Missouri

Before my sisterchick cruise, my whole fam went to Missouri for my cousin Caleb’s wedding. I posted day 1 & day 2 on my other blog. But didn’t finish it…hopefully soon I’ll post it here.

But while you’re waiting, enjoy a video made by one of the groom’s friends. Lydia and Nora are both in it being their absolute cutest. And it makes me miss my California family even more watching this…

Warning: they are teenagers.

Wordless Wednesday

Lydia’s 1st Disney Vacation and they have a crane right in front of Cinderella’s Castle!

(see my other ww here. and visit some more ww here.)

The Good Picture!

Beck posted the good picture. This was the pic before the insanely crazy hilarious picture.

My Thoughts on Carnival

I’ve been cruising 3 times.

My first cruise was a 7 day Disney Cruise. Heaven.

My 2nd cruise was a 4day/3night cruise with Disney again. Wonderful.

This Sisterchick Cruise was with Carnival on the Sensation boat. I don’t think it’s really fair to compare Disney with this boat, but…well, there is NO comparison. Disney is an 11. Carnival is a 1.

The Carnival boat was old and out of date. The decor was hideous. The party/host staff was lame. Two nights of the shows were like a 5th grade talent show. One night was a strong PG13. The buffets were just ok.

The good parts of the Carnival cruise was the dinners. I thought the food was great. There was a good selection and everything was tasty. The other good thing was the last show. It was top notch. If it hadn’t been for my Sisterchicks, I would not have been happy.

Cruises are THE best vacation in the world–several exotic locales, fabulous food at every meal, the ocean, live shows, cool entertainment and a swanky moving hotel. But, if you’re deciding between Carnival and uh…anything else…go with anything else!

The Funniest Moment on our Cruise

I told you I had something funny to tell you. Well, I finally scanned it….oh, it makes me laugh to think about it!

Every night there were about 10 photo stations set up. A cheezy background and a photographer ready to capture your memories. We had been taking at least 3 of these a night. Then the next morning we had fun trying to find our pictures from the day before. (In case you’ve never been on a cruise, they just set them all out so everyone can see them. You have to search through everyone’s to find yours.)

I had been wanting us to get a picture with a plain white background. They finally had one on day 3. We stopped there and she did the typical stand and face-one-way-hand-on-your-hip-whatever pose. Then she did a really cute pose of some of us kneeling, a few standing, etc. Finally she said, “Do you want to do something fun?” Uh…of course!!

So she says to Becky, “Lay on the your stomach like this.” Becky is giggling and we’re all wondering what kind of freak-o picture this is going to be. Then she tells Kristen to lay on her stomach next to Becky. If that’s not bad enough, she tells Mandy to lay down ON TOP of Becky! This is when it went over the top. I started laughing and did not stop for the next half hour! Staci then had to lay down on top of Kristen. Then Mandi and me on top of them!

WE WERE LAYING ON TOP OF EACH OTHER! In between each person’s turn to lay down the laughter got louder and louder. I was laughing so hard I was chattering, I had tears streaming down my face. We were all so hysterical people were stopping to watch us. One guy got his cell phone out and took a picture of us!

While she was snapping away, she stopped once because I had so many tears in my eyes she couldn’t see them! Here’s the finished product. I can almost hear us laughing!

Becky & Kristen’s poses are just priceless. You can tell they’ve been laying on the floor too long! And if you could see it closer you’d see tears on Staci’s face. And all of our eyes are filled with tears!

I’m laughing right now!

More Linkage

Staci just blogged the cruise!

Wordless Wednesday’s Vacation

The waterslide/aquarium at Atlantis in Nassau, Bahamas.

Yes, those are sharks. Sharks you slide under. Whoa.

(visit more ww here or my other ww here.)

Sisterchick Cruise Day 4 & 5

I’m having to combine day 4 & 5 because well, day 5 was basically the sad sad roadtrip home.

But let’s start off with Day 4–our Fun Day at Sea!

That morning Kristen decided to play with our new pet, the towel elephant before we went to breakfast.

 

After breakfast and a few more spins on the slot machines (did I mention Mandi & Becky both won $250? I’m trying not to be jealous! ), we actually went to the pool and laid out. We turned our chairs around and watched the water as we baked. Literally. I tried to read, tried to listen to my ipod, but the water was more exciting. Finally a little boy was standing next to me and said, “Dad! I think I see something!” His dad came over and said he thought he saw a fish. Well, we hopped up and sure enough, there were fish—actually DOLPHINS! I bet total we saw 8-10 dolphins swimming along beside our ship. They were playing! They would swim, then jump the wake, then trade places. It was one of hte coolest things I’ve ever seen. I didn’t get a good picture of it b/c it was so bright I couldn’t see my screen. But here’s one of them in the corner of this pic:

The dining rooms were open for lunch. Here’s some of our heavenly food:

After burning our skin to a crisp (actually, only Mandy’s skin), we got dolled up again and decided to try out our modeling skills on the deck.

I didn’t get me and Mandi. Mandi because I missed out on her…uhm…frivolity. And me, because well, I’m a little lame in the pretend modeling department. (Beck did get some pics if you have to see them!)

Now, onto the important thing–dinner! Staci & I had salmon. I didn’t love it but, it was a nice presentation!

Kristen had vegetable curry and rice. It looked better in real life. It was awesome!

And our nightly dinner pictures. Notice our smiles are a little tired…

Every night during dinner we would feel this huge vibrating–an engine or something. And every night we would say, “What the heck is that?!” So, I decided to take a picture of what I thought our glasses should look like during the turbulence.

We actually had very smooth sailing. But wouldn’t that be cool? Scary, but cool.

And here we are saying goodbye to our 2 waiters: Made & Matuka…Makukataka. I just can’t remember. He was from Indonesia. I do remember that. And he had a 15 month old daughter who he wouldn’t get to see until November! Oh, my heart was sad for him!

After dinner and a little stop to our cabins to push our suitcases out, we finally made it to a good show–I love the 80’s or something like that. They danced and sang to Footloose, Flashdance, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson and every other song you can think of. It was really really good…and nary a g-string in sight!

And here we are with our last little towel pet–a monkey. Yes, these are our monkey faces!

Good night, Sensation-al boat!

Day 5 we had to get up at the crack of dawn so we could get breakfast, pick up our pictures and get down that gangplank. Little did we know it would take us 3 hours to get out of there. It was one of the worst departure experiences ever. Why do they put every 80 year old meanie in the customs department? UGH.

So, while we were waiting for the blue luggage tags to be called, we took a few great pictures of ourselves!

Tell me you don’t love Staci’s face in that!!

Each one of us are just AWESOME in this picture! Kristen looks like Larry the Cucumber, Mandi is a pig, Becky has this weird gum thing in her mouth and me, Staci & Mandy have got the best Elvis lips ever!

Loverly, girls!

Once we finally got out of the death-trap-hell-hole otherwise known as customs, we loaded up our sisterchick-mobile and headed 9 hours home! We stopped several times for snacks. I guess when your stomach has expanded to pack in 2 entrees at ever meal, it gets a little more hungry.

We also made up some new games on the way home. One person would get their camera and take a picture of say, an angry face. Then pass it around the van and everyone had to take a picture of an angry face. Then we’d pass it around again to see everyone’s faces. I did an elbow round. Here’s a few:

and Becky’s curly elbow:

And just for fun, here’s a few of Staci playing the game by herself!

(Stace, I so hope your students stumble on to this page!)

We finally made it home, hugged each other good-bye and went our separate ways. *sigh*

I loved every second of my sisterchick cruise, but there was nothing better than seeing my little girl again. Here she is enjoying her Bahamaian souviners:

Linkage

Becky just uploaded her pictures to flickr. She got some really good ones at Atlantis and in Nassau.

I just posted on my “real” blog about the people of Nassau.

My other sisterchicks have not blogged about our awesome trip yet. Hint. Hint.

Sisterchick Cruise Day 3

(I’m really creative with these titles, huh?)

This is the day we port in Nassau. I’ve been to Nassau before but it rained and Lydia was sick, so I didn’t see much of it. Just the hairbraiding booth where my mom, sil and niece got braided. Anywhoo, that was a whole ‘nother vacation.

Here’s Mandi & Mandy posing outside of our SENSATIONal boat!

We basically did what girls do best in Nassau–shopped. I got my souvenir the day before, a little silver seahorse charm for my bracelet, so I was just along for the ride and with an eye open for anything for Lydia. But I did look at all the candy. I’m a sucker (ha!) for new candy–all those limited editions that are out now, I buy them every time. So, I found this Bounty. I’m pretty sure we had these when I was a kid. It’s kinda like a Mounds, only milk chocolate.

One of the shops I found, I had to take a picture for my niece, Nora!

We finally found a Starbucks. Yes, we went into a Starbucks while in the Bahamas. Kristen is a current employee and Mandy is a former. So, it’s just something we had to do. Plus we thought the bathrooms might be clean. So, here’s Staci and Becky’s walking stick hanging out in Sbux.

Now it’s time for the highlight of our trip, the adventure of a lifetime…the NOSE PIERCING! Mandy used to have one and Kristen just thinks they are cute, so here’s some before pictures:

We stopped off at The Tattoo King because…well, it was the cleanest of the 2 tattoo parlors we found. Plus, Anna Nicole Smith got her tattoo there. So, you know, everyone wants to be like her. Ahem. The guys there were so nice. I mean really nice. Maybe it was because 6 hot girls just walked in, I don’t know.

The Tattoo King himself was flirting with Staci, one of our 2 single gals. He did a mind reading game that I have to admit was pretty nifty. Then the moment was upon us. They didn’t sit Mandy & Kristen down, more like leaned them up against a table. They didn’t numb their nostrils, or clean them. They just stuck a huge needle in them. OH MY GOODNESS. It was so scary. I think Kristen’s going to blog the awesome video I took, so I’ll just show you a picture. Just know it was much much worse in real life.

And now, the after shots (notice Mandy’s tears & Kristen’s blood!):

And there they are, our 2 happy pierced chickies with our uhm…idol, Anna Nicole Smith.

Really, not much compares after getting your nose pierced in the Bahamas by the Tattoo King. But we did go to the Straw Market and try to buy some knock-off Kate Spades & Coach bags. Then we got a cab to Atlantis. If you haven’t seen Atlantis, it’s worth going. It is so huge, so detailed and I kept wondering, who can pay for this kind of vacation? Here’s one of about 12 buildings to the “hotel”.

And Becky & me standing in front of the koi fish. I think they’re koi fish. Which, in case you didn’t know are the most OVERUSED object in tattoos. I’m an expert now since I got an airbrush tattoo on day 2 of my cruise. And I watch Miami Ink. A lot.

The water at the beach was really wild. There were some guys renting jet skis there. It would have been a crazy ride. They called us every name in the book: gorgeous, pretty mama, scrumptious and some I don’t even want to repeat. They’ve got the schmoozing down!

The beach was really pretty though because of the little bitty rock islands out in the distance. Here I am trying not to get soaked by a wave.

After a quick trip to the straw market again we headed off to the showers to get ready for dinner. Too bad the electricity went out and half of us didn’t get to dry our hair. Oh well. We still looked like scrumptious gorgeous mamas. Here’s our nightly dinner pics:

I got an amazing jerk pork tenderloin but my picture just didn’t come out. Here’s Becky’s short ribs. Yum!

Becky also got a special present from another table’s waiter. He was smitten!

At midnight there was a Mexican Fiesta on the deck. It really turned out lame except for the mango pineapple salsa and the chocolate cake. But I guess drunk people don’t care if the entertainment is bad. So, here we are, the non-drunkards enjoying our Mexican picnic on the deck!

After the frivolity, we headed off to our beds. Have I mentioned before I love sleeping on a boat?!

(something else really funny happened this day but I have to scan something before I tell you about it! It will be worth the wait!)
Day 4: dolphins, food & craziness