Vacation Fun - Part 2

So, we had a couple of days at sea before we reached our first destination.  We spent it eating, napping and laying by the pool.

The ship we were on just began sailing July 2010 - it's Norwegian's newest ship and had lots of things I'd never seen on a ship before. 

Our awesome room...



Looking out to our balcony...

This ship had wavy walls in the rooms, the biggest casino I've ever seen on a ship, 20 different dining options, pools, a jumbo tv at the back of the ship, basketball court (that could be converted to an ice skating rink), bowling alley, water slides and more stuff I can't even think of right now.

The pool under the tv screen turned in to a dance floor at night!

Water slides

There was so much to do on the ship, one could have stayed on all week without any ports.  But ports, they were a comin'.

Tomorrow we visit St. Maarten!

Vacation Fun - Part 3.1 St. Maarten

St. Maarten was our first stop.  I'd been there a few times before, so I knew where I wanted to go - Orient Beach.  Now, I'll admit that the first time I was on St. Maarten, I chose Orient Beach because one end had a nudist resort and I just wanted to see whatever I might see (turns out there there was nothing under 65 to look at).  But, that first time (minus the nudies) sealed the deal.  This is the prettiest beach I've ever been to.  The sand is white and super soft and the water is crystal clear. 

We rented a beach chair for the day and stayed several hours.  I ordered a gourmet pizza that was delivered by our very tan cabana boy named Ghi.  The only annoyance were the ladies walking up and down the beach with items for sale.  I must have been asked 50 times if I wanted my hair braided.   

We built sand castles and buried Reese in the sand.  We had a great day.

I've heard one thing you should experience if visiting St. Maarten is the jet blast at the airport.  Apparently, you can almost get blown away when the jets take off.  I heard someone talking about it on the way back to the ship and she said it was the most incredible experience she'd ever had.

Next time we go to St. Maarten, I might give up Orient Beach to check out the jetblast.  I'm just not sure I'm ready to give up the nudies :)

Vacation Fun - Part 1

We went on vacation last week.  We decided to focus on sand and sun because we took Reese to the beach last summer and she really loved it. 

We left on a big boat last Saturday and spent the next 7 days sailing around the world.  Ok, not really the world, just the Eastern Caribbean.  We went to St. Maarten, St. Thomas and Nassau, Bahamas.  The boat we went on is called the Epic - it's the newest (and biggest) in the Norwegian fleet.  It just started sailing in July, so it was exciting to be on such a new ship.

Big, huh?

We had an awesome balcony room off the back of the ship.  If you look closely, you can see TE and Reese looking down at me with love in their eyes.  Ok, you can't even tell it's them, much less how much love they had in their eyes, but I promise it's true.  See them?  Top balcony, second from the left, she's got on a pink dress, whatever...they are really there.

Anyway, it was a fantastic trip.  I'll post again about each island.  But, since I'm sure you can't stand all the suspense, St. Maarten was my favorite!



Wordless Wednesday

5-0  BOOMER!

Gardening

The first year we were married, Terry built me a couple of raised garden beds.  I've planted tomatoes, cucumbers, jalapenos and okra without fail since that time.   We live in the city, so were super surprised when he went out to the garden the other night to cut okra and peppers and ran into this:

Can you tell from that picture that it's a snake?!?  It seems that the snake got caught in the mesh netting we had up for the cucumbers and got stuck.  We wasn't going anywhere.  I was told that he was probably just a rat snake (which is supposed to be good for keeping rodents away), but the thought of a 5 foot snake roaming the yard was a little much even for the hubby.  He was extinguished (the snake, not hubby).  You'd think we lived in the country rather than a regular city sized lot in a subdivision.  Here's the snake in all his glory: