Ok, I'm ready now

I'm finally ready and able to talk about our super fun vacation-our Caribbean cruise. Before we left I thought the whole time I'd think-Oh, I can't wait to blog about that, I can't forget to put that in the blog- but...I didn't. Not one time. Maybe that's why it's taken me so long to actually get on here and do it. That, and I know it's going to be a long one because so many things happened and we took so many pictures! I have a video clip I want to post, so I'm going to try to figure that out...I might have to call April to help me, though. (It's now Monday morning, Merry Christmas Eve!!! I wrote that first part Sunday night and Cody and I tried for over THREE hours to figure out the video clip....but obviously we didn't.)
Our cruise was amazing, though! We left from Fort Lauderdale, FL on the 8 of this month. When we first got on the ship our rooms weren't ready yet so they told us to go eat some food! We were pretty excited about that! They have a giant buffet with loads and loads of food, and of course you can eat as much as you want, so we took good advantage of that! And the buffet was at the very back of the boat so there were windows all across the back where you could eat and look at the ocean, or Cuba if you were lucky! So it was pretty awesome. When we got to our room we realized...It was TINY! Our bathroom reminded me of the bathroom on an airplane-the toilets I swear were the same, every time they flushed it sounded like a bomb went off-and the shower we called our "time capsule" because it was so tiny. When we first got there we actually had two seperate beds, too! We called our stateroom attendant and she was from another country and said when she heard the name Stacey she thought I was a boy, so she gave us two beds. Oh well, she put them back together so it was fine. Our room didn't really bother us that much with it's tininess because we weren't there very often, so it wasn't a big deal. That first night we ate dinner in the grand dining room and the couple, well, the two friends-they were always talking about how they were NOT a couple!- that sat with us was Sebastien and Virgine, from France. (We still don't know how to say her name; after she told us and we were like....come again? Sebastien just said it was like Virgina, but with an "e" at the end.) It was so cool to talk to them and become their friends! When they first sat down and said they were from France I was like-I can't WAIT to tell Catheryn! I'll have to make sure to keep a record of this I guess. :)

OH! Before I forget. Brittany, at the beginning when we do the lifejacket thing, we're all split up into different groups and it says what group you're on on the front of your life jacket. We were in A1 and so we went to the Ixtapa Lounge to meet the rest of our group. We sat there for about 20 minutes and they said if anything was to happen make sure to go there. Then it was over! So it wasn't too bad. The lifejackets weren't super comfortable though...but I wouldn't mind if it was saving my life!


The first day I got pretty sick, I didn't throw up at all but I could feel every little movement the ship made, and it built up until I felt like I was going to throw up! Cody told me it was just like a mini-earthquake, which I thought was kinda cool....until I realized-5 days?! 5 days with a mini-earthquake? Oh man..We bought some medicine and about an hour later I was fine. It made me sooooooooo tired, though, which was a bummer, but oh well.

On Sunday we just got to play on the ship and hang out. We played shuffleboard, which kinda made me feel like an old person, but is actually really fun after Cody taught me how to play! Cody got a few perfect hits....I just kept trying.

That night was the formal night in the dining room, so we got to dress up! It was really fun.
They had a GIANT Christmas tree on the ship, which was awesome, so that last one is us infront of it. It had so many cool ornaments on it! After dinner we went to see RONDELL SHERIDAN perform his comedy. I was SO SO SO excited because he's the dad on the Disney Channel show, That's So Raven...Which I LOVE! He's performing here, you can't really tell, cause we sat so far up. But he was SO SO SO funny. At first I was a little freaked out because he talked about being drunk and wasted and I was like...Um...You're supposed to be Raven and Cory's dad, Mr. Baxter...The owner of the Chill Grill...What are you talking about?! Can Disney endorse this?! But after I got over that shock, everything else was hilarious. (that's us...having fun with Raven's dad)

Monday we went to Jamaica!!!!! It was AWESOME. And SO SO SO pretty.
We loved it. We had booked a tour with an ATV company there called Wilderness Tours. We only read good reviews about them and they were so good. I wasn't scared of them at all! They picked us up from the dock and gave us a little riding lesson. Of course, Cody beat everyone with how good he was, so he got to go at the very end of the line! They made us wear helmets and googles, for safety of course. I thought it was kinda lame at first. I was like, Um, hi. I ride Grandpa Dobson's atv allllllll the time and he doesn't make me wear this stuff and I've never gotten hurt...Oh well, everyone had to wear it so I didn't feel too much like a dork. They took us up to a really, really, really high point, it was like 6 miles from the beach where we started, and it was SO pretty.


They did have some weird looking cows though... I wanted to say-I'm from Cow Country, USA..Let me tell you how cows should look...but they seemed like happy little cows so I didn't want to hurt their feelings.



And of course, beautiful Jamaican flowers.



After our tour the nice man that picked us up from the dock that worked for the tour people took us to the shopping mall, called..something. It started with an S. We walked around the shops and at one I took out one of those hats that has the gross dreadlocks attached and told Cody to take my picture. He said to give him the camera and I was like...I don't have it. I gave it to you. He was like-I don't have it either. We had left it in the guy's van! MAJOR CRISIS! We immediately left the store and were freaking out. We tried to figure out a payphone, but we needed a calling card and didn't know where to get one. A couple rude Jamaican people started talking to us about braiding my hair and buying calling cards and I wanted to just yell at them-LEAVE US ALONE! I DON"T LIKE YOU! But another guy came over to Cody and shook his hand. Without me knowing, he asked Cody if he wanted to smoke some weed with him in the alley! He of course said no, so the guy asked-Oh, do you already have some (weed)? Cody said, No, I don't smoke. The strange high man was like, Oh, much respect mon. Then asked if we wanted to use his cell phone to call the people. We said thank you, thank you, thank you! (I don't think I would've said yes if I had known he wanted to smoke weed with us...but pretty much everyone wanted us to smoke, so..) He called the tour company and told them to come back to bring us our camera. After about 10 minutes of calling and waiting with this guy he got it figured out and when it was done, said, "Give me some money for beer." We were like, ok, whatever and gave him 5 bucks. $9 down there can buy a giant thing of Jamaican rum, so we thought he should be pretty happy. We waited for about an hour and the guy brought our camera back to us. We were so happy. When we saw him drive up and he handed it to us I felt like I started breathing again! Like I had been holding my breath that whole time.
After that we realized we were really hungry, so we went to The Jerk Center. We wanted some really good jerk chicken and had asked our drivers where the locals went to get some. He told us the Jerk Center was the best. It really was AMAZING. Oh, so good. I had chicken and Cody had pork. I wish we had taken pictures of our food! They just cut up everything all together, so every bite I was spitting something out. Bones, tendons...Oh yum. One piece I SWEAR was the head, but I didn't realize it and gave it to Cody to eat. After he ate the only part he could-which we think had to have been the brain-he put it back on my plate and I was like..Oh man, that was chicken head.
We went to Margaritaville and I stopped in to go to the bathroom. In the stall next to me was a bottle of beer on the floor and vomit everywhere...Jamaica really isn't a very clean place.
There was a little stand outside of Margaritaville that sold coconuts that you drank the milk out of. Cody didn't really want one, but I did so we got one. I should've known it'd be gross..There was a rat running to and from the stand. I drank the milk once and was done. I let Cody drink the rest. It was only $2, so it wasn't a huge purchase, but Cody doesn't waste money! He drank almost all of it.
We were kinda bummed because all the beaches cost money to go to, so we snuck on one and swam for about 15 minutes before getting kicked out. Oh well, we got to swim in Jamaica at least!

That night Cody decided to teach me a lesson about how bad gambling is. He had found a one-dollar piece that you could only use there. We went to the casino on the ship and I picked my slot machine. I think his lesson went a little backwards, because after I lost my dollar I was like-I need more money! I can win, I just need more money!!! Luckily he didn't give me more and we left the casino before I could get more hooked!
The next day, Tuesday, we went to Grand Cayman. SOOOO much cleaner than Jamaica!!! And the only people that would yell anything at us, asking if we wanted stuff, was when we first got off and people were asking if we wanted to do tours. In Jamaica it was EVERYWHERE! We walked to the Seven Mile Beach and went snorkling ALL DAY LONG. It was SO awesome. This is part of the beach we were at.
We had a blast. We had a disposable underwater camera and only took like 10 pictures, so we haven't developed it yet. There were SO many cool fish! I saw a sting ray, and by the time I called Cody over to see it, it was gone, so we didn't get a picture of that. It kinda freaked me out at first, but it was just so exiciting that I forgot to be scared! We went to another part that had a sunken ship and it was SO neat. We explored the boat and I felt like Arielle from The Little Mermaid. We even saw a pufferfish! That was really exciting, but it was kinda scared of us so it was hiding under a big metal piece of something. I picked up some rocks and tried to drop them on him, and I swam RIGHT up in his face, trying to make him mad and puff up, but he never did. It's probably a good thing, because Seth told me later that they're poisonous! I was trying to remember if it could hurt me when I was swimming with it, but the only thing about pufferfish I could remember was the one from Finding Nemo. And whenever it puffed up I thought it was hilarious, so I was like-Pufferfish are funny!!! It won't hurt me!
After we were done snorkling we walked around town. There were pirates and chickens EVERYWHERE! Well, statues of pirates, but real chickens!



I know...Not a chicken, but still cool!

Every night when we came back to our room our stateroom attendant had made a cool animal for us out of towels, just like the commercials!!! The first night I thought they had given us a new pair of sunglasses...but really she just found ours and put it on the animal.

The first night was an aardvark.

Then a dog

And a monkey!

Then a stingray!

We even got to go ICE SKATING in the middle of the CARIBBEAN!!



So, all in all, our cruise was amazing and we loved every second of it!

Merry Christmas!!!

I forgot..

I forgot something else to complain about...I know, I'm kinda pathetic.

Today at work I was talking to this girl, and she said she was going home for Christmas. I asked when the last time she had been there was, and she said last january. I was like, yeah, I haven't been home for a long time either. I think it's been like a year and a half. Then she said, "Well, you're married..So it's different." I was like.."No, not really..I miss my parents just like you..and my hometown and my friends..just like you..just because I"m married doesn't mean I stop missing those things.." DUH. Then, she leaned into my office and said, "You decorated a lot more for Halloween than you have for Christmas..Do you worship the devil?" I was like, "Como se WHAT?! Are you for real?!" She laughed, said jk, and walked away. OH I was SO MAD! I was also pretty mad because a few weeks ago we were talking about our upcoming schedules and she was like, "I have 16 credits and have to work 3 hours a day!! I am crazy, I don't know WHY I'm doing this." I was like, "Yeah, that is crazy! I have 16 credits too and am working 6 hours a day. You just have to do what you have to do." She was like, "Wow! How do you see anyone?" And THEN said, " Well, you're married so I guess you don't really have to worry about a social life anymore."

WOW.

Wow.

Ok, I'm done for real this time.

ARGH!

*WARNING* After you read this, you might think you wasted time...So think carefully before reading, cause I don't want anyone to waste time!

I know all of you want to hear about the cruise. We had a fabulous time and I want to tell all of you about the cruise. But right now I just want to talk about my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day! (And if the writer's of "Alexander's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" sue me cause I used half their title in my blog I'll be even MORE mad!)

It really didn't start to get bad until this afternoon. Up until then I was happy, sweet, innocent. ...Not anymore! Let me explain...


My job works with a company, we'll call it H.A. to transport the kids to and from our agency. Recently they fired one of the co-owners, and then were bought out by a couple-who look to be my age. I mean, good for them to own a company so young, but it automatically makes me not respect them because I'm like-you don't know anything about what you're doing, you're too young....I know, I'm a jerk. I also didn't like them because the co-owner that was fired was my good friend's mom and I was aware of things probably not too many other people were aware of. Anyway. H.A. started TOTALLY screwing up everything. Our business hours are from 6:30 am to 6 pm and they weren't picking up some kids until 6:30 pm and those kids weren't getting home until 8:30 or 9 pm! Ridiculous, I know!! A lot of other stuff was going on, mostly just the owners being pretty shady. So. Nancy, the co-owner that was fired, decided to start her own company, we'll call R.S. It's been in the making for awhile now, but it's been top secret so H.A. couldn't go against her and make it bad for her. Our owner decided to tell the kid's parents that Nancy had a new company and if they wanted to switch, they could. ALL but TWO parent's switched. We knew that H.A. would have to know sometime before the switch so they could have their drivers be on different routes. We told them Monday that we were switching and the day Nancy's company opened was today. The owner of H.A. acted like we didn't switch. He still sent all the drivers to pick up our kids like it was normal. So when I saw the drivers, who are some of my good friends, and I had to tell them the kids went with someone else, and they started crying or about cried because they didn't understand why all of this was happening, it about broke my heart. I hated it. I was really proud of Nancy and really happy about her new company because it's a good thing, but really sad for the drivers of H.A. because their owners are so dumb. AND THEN at 5:45 the H.A. driver calls me and asks if one client has been picked up yet. I said no and he said he would be there to pick her up. AT 6:15-30 MINUTES LATER, and 15 minutes after we close, he shows up, and there are THREE kids he needs to pick up. And then he makes excuses for why he wasn't there because he thought she was a cancel but, oh, I guess not. I was SO close to yelling at him...And I don't yell.. I don't yell unless it's really loud and someone can't hear me..Or it was Jeff today, cause I yelled at him...But I'm not a mean yeller. And I would NEVER yell at a strange man...But I was close.

There were other reasons at work why I was going crazy, but I'm sick of talking about work so. That's all for that.

Then I came home, late, and didn't get to see Cody because I was late. So I came inside, starving, wondering what to have for dinner. I decided I wanted hot chocolate cause I was freezing, and I found a pizza. I was pretty happy with my food choices. I put the teapot on the stove and turned the burner on and the oven on for the pizza. like 6 minutes later, it took so long cause I started writing this blog, I looked to see why my water wasn't boiling yet. I TURNED ON THE WRONG BURNER and the pan on that burner was smoking. My whole kitchen was filled with smoke so I ran in, turned it off and grabbed a cookie sheet to start fanning the smoke alarm so it wouldn't go off. It did go off for about 3 seconds, but that's not too bad. I opened the door and the window and kept fanning until the smoke was gone....I'm not having hot chocolate anymore.

So. Hopefully that concludes my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day...But we'll see. I'm going to go eat my pizza, play my guitar and read Harry Potter. Those will all get me in better moods.

Sorry to everyone that has now spent like 10 minutes reading this and is like..wow. I just wasted 10 minutes of my day...But I warned you.

Cruise Pictures

Hey everyone. I've been trying to get Stacey to do this for a while now but she has been able to do it yet. Everyone has been asking about the cruise and pictures and stuff so ill just tell you how to see them. Stacey will talk about the cruise later.

Ok, go to www.photobucket.com
sign in name is: Foxrace8
the guest password is: cruise

on the left hand side under sub albums click cruise.
There you have it, the pictures of the cruise. Enjoy everyone. We don't have as many as i would have liked to take. Especially on the islands but oh well.

Tagged!

I've been tagged by April...

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? BOTH. I LOVE wrapping presents but gift bags are so cute and fun. I do think I'll say my favorite is wrapping paper, though. Really cute wrapping paper.
2. Tree--Real or Artificial? I've always, always had a fake tree until last year. I don't like pine trees. I hate how they hurt you if you touch them and I hate how they smell, so I've never wanted a real tree, but when we got ours, I fell in love. I think I'm converted to real.
3. When do you put Christmas tree up? this year it'll be after our cruise. We don't really have a set time, just whenever works.
4. When do you take the tree down? Around New Years.
5. Like egg nog? I used to, but not anymore
6. Do you have a nativity scene? We have half of one...I posted about it below.
7. Favorite gift received as a child? I have tons of favs..but probably my absolute fave was my dancing ballerina doll that actually danced and came with a tape of music. We went to the store and they were all gone so my mom told me maybe the elves would make one for me..and then I got it. It was then I realized that Santa really cared about me :)
8. Hardest person to buy for? My dad
9. Easiest person to buy for? myself! I always love what I buy myself
10. Worst Christmas gift? Honestly, I dont even know. i dont' think I've ever gotten any really bad presents before
11. Mail or email a Christmas Card? Mail. I want to make some and send them out, but I haven't said anything. Last year I said we should send one but Cody said we should wait until we have a kid...That's probably why I haven't said anything
12. Favorite Christmas movie? Miracle on 34 Street. The new one. I've never seen the old one. I LOVE LOVE LOVE that movie...and we don't have it. I don't know why!
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? It depends. I'm getting better at starting earlier
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? no, but I've gotten plenty! hahaha April your answer reminds me of Rachel from Friends.
15. Favorite food to eat on Christmas? the yummy breakfast casserole my mom makes. And we always had A TON of fruit compost but I don't really know why cause no one ate it except my dad..
16. Clear or colored tree lights? Someday I want a tree that is really pretty with clear lights and red and gold ornaments but that's just for show.. :) then we'll have another tree that we'll actually use that is colored and fun
17. Favorite Christmas Song? O Holy Night
18. Travel during Christmas or Stay home? Last year was my very first Christmas away from Illinois (that I can remember) But I like staying home...or at least not having to travel
19. Can you name Santa's reindeers? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixon, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen. Rudolph! Is that right?
20. Angel or Star on Tree top? hahah when I was little we had a DANG ugly angel..but it lit up and the lights blinked and we would have races starting when it lit up so it was fair...
21. Open presents on Christmas Eve or morning? one present on christmas eve - the rest the next day.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? I always get really excited about Christmas, and then the day before I could care less. It's seriously annoying.

I'm tagging Erin, Nicole, Paige and Michelle!

Bleh

So I'm super excited for our cruise....until I got sick today. I was fine until about 2 pm and I was at work and it just hit me. I have a cold SO bad. I've drank almost 40 oz. of juice in about 2 hours and I kinda expected it to go away by now...haha obviously not going to happen. Hopefully by Friday morning I am feeling a-ok because I can't go on a cruise and just sleep the whole time! It doesn't help that all the kids at my work are so sick and I have to play nurse and take care of them...I should buy some masks.

Cody and I have been decorating for Christmas!!! It's really exciting. We have some lights up and a snowman guy and cute signs that say-Happy Holidays and one of Santa's face and a snowman...So cute. Then today I remembered we have a Nativity from my mom!!! It was next to our washing mashine because we don't have room in our little apartment for storage, and because it was hiding away last year we forgot to put it out! So this year I was so excited I remembered. Then I remembered another important fact...Awhile ago our washing mashine broke and flooded EVERYWHERE. Twice. So the box was all messed up and I was really hoping it'd be ok. I actually was only thinking about if hundreds of giant spiders were going to run out of the box when I ripped it open..Oh sick. I just got goosebumps thinking about it again. YUCK! Luckily there weren't any spiders. But, the whole stable was covered with MOLD. Gross, I know! I'm sure that makes it a little more authentic, but...I think I'll pass. So I was really really hoping the figures would be ok, and they are! They still look good so I put them out on our coffee table. Look how cute they are. Even without a stable.



K...I'm going to bed. Wish me well :)