Sunday, September 7, 2014

Cruise to Cozumel

The 1st weekend in August, Nick & I went on a 5 day/4 night cruise that went from Galveston to Cozumel and back.

We left our house Thursday morning & made it to Galveston with a little time to spare. So we ate a yummy lunch at The Spot before heading to the port & waiting in the forever long check in line.

Once we made it onto the ship, Nick & I explored a little. We found the gym & while we were there checking it out, we entered into a raffle for spa treatments. Then we met up with my sisters. We hung out with them for a little bit & then headed back to the gym for the raffle. And guess who was the very first name drawn? Only the luckiest man I know, Mr. Nick Strickland! He won a 30 minute head & shoulder massage! 

And then we had to hurry back to our room to get ready for our first dining experience aboard the ship.

We had a nice long table at the very back of the Paris dining room

 with this awesome view!

Since the food was all free & you could order as much as your heart desired, I decided to try out some things I wouldn't normally eat. So I ordered escargo & duck. The escargo was pretty tasty! The duck, not so much.

And I had this molten chocolate lava cake for dessert (along with like 3 other things.) It was one of the tastiest things I ate all week!

During dinner, the ship's magician stopped by our table & preformed a couple of tricks for us. 

After dinner, we changed into our swimsuits & hung out in the hot tub with some of our group for a couple of hours. 

And since I had really enjoyed the magician at dinner, Nick & I went & watched his Up Close Magic show in the ship's library later that night. He did several cards tricks & a cool rope trick & then some mind reading/prediction type tricks. I was super impressed!

The next morning, Nick & I got up & went & worked out in the gym. The gym was at the front of the ship which gave us a great view while working out!

And then we consumed all the calories we burned by eating these fabulous tacos from the Blue Iguana for breakfast. (My #1 favorite food on the boat!)

And a burger from Guy's Burger Joint for lunch.

We spent most of the rest of the day laying out by the pool 
& playing trivia games.

It was dress up night in the dining hall, so we decided to skip that & we ate dinner at the buffet instead.
Then we had a couples massage.
And then we watched Divergent outside on the top deck at the Seaside Theater.

The next day was Saturday which was Cozumel day!

The boat docked early, around 9 or 10 am I think.


We got off the boat & walked through the Puerta Maya port


and then took a taxi to Paradise Beach.

The water was beautiful! So blue & clear.



Nick & I went kayaking & paddleboarding

and we played on all these water toys. 
The launch pad thing is a lot harder than it looks!

And Nick & I tried our hand at some Divergent style boxing on the trampoline.

We had to be back on the boat by 4, so we headed back to the port around 2 & did a little shopping. Well, all I did was window shopping. I didn't end up buying anything, except for a ceramic cat that I knocked off the shelf & broke.

At 6, we had dinner in the dining hall again.

Again the view was wonderful, but the water was choppy & I started to get a little seasick.

Even though I was still feeling bad, I didn't want to just go to the room, so after dinner, we went to the main showroom & participated in the Battle of the Sexes

and watched the Liars Club show.

It was about 9:30 pm at that point, so we decided to go to bed in hopes that a good night's sleep would help me feel better.

Unfortunately, I did not sleep well at all & was still feeling bad the next morning.
I was hoping that a little exercise might make me feel better, so we got up & went to the gym.
(But that didn't help either.)

After the gym, breakfast (tacos again!) and a shower, we met up with everyone for some trivia games. As you can see, we dominated! Our group won the One Hit Wonders trivia & the TV Theme Songs trivia. Jared won the medal playing the Bean Bag Toss & I got the third ship on a stick trophy for singing the first verse of Ice Ice Baby! (And yes, there might be a video of that floating around somewhere, lol.)



We pretty much spent the rest of the day eating

 watching shows

and playing games.
(This checkers game was missing 2 of the pieces so we used peppermints instead, lol.)

I had a headache & felt pretty bad that whole last day. I had another night of horrible sleep where I could feel every rock of the boat on my pillow. So I was pretty excited when we docked on Monday morning.

Unfortunately, I still felt bad all day Monday & Tuesday. So on Wednesday I went to my doctor & she told me that I was experiencing a migraine (for 5 days!!!) that was more than likely caused by the change in altitude. What really sucks is that I had my migraine medicine with me on the cruise but I didn't take it because my migraines have always had a loss of vision at the onset & this one didn't. I didn't realize it was a migraine, I thought I was just seasick. 

I had a nice time on the cruise, minus the pounding headache for 2 days. The beach in Cozumel was beautiful & it was really fun getting to spend some time with my sisters & brother in laws. But I prefer adventure & hiking & being outdoors to watching shows & playing trivia games. So I've decided that cruising is not for me & I won't be going on another one.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Summer Vacation

In mid July, the whole Hoosier clan and my aunt Susan took a vacation to the Frio River.


We stayed here, in the beautiful Oak Ridge Lodge.

The house was basically out in the middle of nowhere & there was no cell service. We did have wifi, which the kids used some to watch movies on Amazon, but basically, we were unplugged all week long.
And it was really nice!

So instead of watching TV & playing on the computer & our phones, we ...

played cards & board games

put together puzzles


flew kites

played with glow sticks


popped fireworks


celebrated Addy's birthday (a month late!)

roasted marshmallows




and made smores

caught giant beetles

and swam




 a lot!

The house had private access to the beautiful Frio River.

Some of the guys went fishing. Nick did not! Lol



and we all went tubing down the river.




Well except this guy. He didn't tube. He swam!

Susan put together a cousin's camp for the kids

where they did fun arts & crafts

like painting bird houses



and making paper hearts.

Again, since we were pretty much out in the middle of nowhere, we cooked almost all of our meals. 
These two were in charge of breakfast while us girls cooked dinner.

We did venture out to Concan one day for lunch at the famous Neal's Dining Room though.

I thought the food was just ok

But the view was great!


It was really nice to see the kids

being silly

and playing with their cousins.



And I really enjoyed getting to spend some quality time with my family!

This was a wonderful vacation! 
It was like camping, but in a luxury cabin!
Which is just my style of camping!