it goes up within that week, I am going to add the updated price and compare.

 Seriously, it's scary, how expensive every day living has become. We've haven't got a raise at my work in over 2 years, and the last one we did get was 5 cents if I remember correctly. YET, the price of gas, milk, bread, taxes, everything keeps going up. With Mike being out of work still, we obviously feel this more then most who haven't taken the close to 50% cut in pay per month, but it really does scare me. I hate paying bills each month wondering what is going to come next or how high the gas, electric or water bill will be or what will the increase in our meds cost us. Then I have to remind myself, that once Mike does go back to work, we WILL be able to pay all those things that we struggle with now, there is a light at the end of our tunnel at some point in time. But not for everyone. Some families face lay off, that is permanent. Yes, there is unemployment out there, for which was are VERY grateful, but it still makes it hard. I am thankful, that I know Mike will be going to back work hopefully in the next month. And I feel for those who don't yet know when that day will come.

Ok, so I totally went off topic, guess I needed to get that out.

As a side note, Keep in mind, we live in NY state. We pay an outrageous amount of tax on our gas. Our current price is $3.85 today. When we got home from Vacation 2 weeks ago it was $3.74. the cheapest we paid, maybe in Virgina or SC was $3.44. So... that shows a $0.30 cent difference between just the 2 states alone. I am looking forward to this little tracking experiment. What is the price of gas where you live?

Is it...............Spring??

Nope, it's not Spring, but it is SURE starting to feel like it and you can't help but be in a good mood. A few days ago while sitting in the dining room eating dinner, looking out at the trees, I sore that I started to see buds. I maybe hallucinating, however, I don't think so. Who can complain when we've had 3 sunny days in a row?? And it's been in high 30's. It's February! Seriously. With the winter we've had, I keep telling Mike we'll need to cut the grass in a few weeks. We typically would have had a GOOD 50-60+ inches of snow. It's Buffalo, it's expected. We've had MAYBE 8-10 inches. Spread out over the past 3.5 months. AND it typically melts of the street and drive way's within the first 24-36 hours! I love it! The ground hasn't really froze yet, and they've taken the ice boom out of lake Erie already. Global warming at it's finest I say.

Well my whole reason for this post, Is because I just received a text from my husband. Who I love to death. Alas, his spelling leaves something to be desired. He texted me this

"We have hyassents "spell" coming up"

 LOL I totally knew what he was talking about, but couldn't help laughing at the way Hyacinth was spelled. Even better is he really did sound it out and type it as it sounds. Good Job honey.

So... There may or may not be buds on the trees, but we KNOW that we have our spring flowers confused and starting to peak through!

Birthday's Suck?? (as you get older anyway)

Here's a super cute Idea I found on Pinterest. The one I copied was for someone turning either 30 or 40, but I figured, why not do this with any age??

My friend Elaine was turning 43 on Thursday (yesterday, my day from hell) so I wanted to do something fun for her. We even made it educational. I bought  25 blow pops and 25 tootsie pops. Each boy each to count 25 of each. then they separated them into color groups. Then each of them took a turn handing them to me to stick in the box. I used a $1 spot box from target, put in green floral foam on the bottom and stuck the suckers in it. Then I used a wooden dowel for the sign and stuck that in the center. After this picture I broke it more, so it would sit down lower.

Yes, it has 43 suckers. (we got to keep 7 for us!!)

When I was at target this night, who knew I would find Oreo's that apparently are celebrating their 100th birthday!!

Aren't these neat? they actually taste like birthday cake. Elaine was kind enough to share them with us in the office. YUM!!

Oh Colin.....

Colin is alot like Me. As in Clumsy that is. I blame his on his legs being bull legged and feet turning inward. I, however, have no excuse.

I got a text on Wednesday from Mike while I ran to Wegmans to get something that Colin fell and split open his lip. 5 minutes later, another one. that is was really bad.

This is what I came home too. My poor babes. Tripped in the kitchen, and his top tooth went through his bottom lip and caused a HUGE gash. Which also caused a huge purple hematoma on the inside of the bottom lip. His top lip was swollen, and his front tooth is loose.

He is such a fighter this guy. I called the Dr, who won't put stitches in lips anyway, so we just gave him Popsicles to serve as ice for his lip, and hope for the best. He wouldn't eat, or drink though for the rest of the night, since he wouldn't open 1/2 of this mouth.

This was the following morning. Notice his forehead is just starting to heal from his anxiety scratching a brush burn up there last week? Yea, Seriously, someday people are probably going to think that we intentionally do this to our children. :-(

The Fate of yesterday.

Remember THIS post about my "off" day?? Well here how it ended, along with the pictures I promised you of my mud slide!

Here, I am,. in my cube, in my nice, muddy, soaking wet clothes, Nice huh?? Yep.

Remember I was wondering whether or not to tempt fate by going home yesterday?? I tempted it.

Went home to Courtney. Mike and boys went to Olean to spend the day and night with his mom. We sat, and enjoyed the complete piece and quiet that I never get to experience. Reading our Kindle And Nook. About 4:45 I got up to get in the shower (you know, to rejuvenate after that day yesterday) as I was walking past the stairs to the basement, I commented how bad it smelled down there. I got in the shower and moved on. Got out and it still smelled. Courtney then got in the shower, and said, ew, what is that horrible smell?? I continued to go get ready in the bedroom, but decided I should go check the basement out and see what's going on . The smell, progressively got worse as I went down there. And once in the family room, it seemed "hazy" to me. Maybe cloudy. I can't explain it. It wasn't smoky, but it wasn't clear either.

Remember Mike is in Olean? My Dad was in Florida, and my neighbor, Bobby who is my other go to guy (and a volunteer Firemen) was in Maryland with the family *sigh* I started to freak out a bit. I felt all walls in the basement, nothing was hot. the smell and haze weren't in the laundry room or Courtney's room. It was weird. Courtney and I kept going to the garage then came back to make sure it was still there. It was. I texted my brother, who thankfully was willing to come over and see if he could figure it out. I knew it wasn't Carbon Monoxide, since we have new detectors all over the house AND besides, that's a smell-less, silent killer, you can't see it. However, we still choose to grab the dogs and wait outside for Shawn to come. Once he arrived, we STILL couldn't figure it out. In the end, we ended up calling 911. If you know me, I am SCARED. TO. DEATH. of 911. of firemen. Of Sirens. Etc. I cant' do it. I cried to Mike on the phone that I couldn't make that call prior to calling Shawn.  I was too scared. Thankfully Shawn stayed with me. Within about 5-10 minutes we had 3 fire trucks, an ambulance, the fire chief, and tons of volunteers personal vehicles with blue lights flashing all around out house.

(this was after they sent away a truck away and we were wrapping things up)

I know I have a "smaller house" but let me tell you, when you have 6 full uniformed firemen with equipment, oxygen tanks, axes (yes, OMG, axes) plus, me, Shawn and the chief in one spot, those walls sure as heck closed in even more. My 1000 sq foot house, suddenly was only 500 sq ft. They were really great and helpful, asked tons of questions, checked all the rooms really good, and used the infrared camera to check the whole house for any hot spots. Checked the roof, yard, sump pump, fire place etc. Nothing. Nothing was hot or burning. The only thing they could sum it up too was a back draft somehow from the wood burning stove OR if someone else had a fire, maybe the furnace sucked in the fumes, but they didn't think so. Around 6:15 we were given the all clear. Scary crap man. I am glad my house wasn't smoldering somewhere, and I am grateful for our volunteer Fire Dept as well.

Courtney and I left, went to a Tupperware party, had some retail therapy, won a prize, and came home to a still slight smell, however by the time I went to bed at 11, it was gone. I'll never know what happened or why, but I am glad we are all ok.

When all is said and done, when you wake up in the Morning, and know by 8:00 that your day just isn't going to great?? Stay home, and get back in bed. :-)

An Off Day

Did you ever have one of those really off days?? Today is mine. As in 100% off. It all began when I was too tired to wake up with my 6:30 alarm, so.. instead, I hit snooze until 7:00 *sigh* Mind you, I typically leave the house at 7:15-7:20. It snowed out last night too, so I knew the drive would be a bit longer then usual. Mike and Caden went out to shovel while I got ready. Finally after 7:30 (not too bad eh?) I was good to go.

Stopped at my usual Tim Horton's for my daily caffeine kick, and the line was FOREVER long. It was nuts. I didn't have time to sit in it, so I left. Apparently hundreds more people leave the house a mere 15 minutes after I do. I knew I had another Tim Horton along the way, so off I went. The line there was lengthy, but not nearly as long as the 1st one. Maybe 8 cars ahead of me, and this one goes pretty quick. I see the truck in front of me order and pull up to the window. So I pull up, stop, and wait for them to ask for my order. After about a minute, I realize that i am sitting in front of the garbage can *not the speaker* DUH. I can only imagine the laugh the people in the cars behind me got out of that one. LOL.

Moving along. At work. I am just off. I am not comfortable, I just don't feel like me today.  Lunch time comes along. It's 12:30. For some reason I got suckered into letting the 2 dogs out who are staying in the office this week (yes, we have animals at work, don't ask) I mentioned it snowed last night. Well it's also warmed up, so it's 1/2 snow, 1/2 mud out there. These are jumpy little dogs. I hate when they get my pants muddy. So I get their leashes on, take them to the courtyard and try to get the leashes off. Bella runs with her leash. I try to chase her, to avoid getting it muddy. I step on it. Or try to step on it. She keeps running. As I step. I slide. Lose my footing. And down I go. ALL the way down. Mud ALL OVER ME. The funny part?? The entire office was looking out the window and saw the WHOLE thing! OMG!! I had to go home and change my clothes and go back to work. My pants were soaked and muddy. My jacket. My socks, my shoes. My underwear I could feel were even wet!!

It's  2;40pm now. We are leaving here in 20 minutes. I still have a whole day ahead of me. I am wondering if  I should sleep it away or tempt fate??

Don't worry. I have a picture of muddy me, but i need to upload it onto the computer then I'll be more then happy to post it for you.

Have I ever said how much I LOVE our pediatrician?? Well I do. :-) 

Imagination Vacation continued.... Feb 8th

Happy 37th Birthday Mike!!

Love, Your Wife :-)

Today we were in Cozumel, Mexico, but didn't arrive until 1 in the afternoon, which was kind of nice, not having to wake up first thing in the morning and rush to get off the ship. We went to eat in the dining room for the first time ever, which I LOVED (will for sure remember this for future cruises) then wander around the ship for a bit before we headed off for our excursion.

These are just a few pictures I took of the Dynasty Theatre when it was nice and empty. I love the staircase going to the next deck. The dream didn't have that, you actually had to leave and go out the outside staircases to access the top level, so this was nice.

Since today was Mike's birthday, I planned a little something for him. Originally we had planned to just take a cab and head to a private beach area and enjoy the day. I just wanted to be able to relax for the day. BUT I also wanted to do something fun for Mike too. So about a month or so before we left, I was able to get us tickets for the Twister boat ride with a stay at Isla Passion Beach. That included all food and open bar! So mike could have fun on the boat and yet, we'd still be able to enjoy the water and relax on the beach! I told him about it the night before, so he was pretty excited and I was thrilled I was able to surprise him with it ;-)

Cozumel, Mexico!

Imagination from the pier in Cozumel

Fat Tuesdays at the port had some fun picture props outside so we took some advantage of that.

Put your hands up!

Mike hanging out on the gator :-)

I took this picture right off the pier. How amazing is it that the water is THAT clear. Pictures can't even do it justice. It is just so pretty.

Square tree.

Here we are waiting for our excursion to start. It was HOT, but overcast, so we didn't have the sun to deal with, which was perfect!

Coconuts!

I obviously couldn't get a picture of the twister boat, since our didn't have a water safe camera. they had to store out bag in an under cabin at the front of the boat so nothing got wet. We went on with just out swim suits on. We should have known something was up, when their were over the shoulder harness that we had to be buckled into before we left the pier! The twister was as speed boat, and we were flying! it was so awesome. Our "driver" Wilbert & Jorge were great! We had so much fun on the way there. Just before we get to the island you start to do 360's. AND. GET. SOAKED. Thankfully after the first 2, I figured out which way to turn my head to I didnt' drown! the water so amazingly clear blue and warm. The entire ride out to the island, you could see the bottom of the ocean and all the reefs. I can't imagine living in such a beautiful place.

Isla Passion Beach.

Mike hanging out.

They had quite a few water toys, we didn't play on any, but just watching other was all we needed. They had a trampoline, a moon walk, a pillow where a person sits on the end, then someone else jumps on it and the first person flies into the air. They also had huge slides.

Amazing clear water! There were so clear fish that kept swimming around us too. A few kept hitting mike's legs. Later, as we were resting in a few hammocks, we saw a crab scuttle by us.

We were here for a few hours, were able to eat, drink, relax, do some shopping, then headed back to the ship to get ready for dinner.

Got back on the ship to our cabin, and the bed was already turned down (it was late, after 7) with a birthday gift for Mike! :-)

And we got our first ever lobster towel animal!! Isn't he adorable??

We showered, and got cleaned up and headed to dinner. We decided to do just a table for 2 tonight, and it was so relaxing. it was a perfect end to a fun day. Mike, even got SUNG to for his birthday!!!

 Tiramisu

Cappauchino Cake.

This picture is for Courtney. We LOVE our Warm Chocolate Melting cake!

And..what's better then a whole table FULL of desert!

The drink special this day was served in a Coconut Monkey. I wanted one of these for 2 cruises now, so I made it a point to get one this time. And we couldn't bring home just ONE could we?? Nope, both boys now own coconut monkey's, but no worries, they are coin banks! Cool huh??

And on a side note - I must always remember Gloria asking if she could rub our Monkey. I think she was just jealous and really wanted one of her own!

We grabbed our Monkey's and headed back to Xanadu where we KNEW Ms. Gloria would be wowing the crowd with her voice.

Prior to sailing, Mike had promised Gloria that he'd do Karaoke with her. So....ON this night, Frank & Mike joined Gloria up on stage and sang Margaritaville together. It was GREAT! LOL

I only wish I was able to get a better picture. I probably should have just walked up right in front of them and took it, but I didn't want to be rude and stand in front of other either. Oh well. I am sure Mike and Gloria will be signing together on the next cruise!

Since Cyndy was wiped out for the day, Frank came to hang out with Gloria

What a cute picture of them!

Live band, Xanadu lounge.

Oh.. and here is a secret room Mike and I found on our way back to our cabin that night! the things you find hidden!