cruise pics cont.

Her maracas from Cozumel


And the big giant cow


Cozumel pier


It was a nasty long day! And we were fried by the end of it!

some cruise pics

I've been going through my cruise pics and here are a few of my favorites from my Canon point and shoot camera. Being obsessed with photography and a huge critic of my own skills for some reason I feel a need to preface that these are straight off the camera snapshots from the trip. Sometimes its nice not to lug the big camera around and to just take simple snapshots is important to me. So here are a few.

One of my favorites. Not sure if its because Macy's face is darling or that pup pup was right there in front with her. This was her look the entire week, she loved the cruise. She was so excited to be in Cozumel!




The ship at sunset in Cozumel


A Jamacian necklace and cheerios - it just doesn't get much better than that folks!




Straight out of the shower - doesn't she look big here?


I have more, I'll add as I go through them. We had a great time and posting these makes me sad. It went by way too fast.

for your viewing pleasure

Jamaica Mon!

can I say it?

In 10 days we are leaving for our VACATION!!!!!!
woot-woot!

We take our cruise in a little over two weeks and it seems to be the theme of our days. I'm stalking air tickets pining for the lowest possible fares! We sat down the other night and looked at excursions and researched things to do and places to avoid. I'm a member over at cruisecritic and I highly recommend checking out their site if you are looking into cruising. Alot of great information over there!

Macy isn't feeling so great. Before I left for California, she had a runny nose and I think it started from allergies. While I was away, she developed a little cough and became congested. I started her on some breathing treatments and thought she was doing better until two nights ago she really started coughing alot through the night. Jeremy has her right now at the dr's so she can get better.

Other Macy Grace news includes she cut her top right tooth over the weekend and the left one is getting close. She actually has done pretty good with this set, her bottom two had her running fever and she hasn't with this top one yet!

I'm trying to come up with a plan for making Macy's baby photo book. I thought I would do the books every 3 months for the first year, but now I'm not sure we'll get that detailed with it. The trouble with studying photography is you become a huge critic of the art. I look at my pictures and although she is my beautiful baby I see all the photographic errors and color casts and decide they aren't good enough to print. I need to just realize that this is not what it's about. It's about capturing the memories of her daily life, whether they are great photographs or not. And I take alot, I'm just not satisified with them because everytime I snap a pic of Macy Grace it isn't perfect lighting, focus, clarity, or white balance. And I'm hard on my work. If it isn't fabulous I don't want anyone seeing it. That isn't good. These are memories of Macy Grace and I want them. Good or bad. So, I may be showing more 'bad' photos over here in the next few weeks.

Fall is in the air and I just LOVE it! I bought some pumpkin spice febreeze the other day and I'm drenching my curtains and couch with it and I love the smell. It's so warm. Yumm-o. And the weather is certainly autumnish too! With a daytime high of 67 it's cool and crisp and I'm enjoying it!

I'm going to try to get back here in a bit to post some recent pics of lil love from the weekend.

I'm in Denver

Things were so crazy this morning I didn't have a time to post that I was leaving for the weekend. I've been up since 5:30am and I'm exhausted (and starving!), so I'm sitting down, about to enjoy a pasta bread bowl from Domino's pizza.

I was really rushed trying to get everything packed, but I think I have everything. I did forget my dramamine, but did just fine on the plane ride here to Denver without it. I cried when I said goodbye to Miss Grace, but she was ALL smiles. The security guard that was standing there when I said goodbye told me, she (Macy) didn't know what was about to happen. I looked at the officer and told her to not talk about it!! I got to see Macy and Jeremy when I walked out to the plane and she was standing at the window just laughing and waving bye-bye.

**I better be careful, I might start crying again!**

Last night, I was freakin out. I just felt uneasy. I prayed for peace and went to bed somewhat early for me (around 11pm). This is just a new chapter for me, and I'm more than excited about it, just nervous.

I have one more flight to Orange County and hopefully I'll have internet access at the beach house. If not, I'll update either in Denver on Monday on my way home or when I get home.

Here's to a fabulous weekend!

::cheers::

jamaica mon!!!

We're GOING on the cruise!!!! YEAH!!!! You have NO idea how officially excited we are now that we know 100% we ARE going and Macy IS going too!!!! Ah, I'm stinkin' giddy just thinking about it. Eeeeek =)

I never allowed myself to get this excited before because I wasn't feeling peace about leaving Macy and wasn't sure the cruise would happen anyway. But it is now, we are thrilled!

Can you hear the caribbean music playing? I can. Can you smell the ocean? I can. The pizzeria and ice cream are calling my name - watch out!!
Oh, I love to cruise.

Here is the funship freight liner, it's HUGE!!

courtesy of cruiseweb.com



courtesy of caribbean-cruises-report.blogspot.com


courtesy of virginholidaycruises

And the best part? When I called today to add Macy and confirm our booking one last time, we received a complimentary upgrade to an oceanview stateroom - woot woot!

ramblings

Last night my dear friend Kim married a man named Todd and it was beautiful. She was a gorgeous bride. And so relaxed. Seriously the wedding was just very low key and not stressed at all, and just wonderful. And I tried my hand at some wedding photography. I have ZERO desire to shoot weddings. They are too much. I always feel paniced to get the right shot at the right time and it truly just isn't my thing. But last time was different. It was fun. The photographer and I started chatting and he grabbed his backup a - 40d - and told me to shoot away. He said, "You never know what you might get"! Yikes. So, I shot. Completely carefree. And it was crazy. He then attached his 70-200 2.0L on the 40d and told me I was now in heaven and to just enjoy it. It was crazy gorgeous. And crazy heavy. But crazy fun. I'm sure I didn't get one keeper out the bunch just because it was so random and completely not thought out at all but it was a great experience.
And Kim's husband would not tell her where they were honeymooning to! It was a total surprise. She knew they were flying out but that's all. He gave her general directions, pack for cool, warm, casual, and nice. We guessed cruise. She just texted and said, Space Needle for dinner and tomorrow an Alaskan cruise! She's boarding the Princess Star for a week cruise. I love surprises. And hate them. At the same time!

Speaking of cruises, we have one coming up. If J gets off work. They are extremely short-handed but he hasn't taken time off in almost a year, so he put in for next month. If he doesn't get off, I think I will cry. Even though we had thought about canceling anyway, knowing that we can't go, not that we don't want to go will be sad. I'm thinking if he can't get off we might still take a short few days away on his nights off. We'll see. It won't be nearly as wonderful as a cruise, but God knows best.

And if we take the cruise, we both have peace that lil love will go to!!! It was a difficult decision, but once we actually verbalized that she will go, it now seems weird that we didn't consider it right away. I have done some heavy research over the past week and I totally want her to go. My perspective has changed alot. We are now a family. Sure this vacation won't be the same as without a baby, but life isn't the same without a baby. It's not like we could leave the country and have limited access to communicating with her for 7 days and feel great about it. We would not be relaxing. Our life has changed. We choose to make memories with her. We can spend our vacations basking in the sun carefree when our children are grown. Until then, we choose to make memories with her rather than about her. I don't want to remember the feeling of regret when I walk the gangway missing Macy Grace. It will be a long 7 days. I'm just not ready to be away from her for that long. Sure cruising will be different with a baby, but like I said, life is different now with a baby. We enjoy Macy Grace. Feeding her, changing her, playing with her isn't work to us. I won't be cooking or cleaning and that is vacation to me! So, now we are just waiting on the vacation request.

It's Labor Day weekend, the last weekend of the summer and we are working around the house. Cleaning, washing laundry, packing away Macy's summer clothes and possibly getting to some projects. I've got grocery shopping to do and paperwork to finish. I go to my workshop next week and while I'm ridiculously excited about it, I can't think about leaving just yet. I'm confident Macy will be fine and I'm thinking about work and my business, not a vacation. Although it will be loads of fun. I better go, lots of work to do today! And because I can't go without leaving a pic, here is one I took in July and just realized I never shared it. I have alot to share over the next week.

macy and brody

Believe it or not I have actually started my recap of your trip to Oregon last month. One of the biggest highlights was getting to hang out with one of my most bff's (haha) in the WHOLE world and her son, Brody (Macy's newest bff!!). We had a fun time and of course, it's NEVER long enough. You know when you have a fab friendship for LIFE when even though you haven't seen each other in several years, you pick up right where you left off, as no time spaned between you. Lid, I love you and lil B and it WILL NOT be three years until I see you again. xoxox

Enjoy the slideshow. PS: These are basically unedited straight out of camera shots, I don't have time to edit so many pictures! haha

backtracking Day 2

Onto Day 2 of our fabulous vacation. We woke up Sunday morning to a cloudy San Diego after sleeping because of the late night. We ate breakfast and headed out for Sea World.
He man offered to take our pics for us while waiting in line for the 3d show to open.



We watched the whales and saw Shamu





Some dolphins





And we got to hold a live starfish





I have been to this Sea World twice. The last time I was 9 years old. I have been to the Sea World in San Antonio one time. I prefer the San Antonio Sea World much more. It was bigger and newer. But this Sea World was nice. We didn't spend any money in the park, except maybe a big drink with free refills. I figure once Macy is older we'll fall into the trap of buying over priced stuffed animals and souvenirs, while we can avoid it, we did! We spent about 6 hours at the park and were starving when we left so we hit up a Taco Bell next door to our hotel and rested and changed for our night out at Oceanside.






We ate dinner at the yummo Ruby's Diner out on the pier, the weather was gorgeous! We had a nice walk, ate strawberry sundae at Dairy Queen and headed back to our hotel. In the morning, we would be boarding the Elation!

backtracking

One of my highlights of 2008 (besides of course lil love's enterance into the world) was our fabulous vacation. It was so long and fun. I'm going to do my best to recap it so I can remember this vacation for lots of years!

We wanted to plan a great vacation because we me being pregnant we really had no idea how a baby would potentially change our lives and when we would be able to travel again. This seemed like the opportune time. I received the okay from my dr and we planned. We looked at all different cruises and decided that we would do a 5 day cruising the Mexican Baja from San Diego. We cruised the Carnival Elation stopping in Cabo San Lucas Mexico and Ensenada Mexico. We added a few days to our trip by exploring San Deigo and then driving over to Las Vegas to fly home.

Our vacation started on Saturday June 7th, as we packed our car and drove south to Oklahoma City to catch our afternoon flight to San Diego. We arrived in the city, worked out car arrangements with my brother and ate lunch at the yummy On the Border restaurant. I needed to make a last minute run to Walmart(remember - the swimsuit drama? well, I needed some bottoms!)and we caught our flight in perfect time. Here we are in the terminal waiting!



Our flight stopped in Dallas then on to San Diego, we arrived around 11:30pm. We rented our car which worked out to be pretty nice and found our hotel by around 2am. Driving in San Diego was new for me and thankfully we had our GPS. We did get lost because the address of our hotel was on E street, well, I thought that represented East street so it took us to the ghetto and I was freaking out! I called the hotel and realized it was E street and we made it there alive - thank God! We have come to understand that in our few short years of marriage, that I am the better driver. Kind of. Jeremy just gets ridiculous road rage and freaks out. I get really nervous in the big cities but I just listen to him to tell me where to go and it works better that way. To each their own right?

I'm going to recap each day separately. This was day 1.

vacations

I love to travel, I do. Always have. There is something purely exhilirating about boarding an airplane, checkin into a hotel, the laid back feeling of vacationing. My family took a vacation nearly every summer growing up. I've had the priviledge of traveling alot with school and church activities. I've seen the pacific, gulf coast, and the atlantic (kind of, probably shouldn't count that one since it was in Miami and there is a fine line between the caribbean and atlantic right there). I have been to many different states, mexico twice, and the bahamas. I consider myself blessed to have had these opportunities. Jeremy never did alot of traveling growing, actually, he basically never traveled; so traveling together has been adventurous.

I love all sorts of vacations and traveling. From overnighters to a fabulous vacation (I went looking for my link to our fabulous vacation last summer and realized I NEVER posted it - how did that happen, that's my next post!!), I'm game. So, when we headed down the the city last week for Sid's college graduation, I realized it had been 9 months since I had been there!!! 9 months, wow. I'm TOTALLY craving a weekend getaway. Badly. I just want to leave on a Friday evening, go somewhere and come home Sunday night. I'm going to get to work on this asap =) Back to the topic at hand, I booked a cruise. This cruise. And if you know anything about cruising, it was a wonderful deal, just wonderful. The only drawback. The only reason I'm not obsessing for shore excursions. The only reason I haven't mentioned this thus far? I'm leaving Macy behind.

We talked and talked about this. We considered taking her, the airfare is free, but she costs to take her aboard. And the cost is the same as an adult! She will not remember it. She would not be able to do anything but crawl (maybe walk) around and that makes me nervous. We also entertained the thought of taking along someone (Jeremy's mom) to help with Macy Grace, but then the cost is even more and truly Macy doesn't need to go. I would rather take her when she is old enough to be excited about it and can remember it.

I have until July 26th to fully make my decision and I can get my deposit back if we change our mind. The cruise isn't until October and I desparately need a getaway with J and rolie polie, so I'll focus on that and get excited later for the cruise.

Peace.