After another crazy year, I finished teaching yet again a fine young group of children. I tell you that I have never had to deal with so much drama in my life. They accumulated so much drama that the entire third grade knew what was going on in MY classroom! AH! Another year of this, and who knows what I will do! Well we are finished at last! Since I am typing on my school computer I have attached a picture of my wonderful third graders....hehe :). Fine young group!
After my great fourth year of teaching...I went on a MUCH NEEDED VACA! It had been planned for last year, but we were finally able to go on the cruise! We headed to Florida on Thursday morning after we dropped off Sarge at "camp" (a.k.a. kennel). We arrived about 5 pm to plan our day at Universal Studios the next day. Then on Friday, before my family arrived, Chad and I decided to go to Universal. This was somewhere we both haven't been in a long while! We had so much fun! Plus Chad was free and I was half the price...being military has its perks! After we went to Universal we stopped at Panda Express, a place we truly miss in SC. By that time, my parents were about to land in Florida. We met up with them that evening to plan our drive to Cape Canaveral for the cruise the next day.
Saturday morning, we woke up and took the 1 hour drive to Port Canaveral. We spent some time waiting in lines and such to get on the ship, and finally made our way on where we had to decide the excursions to go on. Although we didn't get the excursions we wanted, we had a lot of fun on the chosen ones. We left port on Saturday afternoon after some safety procedures, and headed for Nassau, Bahamas. We landed in Nassau around 7 am and had until 2pm to enjoy the day. We decided to go to the Atantis Hotel! This place was pretty nice! It had aquariums, great pools, and a beautiful beach! We went exploring around the hotel and looked at the many aquariums. After the aquarium walk, we enjoyed the beach before eating lunch.That evening we had our first formal night. We had wonderful lobster and took fun family pictures! These were much needed to replace our picture from 2000(ish) when we all wore the same color shirts! Plus we had an addition since then (CHAD!). We enjoyed a Las Vegas, folly night...which is always fun.
The next day we were at sea, heading to St. Thomas, USVI. We relaxed at the pool and laid out to catch up on a good tan. We also hit up the casinos and free ice cream!
Tuesday morning we arrived in St. Thomas and headed toward our first excursion, which was a gondola ride up to Paradise Point (BEAUTIFUL!). From here, we were able to see our boat and most of the island. At the top, we were told to enjoy a Bushwacker, which is almost 100% alcohol and easy to drink! You can't drink many of those! :) After we had some lunch, we were headed to our next excursion which was a snorkeling trip. On our way to the line to make our way down, we noticed we were going to have to rush to the ship to meet with our excursion. We also didn't plan for the line that we were going to have to wait in! By the time we got down, we had 1 minute to make it about 1 mile to the ship! Therefore, we had to RUN! As we "sprinted" toward the excursion, all I could think was, "if we miss this, I am going to be so mad" because apparently St. Thomas has awesome snorkeling. Well, needless to say, we did make it to the ship to meet our excursion just in time, as they were leaving. We went to two different snorkeling locations, where we saw many reef fish, a baracuda, sea turtles, and sting rays.
Wednesday took us to St. Maarten/St. Martin, which is a half Dutch/French island, hence the different pronunciations and spellings you may have seen before. For this excursion, we rode over to the Dutch side of the island to catch another snorkeling trip where we were able to drive a small two person boat. The small boat was more fun, then the snorkeling actually was. Our snorkeling was much better in St. Thomas, but we still enjoyed ourselves. We did snorkel on the French side of the island, which have clothing optional beaches...therefore, we saw some naked ones! HA....Chad was first to point them out!
Thursday and Friday were yet again sea days, which I really enjoy because you can relax or keep yourself busy with the many events going on during the day. We enjoyed the hairiest man competition, the newlyweds game, bingo, and so much more! Then Saturday it was time to return to Port Canaveral, and then take the drive back to SC. All in all, we enjoyed our time, and Chad and I were able to spend some much needed time with family! Here is a slideshow of the entire trip...thought it was a little long!
Now leads me to our trip to TEXAS for Jonathan's wedding and some TX time! Although we were not able to see everyone and all of what we wanted, we did have fun. After our 20 hour drive, we arrived in TX, with a stop at Whataburger!, around 3 pm. We met up with mom and dad Dugie and had dinner later that night. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were pretty much dedicated to the wedding. Chad and I helped with decorating, flower arranging, and so much more! GEEZ! I almost felt like I was getting married! ;) Anyway, after the wedding Saturday, I was able to see my parents for the first time since we got to TX. We went over to their house on Sunday to enjoy a fried turkey and family time! Monday and Tuesday were dedicated to things we wanted to do around San Antonio and New Braunfels, which included the Riverwalk, riverboat ride, tubing, Gruene Hall, great restaurants, and meeting up with friends.
After our visit to TX, we decided to head to New Orleans for our 4 year anniversary! Yeah, can you believe it, four years! Wednesday we drove to NO and enjoyed Desire, a great restaurant, for dinner! We walked Bourbon Street and had a hurricane at Pat O's. Chad and I hadn't been back to NO since Mardi Gras, so it was much different than we had remembered.
On our anniversary, Thursday, we went walking around the downtown by our hotel on Canal Street and by the Wharfs. It was rainy, so we had to make sure we stayed dry! Maybe it's good luck again...rained on our wedding day and anniversary! Next, we went to Mardi Gras World, which is where they design and construct all the floats for the next Mardi Gras. That night, we ate at another fabulous restaurant with a visit to Bourbon Street. Wow, I almost forgot, we had beignets at Cafe de Monde!
before ponchos...
and after...
eating me some king cake...it's said that if you find the baby you have to purchase the next cake...thankfully I didn't find it!
After our vacations, we were finally home! We had been gone a total of 24 days and it's already the end of July! Where did the summer go?!?!
We had one last visitor....Amy was able to come and see us for a few days...which was much too short, but we both had school to get started with! Amy and I enjoyed our days catching up, ghost tour downtown, going to the beach, eating good food, and visiting a plantation that I hadn't been to yet. It's actually the plantation where they filmed parts of The Notebook (Kristen I know you will love this one!).
Charleston=2nd most haunted city. The second pic we are in the most haunted alley...
Here are where some more haunting stories took place. The second pic is where the old gallows were, place where they used to hang people...hence chad.
The stairs were another haunting story...it is actually a restaurant.
Boone Hall Plantation
Red's for Amy's last night....bar and such...
Until we meet again!
1 comment:
holy cow! someone needs to update more often :) you do have lots to talk about! i love cruises. we snorkeled in st. maarten and scuba'd in st. thomas. we thought st. thomas had much prettier water as well. looks like yall have been having tons of fun!
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