Guess what - Marc Broussard is coming back to the House of Blues on July 3!! I'm so excited, I cannot wait. He has a new CD coming out June 26. Of course, I've already pre-ordered it! I'm SO excited!
(Just adding this pic to use in my profile.)
We arrived in St. Thomas around 10:30 am and everyone on the ship had to go through immigration. Luckily it didn't take very long and Brian and I were gone by about 11 or 11:15. The first thing we did was head to the Skyride at Paradise Point. The ride up in the little cable car/gondola was fun, but just as we got to the top, it started POURING rain. I was very, very sad about this. The view from up there was supposed to be spectacular, and there was so much fog you couldn't see a thing. Here's me at the top of the mountain - you can see the "spectacular view" (of the FOG) behind me!
But in a little while, the clouds broke up and we got a nice view. See? 
Around noon, we headed back to the boat to put our bathing suits on. We ordered some sandwiches from room service, grabbed our beach bag with towels, and slathered on sunscreen. Out we headed to our snorkeling excursion! It was spitting rain and it was very overcast, and the sea was a bit choppy. It was about an hour boat ride to the island we snorkeled around, which was just north of St. Croix. The ride was VERY rough. I don't suffer from motion sickness of any kind, but I was feeling pretty nauseous by the time we finally got to Buck Island. Brian looked pretty green. We were so glad when we finally got there! (Here we are on the ride out.)
The boat tied up about 50 feet or so offshore and the crew gave us a little snorkeling lesson. During the lesson, the sun actually came out! It was perfect timing! Anyway, Buck Island is a protected reef and we were not allowed to walk on the island or touch any of the coral surrounding it. I guess the oils from our skin can kill the coral. So the guide explained that the easiest way off the boat was to jump, or we could go down the ladder. I looked at Brian, we shrugged, and then we jumped! It was great! We were in about 30 feet of water. We were warned about fire coral and sea urchins, so I had my eye out for those. We saw LOTS of BOTH!
As soon as I was in the water, I decided to try out the mask. I put my face in the water and immediately began breathing really fast - so I came up and let out a long breath. I did this a few times, and then I realized I was able to breathe normally! Being able to see and breathe underwater was so cool! Brian couldn't get a good seal on his mask because his moustache was in the way, so he swam around holding his nose. That left me with the camera, and I got a few cool pictures. You can clearly see the fire coral in this picture - it's mustard-colored. And if you click on it and look to the right, you can see some sea urchins.
One of the guys on our excursion dove down and took a picture of us together!
And aren't I just gorgeous in my snorkel gear??!! Hilarious! 
Anyway, snorkeling was SO much fun, it's our new favorite thing. Since we've been back, I've discovered that there are several freshwater places in Florida to snorkel, including Rock Springs, which is about 10 minutes from our house! We are SO going to buy our own snorkel gear and snorkel all around!
The trip back to St. Thomas was MUCH more enjoyable - we sat out on the front of the boat and just enjoyed the views and the clean air. It was a fantastic trip!
Once back on the ship, we changed back into dry clothes and headed out to shop. I bought a Larimar bracelet - Larimar is a stone found only in the Dominican Republic. It's a pretty bracelet and I got a good deal - it's a nice memento of a fabulous day!
We met J&A right before we had to be back on the ship. We left the dock at 8:30 PM and the skyline was just gorgeous! Here are some pictures sailing away from St. Thomas:
Everyone in America who can hear reasonably well knows that Melinda is the best singer American Idol has ever seen. I'm so shocked that she was voted off last night. I guess people are wanting a more "pop" sound - regardless of the talent. I was really hoping that the top two would be Melinda and Blake. I think Blake is a real talent and very fresh. Jordin is talented, but I'm not a big fan. I think her vibrato sounds very forced and I don't think she has good control of her voice.
Of course, we all know that all three of them will have recording contracts and probably successful careers. I'm just disappointed that it had to happen this way for Melinda. Just my 2 cents.
...to talk about Whole Foods! I went there for the first time on Friday and it was amazing! It's definitely going to be a new Saturday afternoon shopping/lunch spot for B and me. And they even had Mizithra cheese, our favorite! I can never find it anywhere! Thanks Jase, for telling me about Whole Foods. :-)
Also, B & I rented "The Holiday" on Saturday evening - and it was a truly great movie! We also watched "Stranger Than Fiction" on Friday night and really enjoyed it too.
Saturday during the day we went to Disney, Magic Kingdom to be exact. We rode the new Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which was cute and kinda cool, but not exciting. We also rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad twice - that used to be my favorite ride as a child. Saturday I remembered why - it's so fun! That's all we got to ride because we had to leave for practice at church. It was ok, though, cause it was really hot. We were there long enough to enjoy it without being worn out!
That's it for now. Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there, especially to our moms! :-D I obviously didn't blog every day this week like I wanted, but that's ok - I'll hopefully finish my vacation recap this week. I also have to get caught up in my Kindermusik classes and prepare to teach a practice class! Warning: busy week ahead.
Monday was spent at sea. I love these days because we are surrounded by water with no land in sight, and I love the feeling of being out in the middle of nowhere!
I love that no one can reach me - the phone isn't ringing, no one is at the door, there's no mail or email - ahhh. That is vacation to me!
I almost can't remember what we did on this day! I wish I had written it down! I do know that we did a lot of sunbathing. I'm sure we also explored the ship and ate a lot. :-) The food was yummy for the most part, and I love having unlimited access to frozen yogurt! I also spent a little bit of time planning our time in St. Thomas. And we loved to just sit around and talk. J&A had to catch us up on all the gossip from VV! We also loved sitting around the lunch table, looking at the schedule of events and discussing what we wanted to do. One night we went and watched Karaoke - and Brian even sang!
I'm pretty sure we spent part of this evening dancing our hearts out at the disco. The disco was fun because they would play older music - like 50s & 60s, Motown, or even 80s. 
Sometimes the dance floor would break into the Electric Slide and I was so proud - that's the only dance I know! Anyway, here are some pictures from day three, including some fun pics of the boat and one of Brian doing the "sad man"!!!! All pictures are clickable, as usual.
In other news, Florida is on fire. There are 2 rather large fires that are kinda near us, so I've already made some mental notes as to what I will grab if they call an evacuation for our area. It's sprinkling a bit right now, and I hope the rain keeps up - we sure need it! But it looks as if we're going to be safe. I hate the smoke smell outside, though!
Sunday morning we arrived in Nassau and Brian and I headed off in the direction of the Pirate Museum. We had never been to the Bahamas and I must say that we weren't impressed with the dock area. Downtown Nassau was dirty and unkempt, and the locals were relentless! Before B and I could even leave the dock area, some lady had bracelets around our wrists that she said were "free" - but then she wanted a tip! Ugh! We found out later that J&A went to the other end of the island and it was beautiful, so I guess just the downtown was yucky.
Anyway, we had a blast at the Pirate Museum. This pirate-dressed guy let us in and it was cold and dark and damp and we were alone - it was kinda scary! I said to Brian, "What have we gotten ourselves into?" There was no one else around! But as we wound our way through, we ran into other visitors and I felt better. We got on a pirate ship replica that was inside the building and it was way cool!
Then we grabbed a taxi and headed to Paradise Island to sun ourselves on Cabbage Beach. 
It was a nice beach even though it was crowded. The water was FREEZING, which rather surprised us! But we had gorgeous weather and we enjoyed the beach. 
We met J&A for snacks and drinks right before we had to be back on the boat. We only had about 4.5 hours on the island, but it was a good time.
That night was formal night so we got all dressed up for dinner. Afterward, we explored the ship some more and boogied at the disco. (I know B & I look sunburned in this picture, but it was just the lighting. We didn't get burnt at all and we were so happy about that!)
The following pictures were taken as we sailed away from Nassau:
Well, we're back from our fabulous, amazing, wonderful vacation. I'm sad it's over. So sad that I didn't even start to unpack until today. I couldn't even find some of my hair products when I was getting ready for church Sunday. But I don't care! I'm too busy catching up on my TV shows and putting all my pictures on Snapfish and admiring them! And doing laundry! I'm going to try and blog every day this week, because there are too many funny stories from the cruise to fit in one post! So today, I'll start with our VERY STRESSFUL first day.
Our fab friends, Jason and Alicia, who lived near us in NY but now live in CA, accompanied us on our vacation. They had been in Savannah, GA where Jason was speaking at SCAD. Our ship was to sail on Saturday at 4:00, meaning we had to be on the boat before 3:00. J&A took the train from Savannah to Orlando on Saturday morning. We woke up at like 8:30 - we were all packed and I wanted to empty the dishwasher and finish one last load of laundry before we left. As we were having breakfast, the phone rang - it was Jason saying the train had left an hour late. It was now getting into the station at 1:30, and it's an hour drive to Port Canaveral, so we were going to get there around 2:30, which was cutting it close.
As the morning progressed, we got more and more calls from Jason saying the train was later and later - by this time we were calling Carnival AND Amtrack, seeing what was up with the train, seeing what was the ABSOLUTE latest time we could get to the dock. We waited at the train station for over an hour. I kept going in and talking to the little guy who was making the announcements; the train kept making unexpected stops! Finally they arrived, running off of the train and into the car. I was pulling out of the parking lot practically before they got their luggage in!
We were SO LUCKY that there was no traffic on the Beachline, and I sped down the highway toward the ship while we caught up with Jason and Alicia. I finally got ahold of the main desk at the Carnival Glory counter, and she told us we would be okay, they would still be there to let us on the ship. We arrived at the dock around 3:30-ish and found that they were still waiting on a bus of cruisers, so we were able to slow down a little.
The first thing we did was EAT! We were starved! We had PIZZA and it was YUMMY! Then we explored the ship a little bit and eventually headed down to find our rooms. While we were sitting around talking in the lobby, Brian kept taking pictures of Alicia and I and laughing. We couldn't figure it out! Then he showed us the pictures - there was this sad-looking man behind us! 
Brian thought he was so funny, he was really taking pictures of that man! And thus began the week of us making the "sad man" pose and laughing hysterically.
Then we went to dinner and found our table - we had a table for 4 and we were very happy about that! We also had a fab waitress named Martina. That night, we
went to the "welcome aboard" show - it wasn't so great - and then wandered around the ship and talked and talked and talked and stayed up late! We had adjoining cabins and it was awesome.
Stay tuned for day two...
