Home sweet home??

Ugh. It's cold here. And it was rainy/sleety. What a shaft. I'm high tailin' back to the boat!!

Our last morning on the ship was bittersweet. I litterally almost cried as we debarked......goodbye paradise!

It was an hour ride to Miami International where we proceeded to set up camp for the rest.of.the.day. Cause why would they have more than one flight to Cbus a day. It's such a great place, I'm sure TONS of Miamians flock there in the early spring. Yeah. Right. So we arrived at MIA around, oh 10:30. We stand in not one, not two, but three lines because the airport is so craptastically marked before discovering we can't even check in until 12:20....5 hours before our departure. And of course thanks to TSA and 9/11 there is no longer any seating or food on the other side of security. We were lucky we had a bathroom and not a port a john. We found a comfy piece of carpet, parked our bags and our butts, and chilled for the next 2 hours.

By the time 12:20 rolled around we were pumped to ditch the baggage. We stand in some more lines, the right one finally, and cheer, actually high five and woo hoo as our last bag weighs in at 49 pounds!! The lady behind the counter just laughed. Glad we could provide some entertainment. After dropping of the junk, we move to yet another line to be checked, rechecked, ID'd, frisked, asked for blood and urine.....J/K ......and the finally make it to the holy grail. The elusive "other" side we'd only heard about. What a let down. There was a Mojito stand, a Starbucks, and one lousy restaurant. We parked for lunch, which they had the nerve to ask us to pay for...what? No more free food??? Do you accept Sail and Sign??? Where's my potato salad????? Back to shore reality.

Fast forward 5 hours. One book. A latte. And alot of clock watching....we finally board the bus, that takes us to our plane. As we land in Columbus, we're greeted by a sudden chill. I can feel my tan fading already. Maria met us at the airport and we drove home. Thanks best friend for car sitting all week!!! The boys were more than happy to see us. Even Moose howled and cried. We bathed them. Ate some dinner, again, they made us pay, ugh...land lubbers.....and now we're crawling into our very own bed before that wretched alarm wakes us up.

On a happy note, Adam informs me, after weighing himself, that we'll be saving money. How you may ask? He's praying his clothes fit tomorrow and says we're adopting the starvation diet pronto. Gee. So good to be home.

Almost ashore.....

Last night on the boat. Boo. We had another WINDY day, similar to the first day at sea....must be those damn Cuban waters! Spent most of the day on the deck, even got Adam to join me. We got more windburned than sunburned. When we got back to the cabin, I had to pack everything up and get our bags outside already. Makes the end seem so real.

I picked up my gold by the inch, wouldn't be a cruise without it! The funny thing is the stuff hasn't changed! They had pretty much the same choices they did 10 years ago, pretty soon I'll have a complete collection!

One last dinner with Anas, our head waiter tonight. Which means one last night of gluttony before it's back to Slim Fast hell. Haha. Tonight is the big Ledgends show where the guests are the performers, should be interesting.

We get into to Ft Lauderdale before we even wake up, something like 5am. So that's it. One last night to whoop it up before it's back to life, back to reality! See ya all back in the US!

Ciao!
Emily

P.S.

I miss talking to my mom!! It's been like a week!! Guess I won't be able to take up cruise life for good, either that or I'd have to get a WAY better cell phone plan. Hi mom!! Talk to you soon!!

Belize!

Ahoy again to all my land lubbers out there! I'm gonna make this short and sweet since I ran out of internet time yesterday and am now on the pay as you go plan!

Adam was feeling a little under the weather this morning and we decided to forego our original plans of ATV riding and cave tubing. I was pretty worn out too, so I wasn't all that upset. We still got off the ship, had to tender in since Belize is a shallow port. We shopped around the duty free area, drank a few local beers, then headed back to the ship. It was still pretty quiet when we got on board, we even sat around the main pool which is usually jam packed with teeny boppers. Adam retired inside a little early while I continued to blacken in the HOT caribbean sun. I'm nearing a new ethinicty, one more day in the sun tomorrow and I will be there!

Last full day tomorrow. BOO!! I told Adam we should stow away and live on board. OR maybe become crew members so Brett isn't the token American anymore. Adam could be food quality control and I'll bust out my old dancin' shoes!! :)

Call off the search party....

We were in fact not left behind in Costa Rica.....I've just been to lazy to mosey on down to the library. Plus my cheap ass was waiting for another internet special. Sorry to disappoint all my loyal fans!! :)

We had yet another jam packed day yesterday. Arrived in Limon, Costa Rica early in the morning. The 5:30 wake up call was about as inviting as yesterday, I slept through the docking today. Adam however watched it from the balcony and got tons of "great" photos. It was pitch black dark since Costa Rica is 2 hours behind ship time. Oh well, we'll let Ansel Adams have his moment.

We met up with our tour about 8am. It was a small group, only 8 of us plus our guide and driver. Gotta love non Carnival excursions. We had a very nice, eclectic group. Everyone had a blast. We started of the day at a local fruit stand tasting mini bananas, pineapple, mangos, etc. You really can't beat fresh fruit! On the drive to our next stop we did a little monkey searching, and I, with the eye of a tiger, was the first to spot them. We literally pulled off on the side of the road to check them out. There was a whole family, maybe 10 in all. It was awesome to just see them, hanging out as the semi's rolled by on the road.

Our first stop was zip lining. They got us all strapped in, gave us a quick demo, and we were off on a tractor pulled train. Up. Up. Up. I got more nervous as we went along. I'd already dreamt the night before that Adam chickened out....now it was looking like I might be the wuss. Paul and Joe went first then Krista and her mom. I was up. I got to the top of the platform and thought....hmm. Little different than 6th grade outdoor ed in Omaha.....but here goes nothing! It was amazing. We did 10 platforms in all, starting from the top of the rainforest and working our way back down. Adam and I had the time of our life and can't believe we actually zip lined in Costa Rica. How cool!

After our adrenaline rush, we ventured on to the Del Monte banana plantation. It was really fascinating to see how it all works. It's basically a big banana sweatshop minus Kathy Lee. But when you can buy a mansion for 100K, I guess $25.00 a day isn't so bad. Next we went on a boat ride through one of Costa Rica's many natural, freshwater, canals. We saw lots of birds, sloths and iguanas....but no crocodiles. I was ok with that. Adam was happy the boat wasn't homemade like in Panama. :) Always the picky one. Our final stop was to Bonita Beach where we ate lunch. A delicious meal of chicken, rice and beans, and fried plantains. Seems to be the typical Caribbean fare. I was glad it wasn't fish again. :)

We got back to the boat RIGHT in time....to stand in line for 30 min before getting back on board. So much for missing the rush like the day before. Oh well. At least we watched it pull away from on the ship instead of on the pier. We finished the afternoon off with a nap. What a hard life.

Today's day at sea was welcomed with open arms. We slept in until about 9:30. Grabbed a little breakfast and then did the breast cancer walk. It was only a mile, but was probably the most working out I've seen all week. Plus it was for a good cause, so we couldn't miss the chance to walk around the deck with all the blue hairs and get our picture taken by the Carnival photogs....again! The rest of the day I baked outside. Adam stayed in doing god knows what, trying to avoid a sunburn. We met for lunch before parting for more baking. Ate dinner in Nick and Nora's tonight. OMG. Definitely worth the little extra $$. It was delicious, we left yet again stuffed to the gills. Caught the Beatles show in the lounge and then settled in to hear our new favorite, Brett the acoustic guitar player....and the only American crew member I've seen. He claims he's not the token, but I have yet to see proof.

Our last day on port tomorrow. Belize!!
Peace out!
Emily

Happy Hour!!!

That's right folks...happy hour in the internet cafe from 5-7! That means I can stay on twice as long and bore you with my cruise antics!!

I seem to have pretty much recovered from yesterday. Thank god. I even got hungry late last night so we hit up the Lido's buffet for dinner in lieu of the dining room. By this morning I was starving and took advantage of my new found iron stomach!

We crashed early last night in anticpiation of an early morning and I slept like a rock. The ship was really a movin' as we fell asleep, but the next thing I know we were rudely awaken by our 5:30am wake up call. Several people mentioned how rough it was last night.....I could have rolled out of bed and never been the wiser! All those rocky nights on Toll Free I guess have made me immune!

We were able to watch the ship come into Colon, Panama this morning. It was still pretty dark when we arrived, but amazing nonetheless. How they park this bad boy is beyond me! We were running a bit behind schedule and didn't get off the ship until almost 8, but got right on our tour bus and were off for the day. We lucked out with a great younger crowd. Four other couples helped pass the long ride we had....made more friends and are going to cheer on one of the girls as she auditions as Britney Spears tonight in Kareoke.

As we got to our desitination, we saw the "boats" that were to take us to the Embera Indian Village and waterfall. I use the term boat lightly, as they're handcarved dug out canoes....with out board motors on the back. Haha. Once we got over the fear of tipping we took an amazing and very wet ride over to the island. The Panama hills and lush greens are gorgeous, and the lake was a site to see. Very clean and clear. There are several man made lakes throughout Colon that help feed the Canal during the dry season. We were greeted by several of the indians, very national geographic style. Many of the women don't wear tops and all the men wear these loin cloth, bead skirts. I told Adam we could pick one up for him, but he didn't think it was his style. Our group went over to the waterfall first, since it's the end of their summer here, the river was very low, and forced us to hike a bit more. Thank goodness for those water shoes, best 15 bucks we spent! The waterfall was beautiful, we even took a quick swim which felt great after the walk. Once we got back to the village we were served lunch, tilapia and fried plantains which I'll have you all know even I tried. The fish was kind of like chicken...would I eat it again? Probably not. But I was proud of myself for trying it. We had fresh Panama pineapple for dessert while they told us about their tribe and showed us some of their cultural dances. It was really fascinating, Adam and I both really enjoyed it.

Once we left, we stopped by the Gatun Locks of the Panama Canal. We got there just as one ship was leaving and another was starting it's trip thru. Talk about perfect timing. We stayed maybe 30 min, watched and then got on our way. It was enough time for me. The process of the canal, though fascinating in theory, is about as exciting to watch as paint drying. I'm glad I had the experience, but once was enough for me.

We did a bit of shopping at the pier, but had to hurry up and get back on board. As much as we enjoyed Panama, we thought be stranded there sounded less than ideal. We watched the Miracle sail away from our balcony and I even got to learn a new fun fact. Right below our room I noticed a Pilot ship hovering REALLY close, pretty soon it go even closer and a man jumped on board. I guess our capt is not allowed to bring the ship in and out of port, so a Panama pilot does it, and then as soon as we've pulled far enough away, jumps off. It was cool seeing it so close. So there's my fun fact for the day!!

Costa Rica tomorrow!!
Cheers!
Emily

B.R.A.T

And I don't mean obnoxious kids. I'm referring to the Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast diet which I've adopted. What I thought early this am was a mere hangover from our late night, appears to have progressed to your average run of the mill stomach virus, or so the nurse in the infirmary tells me. I have finally made it our of the cabin.....and am officially puke free for 2 hours and counting. Woo Hoo!! We were going to eat dinner in the restaurant tonight in honor of our 2 year anniversary to the day we met, but we've moved it to Thursday. I want to make sure I don't see that delicious steak on the flip side if you know what I mean.

On a happier note, we had an amazing day yesterday. The winds finally died down a bit and the sun came out in full force. I have the burn marks to prove it, not too bad though and only on my chest. There was some great people watching to be had and I've decided bikinis are a privelage NOT a right. As a curvy girl myself I know the trials and tribulations of swim suit shopping, but finding a nice, fuller coverage 2 piece is possible ladies. Just cause they make it in your size and you can cram your rolls into it does not give you permission to blind the rest of us.

Dinner was formal last night and I was rockin' my new high heels. My drink of the night was a chocolate martini, but after the day I've had I'm not sure I will drinking anymore adult beverages. Haha. We met a nice young couple from Philly whom we spent the evening with, moving from bar to bar and catching the late night "R" rated comedian. We might even try sitting with them for dinner since our table mates still have yet to join us.....I'll probably wait till I'm back on solid foods though.

We're looking forward to arriving in Panama tomorrow!!
Emily

Ahoy!

Well we are officially sailing the seas! We got on board the Carnival Miracle yesterday afternoon. With few minor Garmin issues, that dumb b*tch doesn't know anything, we finally made it to Ft. Lauderdal and found the Budget car return. I mangaged to drop all 42 pounds of suitcase on my foot....good times, and just to even things out, Adam dropped it on the other foot while we were getting off the shuttle. Awesome. So two maimed feet later we boarded our vessel.

The ship truly is a Miracle...even the gold fish crackers at the bar are smiling. I forgot how BIG the ships are, but less than 24 hours in and we're navagating around quite well. I already found the 10% off Swarovski crystal sale.... :) A David girl can always spot the jewlery. The sail away was cold and rainy, we waved to everyone from our balcony so as not to get too wet. The journey has started off VERY windy and bumpy with little to no sun. My hoodie has gotten way to much wear already and I'm hoping to retire it soon for a swimsuit instead. Pray for some better weather, we need all the help we can get!!

Our dinner table is supposed to be for 4, but our dinner mates did not join us last night, so we'll see if we have company tonight. The tables around us however provided enough entertainment to last a lifetime. "Brody Jenner" and his main squeeze are behind us, he drinks Coors Light and we're pretty sure drives a Dodge. To my right is an old man and woman, who we think may or may not know each other. One minute they're talking about a mutual friend, the next he's explaining to her what lettuce is and how radishes grow in the ground. Interesting. We spent the rest of the evening in the piano bar enjoying Mojito's, my new favorite drink, and singing along.

Off in search of sun!! Hopefully I find some before the Tanzanite sale at 2:00pm or we could be in trouble! Haha!

Cheers!
Emily

Greetings from Miami!

Well the honeymoon is off to a splendid start. We arrived into Miami yesterday early....treked through the airport, oh a good 5 miles to baggage claim. Their airport is slightly superior to CMH with its 3 lame terminals. I managed to spot our ginourmous suitcases which surprisingly, and going totally against Murphy's law, showed up all in a row....pretty near the start. WOO HOO! Then it was a quick shuttle over to get our sweet Saturn Vue from Budget, sorry hun, that red Corevette Convertible in the lobby was in fact NOT our car and I didn't think the woman behind the counter was going to upgrade us if I flashed her my boobs. Maybe next time.

We spent the rest of the day driving down the beautiful Florida Coast to the Keys. Stopped for lunch in Islamorada and ate literally on the beach....chairs in the sand, with the clear blue green water almost at our feet. I could feel my blood pressure plummet as I relaxed in the sun, enjoying my local Key West brew and key lime pie. A little slice of heaven. We stopped at a few shops before heading back up to South Beach for the night. Walked along Ocean Drive and ate at a great steak place with a waiter from Ohio....my mom is right, they ARE everywhere. After stuffing ourselves to the gills we turned in for the night. No hip South Beach clubs for this old tired married couple!

Adam is currently wallowing in March Maddness sorrow as he watches his bracket fall apart. Poor OSU lost in the first round. Oh well. We are going to walk around a bit, check out the ocean and then off to Ft Lauderdale to get on the ship!!! Peace out!

And we're off!!!

We are finally leaving tomorrow on our looong awaited honeymoon. After planning for over a year, stalking cruise websites and messages boards, booking flights, hotels, rental cars, shore excurions and of course stuffing enough clothes to fit a small country into 2 suitcases....... I am so ready. Ready for sleeping in, staying up late, lounging by the pool, watching the sunset from our balcony, fabulous dinners, ziplining thru the jungles of Costa Rica, cave tubing through Belize, witnessing the wonder of the Panama Canal with my very own eyes, enjoying girly drinks with little umbrellas and spending some serious QT with my hubby. Whew! That was one long run on sentence! When I left work today, knowing I wouldn't be back for 10 glorious days, I almost cried. I shit you not....tears almost fell. Peace out everyone! See ya on the flip side. Tanner. Rested. And more in love....if that's even possible.


Where we're headed:

So boys DON'T have cooties??

Remember the day you finally realized boys weren't so gross afterall?? I had a patient today on the eve of her 15th birthday tell me she was having a party this weekend....her first boy/girl party. Oh the days of my youth. I remember my first boy/girl party. Nicole Bush. The summer before 8th grade. You'd think the end of the world had come in our little catholic school communtity. Parents were up in arms. About what, I'm not sure. It was so lame. The boys might as well have not even been there. Girls on one side, boys on the other. When I asked her what they were going to do she just giggled. Maybe I wasn't cool enough to be invited to a party where giggling was warranted. There was no spin the bottle. No seven minutes in heaven or cheesy 90s music playing while people made out on the couch. Did this crap really happen outside of the movie world??

One week!!!

EEeeekkkk!!! One week from today we will be on a plane flying to Miami! I remember booking our honeymoon and the countdown was well over a year....we thought it would never be here. We've been busy shopping and I've acquired some super cute new stuff. In fact, one of my dresses is featured in the new JCPenney commerical, who knew I had such good taste! :) I'm not usually a JCP shopper, but last week we had some towels to return and while waiting in line it caught my eye. At 60% off it was a friggin' steal! Here's a sneak peak fashion show of cruise '09!! Only 7 days stand between me and 80+ degrees.

To cut or not to cut.....

My hair is the longest it's been since the 1st grade. My mom actually cried when I cut it. I really never officially grew it out, my hair stylist just kept doing minimal trims and one day I woke up with this HUGE mane. I loved it for the wedding, people kepts asking if I had extensions and I had to assure them that it really was my hair. I'm going in today to have my hair cut, and I'm debating if I should chop it off. My mother might cry again......but this time she'll have Adam to lean on cause I'm sure he'll be crying too. What is it with men and long hair?? If you want long hair....grow your own! Ok maybe not..... ;) A part of me loves my long lovely locks, but the mon-fri girl in me is tired of pulling it back only to have it still fall over my shoulder. No one wants hair in their face while getting their teeth cleaned. It's just hair after all. If I totally hate it, I can just grow it out again. I think it's going to be a game time decision.

Some things just aren't meant to be good for you.....

......meatloaf is one them. In my attempt to eat healthy, and therefore force DH to also eat healthy I've been trying new recipes. I've ultimately decided that they're only good 25% of the time. Tonight's turkey meatloaf was definietly part of the negative 75% Oops!

Why is the picture always better than the real thing??

Toliet seat up....again

So the condo has been on the market for 7 months and counting. I curse all those people, including myself, who thought it would sell quickly. At what point did all these snotty first time 20 something homebuyers think they can live in the Short North, on Goodale Park for 150K. Sorry, not gonna happen. I also want to know when granite and S/S appliances became the end all be all of real estate. Thanks alot HGTV for mis-educating Americans to believe everything else is subpar. We've already dropped the price 10k, but I've now discovered we're still the highest price 1BR condo in the complex. *sigh* I don't really want to lower the price again cause I'm just watching the down payment on our house dwindle away. We had 3 showings last week and were ecstatic, especially considering that pretty much doubled our total showings. Well the first girl had it in her top 2 but she had just started looking......next. The second girl had us in her top 4 but went with something else....next. The third showing never actually happened.....next. Gotta love when you frantically clean and straighten and take the dogs out for a few hours only to have a no show. Today we had an open house that according to the neighbors was very well attended. Haven't heard any feedback yet, but hopefully it wasn't a bunch of meathead, steroid pumped Arnold Classic looky-loo's.

In this whole house selling experience, here's what gets me. The last two times we've had either a showing or an open house, we've come home to find the toliet seat up. Do people really use the bathroom or are they just lifting the seat to make sure it's clean in there? I mean really. I couldn't go into someone's house and take a potty break...expecially during an open house. Who know's how many people are coming through. Oh, that's the bathroom, but someone's in there dropping the kids off at the pool so you'll have to wait to see it. Gross. And if you are going to grace my throne, at least have the decency to put the seat down. What were you, raised in a barn??

Seriously? YOU have a better day!

How is it only 8:00am on my Friday off and I'm already irritated beyond repair? Oh right, cause 5/3 bank is (earmuffs please) fucking stupid! So I signed on to my account this morning to bask in my new found balance, gotta love pay day, only to notice this funny little red exclamation point. Hmm...never seen that before, so out of curiosity I click on it. OMG! I overdrew my account! How is that humany possible? I grab my calculator and do some quick math....ok, obviously the bank had a special needs moment, cause I'm showing there is no way that happened. After a slight temper tantrum, I compose myself and call customer service.

Here's how it works out in my head. On March 5, I deposit my paycheck. The mortgage is also automatically deducted this day so I figure I'm in the clear. There's where I make my mistake.

Here's how it works in 5/3 banks head. On March 5 a check is deposited. We will give her access to 100.00 until said check clears on the following business day, but she doesn't know this, sucker. At 11:59pm we're going to take her mortgage payment out, however remember she only has 100.00 of that check. Account overdrawn. Money trasferred from savings. At 12:00am check clears and just to stick it to her, she also got her other paycheck directly deposited so now has an available balance that's so freakin' huge it will appear the overdraw could have never occured and will confuse the living shit out of her. Hehe. Score one for the bank.

Seriously? One freakin' minute? ONE! That's the difference between being in the red and being in the black. I guess I already know my moral for today. To top it all off, as I admit defeat the woman at customer service says "Have a better day miss" At the point I wanted to slam the phone on her, but you can't slam down a cell phone, what a crock. Adam said I should have slammed it anyway...then said. "I slammed my phone on you...and now I'm hanging up." At least I can always count on him to make me laugh.

On a happier note...it is still Friday!! YAY! The official start of my weekend! I lost 3 more pounds.....bikini here I come! Double YAY! And I finally get my brows waxed today, thank god! Happy Friday everyone.....here's to a better day! :)

Thin Mints and Tagalongs and Samoas OH MY!

So waaaaaay back in January I was duped by not one, not two, but three girl scouts to buy those devilish little cookies they sell. Well here it is now March and all 9, yes 9, boxes have been delivered. I guess I went a tad bit overboard, but I can't deny those delicious little morsels. The problem is, in January I had thrown all caution to the wind diet wise. The wedding and wedding dress were behind me and the cruise was far off, so what the heck, I deserved a week or two off. Well one week turned into months and by the end of February it wasn't pretty. Who knew it was possible to gain weight at such a rapid rate when mass eating everything in site, haha. Damn the man who put easter candy out so soon. Don't they know I can't resist those little cadbury eggs and marshmallow bunnies?!?

So now as my brand new cute little bikini sits in a drawer, I've put myself back on Slim Fast bootcamp. I'm nearing the end of week 2 and have 2 weeks to go before the cruise at which point I should have hopefully shed my new found pounds. What bad timing for girl scout cookies. I pray I find the strength deep down to not eat any as my husband downs an entire row of thin mints in one sitting.....bastard. I'll just sit here and finish my oh so unsatisfying Kroger Milk Choc Slim Rite instead.

Moral of this story. Girl scouts are evil.

Livin' the "single" life at work

Ugh. So after a year of not being able to wear my engagment ring at work because of my stupid job wanting to be all OSHA regulated and making me wear gloves, I looked forward to the day I would at least be able to squeeze my wedding band on under those suckers. I had a lovely channel set band all ready to go and after only a month of wearing it discovered it had a few flawed stones. After a minor disagreement with the a-hole at the jewelry store we asked for our money back. Bye bye work wedding band. Ok. No biggie. I will just wear the one that's part of my original set. Hmph. After two short weeks one of the stones is loose....exactly why I got the 2nd band to begin with. So now I can't wear that one and I have no replacements. So I go to work everyday with no proof of my newlywed glory. Maybe I'll just go buy a cheap piece of tin so I don't have to beat all the men off with a stick. :)

Moral of this story. Gloves are evil.

Officially a blogger!

So after reading blog after blog...I've decided to finally take the plunge! As a newlywed, my life is sure to take many twists and turns along the way and this way everyone can keep up! Enjoy!