Our trip. This is going to be a long one...

We went on a cruise this week. Here are some thoughts and a bunch of pictures from our trip. We had a lot of fun... relaxed a lot... and had a lot of laughs at/with our fellow cruisers.
The overall experience was a blast, and it was nice to trade the cold for a few days for some nice warm sun. We got up REALLY early Saturday morning and drove to Galveston. We arrived early and found a Starbucks to sit and relax before parking the car and getting on the boat. Our room wasn't ready yet when we got on the boat, so we ate some lunch while still in port and explored the ship. By the time our room was ready, we were both pretty tired from getting up so early, so we unpacked and took a nap. Every evening there was a show, and the first night had a bit of a taste of the nights to come. There was a lot of singing, dancing, costume changes, comedy... all incredibly cheesy, but we got a good laugh. There were 10 people at our dinner table that we met on the first night: a couple on their honeymoon, a couple with two little kids, and then a family of four with two daughters that were 17 and 19. The food was good, but a little bland for our liking, but the chocolate cake was AMAZING. It came in a bowl with a crusted top and gooey inside and a little scoop of ice cream. I had it every night.... amazing.
Every night when we got in from dinner, there was a towel animal waiting on our bed, so I took pictures of them every day. Here is the one from the first evening... a seal.

Our second day on the ship was spent at sea. We spent some time exploring the ship some more and also got started on the search for a baby name. We came up with around 35 that we liked, and then cut that list down to 5 by the end of the trip that we both really like. What a job! (On a side note there... the name will remain a secret until the birth, so no point asking! haha.) Also, the second day of the cruise was "formal" night, so we put on our best for dinner and went to the captain's welcome aboard reception.
Blake had the lobster for dinner. This just so happens to be his second try with lobster. (Here's the first... in case you missed it.) This time, it was just the tail pre-prepared, so it went better than his first lobster a year ago.

Day three was at Cozumel, Mexico. We spent the day shopping and being heckled by shop vendors. I got a good laugh from some of the stuff that was said to us. I can't say that it made me want to come in their shop and buy a lot of stuff, but it was funny none the less.


Blake got a goofy balloon hat. When I say he got it... he didn't request it, the guy was just making them for tips. Blake was super happy about this one.


A cute little boy outfit we got while shopping in Cozumel.
Day four: Progresso, Mexico. We spent the day at the beach, so we didn't bring a camera along. It was nice to relax and read some though... in between being asked if we wanted to purchase a shirt, bracelet with our name on it, other beaded jewelery... you name it. The water was cold, but not so much so that we couldn't get in it. Once we decided that we had enough of the beach, we went back to the ship for some lunch and to try out the pool. We were both surprised when we found out that the pool was not only COLD but also salt water. It was fun though. We also tested out the slide a couple of times. It was fun.
Day five: another day at sea. We slept in, had breakfast, and swam some more. Here are some pictures from around the ship.






BINGO! Wow, did those old people take it seriously.
We overheard someone talking about this cake, so we thought we should try it. It was good. We liked it and everything, but it wasn't as good as the guy made it out to be. It was pretty though, so I took a picture.

Proof that it wasn't as good as the guy made it out to be.

Our last morning, we were supposed to be getting off the ship at about 8:15 am, but because of some really strong wind from the previous night, we were delayed until 10:30. We were glad we decided to do "self-assist" debarkation because that meant we got to get off 1 hr before everyone else. We got to the car and headed for Granbury to pick up Bo. He was one happy little dog. All in all, it was a long day of driving, but we made it home safely. Back to the real world!

On the road again...

We decided to go ahead and leave tonight. At 9:15 pm we pulled out of our parking lot. I think we were both tired of sleeping on an air mattress. Our destination for the evening? Motel 6 in Coalina, CA. Why motel 6? We found out on our way to CA that they are pet friendly (at no extra charge), plentiful, and overall inexpensive. Not fancy, but usually handy. Anyway, the air conditioner didn't work in our first room and so Blake was nice enough to take care of his whining wife and handle it. We are now nice and cool.
Here's the funny story if the evening... When we finally got in the car, Blake looks over at me and says, "ok, where do we go from here?". I laughed and pulled out the iPhone for help. Pretty funny. We've done all this planning and have completed the packing of the car, and don't know how to get out of here. Speaking of our packing... Our car is packed to the brim. We couldn't fit one more bag or anything. We can't see out the back window at all. Should be a fun, tight trip. Stay tuned for more posts from the road.

How I spent my summer vacation:

Last Monday I took a trip to New York. I took a few days off of work, and planned out every second of my visit. I would fly Virgin America ( it is a pretty cool plane with cool lights, free TV, and instead of attendants coming by once with a cart, you order what you want off of your screen and they bring it to you) into JFK, take a cab into Manhattan, see some friends, visit with some guys out in Queens, walk around the city to enjoy the locals, find some authentic New York cuisine, and then come back to San Francisco and see my lovely wife.

The only hitch was that I had to get all of my stuff out of my apartment in Manhattan, and storage in Queens in the process while selling all the stuff we aren't bringing back with us on Craigslist and then clean or trash what was left. I got in at close to 11PM, decided I wasn't tired, but it was too late to take stuff off the walls of the apartment and went by the Apple store on Fifth Avenue. I got there, talked with some friends ( who generally seemed happy for me and my opportunity with Watermark), listened to them go on about the general craziness and happenings of the night, and then headed home around 2AM.

Since I couldn't sleep, I figured I would watch some tv and fall asleep. No small task, as all I could think of was all that I had to do that next day, and the movers were coming at 8AM! I finally fell asleep around 5AM (thanks to whatever came on CNN headline after Glenn Beck,) only to wake up before my alarm around 7:15 to start finishing getting things ready for the movers.

The movers came just about on time (close to 9AM but the window was between 8 and 10), and were finished moving things out of the storage unit in Queens by 12:30. I sat around the apartment, cleaning and meeting with people to pick up furniture and such. ( A brief word of caution for all you in the Inter-Web-Land, if you post something for craigslist for free DO NOT PUT YOUR PHONE NUMBER.) In the midst of this, I tried to sleep in our circle chair, mostly unsuccessfully, and grabbed a slice from Arturo's Pizza up the street, literally up as there is a decent hill.

I met with our NY pastor that night at Starbucks, did some catching up and then went home to sleep in the circle chair. JR, our pastor in NY, called me a couple minutes later, asked if I needed a place to sleep, and suggested a friend nearby who had an extra bedroom. I had completely forgotten they had space for guests, or I would have called myself. Luckily, they were still awake and welcomed me in for the night. It was great to see them, and I was glad for that little accident.

Went to bed around 11PM (after getting 2 hours the night before and maybe 1 hour between Craigslisters), and woke up at 6:45 to meet someone to purchase the great circle chair I bought in college. I will miss the times we had together. That first car ride to Abilene. That first assembly under my bed that I set up on cinder blocks. That 1st disassembly at the end of the semester to move into the dorm as an RA. All those other moves. And the dirt, who can forget cleaning off the dirt. Man, could that black pillow show dirt.

Anyhow, after that I returned the cable box, oddly enough the the same girl I had received it from in May. I went to the store again for a final goodbye, and to talk to the daytime managers there about how great my summer experience was, and then met a friend for lunch before catching an earlier flight back to see Whitney. She met me at the airport and we went to In-and-Out Burger.

Overall it was a pretty decent trip, but I am glad I only have to move out of New York once. As fun and as hard as it is to live in New York, I am glad I had the opportunity.

not a lot to say right now... just an update.

I just thought I'd write a quick update, since I haven't written in a while. Blake and I went to Dallas for a long weekend. It was jam packed full almost the entire time, so we are happy to have an evening at home tonight. Hopefully it will be an early night for us. Blake is currently playing the xbox. Bo is napping under the table, and I'm doing a bit of typing on the computer... exciting stuff for sure.
We didn't get home till about 1:30 am (pacific time) last night from the airport. Our car was due at the rental at 6 pm yesterday in dallas, and our flight wasn't till 8, so in true "blake" style, we aimed for catching an earlier flight. If you haven't heard his travel stories. Ask him. They make me laugh. (Here's his most recent tales from his travel.)
Back to the current trip though... We returned the rental car at 6 and hopped on the shuttle bus... got off at the airport and got checked in. Since we weren't checking any bags, we thought we might check and see if there happened to be an earlier flight to Denver. There was... and it was scheduled to leave at 6:30. By this time... it was 6:30, but we just so happened to be right in front of the departing gate, so we figured we'd give it a shot. Sure enough, just as Blake always seems to manage, there was room for us... in the reclining exit row, no less.
Awesome, maybe we'll make it home before midnight, we thought. Wrong... we made it to denver and found that there were no connecting flights to San Francisco that left any earlier. We weren't disappointed though, we just decided that this would give us a chance to sit down, eat dinner together, and talk. We did just that. I had Schlotsky's... wow, I love those sandwiches. Come to find out though, our 9:30 flight out of denver was delayed. We now aren't scheduled to leave till 10:15. Long story short, we finally landed, got on our second shuttle bus of the day (this time bound for the parking garage), heard the bus driver's story about how he almost ran over some random girl today. She thought it would be a good idea to lay down in the middle of the road... go figure. We did manage to find our car. It was still parked in the same spot we left it. We started toward home... both too tired to pull out an ipod and plug it into the audio system in the car, so we rode the whole way in silence. Blake checked on me every so often to make sure I wasn't sleeping... isn't he nice? When we got home, we both basically fell into bed and didn't wake until the alarm said it was time. Even then, it took me 30 minutes to decide that I do actually have to get up.
All of this to say, We are glad we got to go and glad to be back home. Now, if only there was a way to magically get all of our stuff unpacked and put away. I'll work on that.