Cruise: Day 5

Wednesday morning we woke up in Freeport. This last minute stop was to help make up for missing Half Moon Cay. Although I certainly commend Carnival for ensuring we got another stop, it in NO way made up for missing the other. Of course we made the best of it though and had fun anyway. =)

We docked next to a ship yard.
Cute little tug boat! =)

Once we got off the boat we were welcomed by lots of pastel colors, just like Nassau.
But this time we were let out into a market of sorts. That was essentially all there was. We could have taken a taxi 12 miles to the beach and downtown shopping area, but since we had just done those two things the day before, and since we weren't going to be there very long that day, we decided to pass. We shopped around and I got a bracelet for Sky.
I will say this, the majority of the shop owners were sweet, friendly, and helpful but after an hour or so of walking and looking at the same kinds of stuff over and over again, I was done, and ready to get my lounge on again.
When we got back on the boat, there wasn't really anyone there... so we got these good seats (even though the view wasn't the best) and by gosh, I parked it there. I left only long enough to get some chow and hurried right back.

Like I mentioned yesterday, my legs had gotten pretty burnt (an ugly, splotchy burn which has, of course, turned into a splotchy white girl tan) so about halfway through my lounging exercise I had to keep covering my legs up... they were killin' me. Oh, I'd also like to note that once again we were sitting next to some nice people. =) Hooray for that.Val and I were determined to stay in our good spot until we left that afternoon. We did and here's a few shots from that:




Hello blue water.
=)
After we left, we checked out the Fun Shops on the boat (they were having a sale) but I didn't find anything I couldn't live without. The Aloe was horribly overpriced so I just finished off my little travel tube of it and prayed my legs wouldn't blister before I got home to my gallon jug of the stuff!

Then we got ready for dinner. It was bittersweet since it was our last night.


My starter: crab cake (I don't really even like crab but I made myself step out of my comfort zone and you know what? It was actually pretty good.)
Dinner: Short ribs (basically roast) with veggies and mashed potatoes.Dessert: Baked Alaska

Dac's dessert: A CHEESE PLATE. (Are you kidding me!?!?) It stunk so bad and he wasn't particularly impressed. Cracks me up. A cheese plate. hahaha. For dessert. Crazy.
Terese and I with our waiter Kenroy and his assistant (who was just as cool but I can't remember his name...eek). They were fun.
Sunset that night.After dinner, Val and I went to check out the Hey Mambo show in the Palace. It was a musical and we just caught the last 15 minutes or so. Then, we headed out to the deck.
We watched them drain the pool and do all sorts of other cleaning to get ready for the next batch of people boarding the next day.

A seal...
And a heart. With chocolates. That night we packed our bags, requested a wake up call and hit the hay. The next day we flew home. I'll touch on that tomorrow and the post will feature pictures of the boat.

Cruise: Day 4 - Part 2

Once we got back on the boat, we got cleaned up, and since I didn't eat much at Senor Frogs... I headed down to get me some grub on the deck. Val and Terese went with me and we goofed off aaaaaaaand maaaaaaaybe got an ice cream cone. Just sayin'. =)


Our sneaky and ridiculously priced coconut heads.
They were having a midnight Mexican buffet this night... here's the ice sculpture they were working on for it:
I can't remember for sure, but I think we may have hung out in the Palace and watched people learn how to dance or something. Or maybe we watched the Trivia? Maybe both? Then we hung out on the deck for a while with David and the boys while listening to live music. The drink of choice on the ship... Miami Vice. Val and I first discovered these at the comedy club... and had them again on the deck while we listening to live music.

Here we are hanging out.

THEN... it got good. THEN... we attended the dance part on the deck. It. Was. AWESOME. I mean, when do I get to dance anymore... really? It was fun. =) We did lots of line dances... like this one. BACK IT UP.... AND JUMP!!!!

While we were out havin' a good ol' time... Austin was doing this:
Just about every night we came back to the rooms to find him like that. WITH cartoons on. =)

Fun Night!


Day 5 in Freeport comin' at ya real soon like.

Cruise: Day 4 - Part 1

Since I have so many pictures from our time in Nassau, I've decided to break it up into two posts. The first will be day time on the island and the next will be from that night on the boat.

The day started out kind of ho-hum. Except for breakfast, that of course was fine. =) The excursions we planned to do were sold out (live and learn) and we weren't sure what we were going to do for the day. We knew there was some shopping to be done and we were determined to find a beach.


When we first got off the boat we were in tourist trap city. Everywhere we turned there was someone trying to taxi us off to God knows where and braid our hair on the way. Once we made it through the mob we checked out part of the town (though I'm sure we missed tons) and went in and out of some fun shops. Then, a nice lady told us about the free beach about a mile away. Score. We made our way down there and hung out for a while (since val and I had been dummies and left our beach towels and stuff back on the boat).


Here's me sportin' a "Ryan shirt" (my cousin who passed away last year). Once we determined we would in fact stay on the beach, she, Dac, and I took the trek back, grabbed some lunch on the Lido deck, and headed back to get our beach bum on.
First, we got in the freezing cold, pretty blue ocean. There was lots of sea weed and rocks where we were so it hurt (and scared) my feet. =) But it was still fun!! I didn't run into any sting rays, barracudas, sharks, eels, or sea urchins so it was a successful swim in my opinion.


Then, I stretched out my beach towel and sunned until my legs were a bit burnt. Oops. =| Dac and I took a break to get a Coke and we sat on this log in the shade a ways back from our beach spot. While we were there... this guy came over, said hi, then proceeded to sell drugs to a couple teenage-looking guys. Just like that. Huh. There were cops all over the beach... some in uniform, some not. One guy was hiding behind the pier with binoculars. Not sure what was going on, but they were looking for someone to screw up. Anyway, it was kind of interesting. I didn't let it keep me from my nap though. You wanna know what did keep me from napping though? The high school kids next to us being completely trashed. There was a liquor store up the road and of course it's 18 to drink there, and I'm sure at least one of the hoodlums was 18. He kept coming back with bottles of Captain or something. Still, beach day was a blast.

Here's me posing with something... my Envirosax in tow.


We started heading back and stopped at Senor Frogs. It was fun but the food wasn't really excellent but extremely overpriced, and it was like Spring Break Girls Gone Wild in there. =)



The Gaucomole Boy came around to make Val's dip. It was good.
Our dinner guest.
On the way back to the boat we stopped at a few of the stores again and I got a Hard Rock t-shirt. Then, we got back on the boat... which I'll talk about later. =)

Dinner Date

Please excuse this temporary interruption of our previously scheduled cruise programing. =)

You may remember from this post that my good friend Erika had us over for dinner a few weeks ago. We had such a good time. It was so nice to take a little break from life and visit with friends that the fabulous meal Erika made was just icing on the cake. =) It got me to thinking... having people over for dinner is fun... fairly simple to do... and for crying out loud... why don't we do this more often?!?!

I love to cook and hang out with people so you would think this is a no brainer... and it should be... but I just don't make it happen like I should. We have Wii night and take turns cooking... and I love those get-togethers... but those aside... we really don't have people over. Like ever. I guess I think "we're too busy", "I haven't had a chance to clean the house", "the house is a total construction zone and nothing like what I want people to see our home as", "what if they don't like what I make?", etc...

When I showed up to Erika's she said "I was going to change into something cute but then I thought about it, and realized, it's just Alisha, I can wear a t-shirt!" Exactly. I love it. She's right. Friends don't care! Friends are just happy to hang out no matter if you're perfectly accessorized or if you're in a t-shirt or, ssshhh, fat girl pants. They don't care if there's dishes in the sink and a pile of laundry on the back of the couch. Heck, there's a chance they won't even notice your fabulous new wall color or stellar throw pillows. Plus, I bet friends really don't care if you eat a frozen pizza or an exquisite 5-course meal. I mean, do you?

SO - of course we'll be returning the favor to Erika and Dereck but I decided that first, I'd try my hand at spreading the love. Our dinner date at their place was such a bright spot to me, I wanted to, hopefully, share that with someone else too. Just so happens I hadn't seen my friend Kayla in a while and we had some catching up to do.

We settled on last night and I gave them the option of cavatini or chicken enchiladas. They chose the latter and so that's what I made! =) I make cheesy chicken enchiladas... not red sauce enchiladas. To be honest, I typically make a recipe (when I actually follow one) that includes a sauce base of cream of mushroom soup (because it's quick, easy, and it's pretty good too) but I decided to try something different last night and made Pioneer Woman's recipe. It was more time consuming and involved more ingredients but I think it was worth it. =) (PS - I used flour tortillas instead of corn, 86'd the cilantro and jalepeno, and added more paprika (accidentally...haha.) Not bad. I also made guacamole (not gonna lie... I'm not awesome at that) so we had chips and dip but that was it. Kayla brought over some delicious cookie brownie bars though... best of both worlds... can't beat that! =) And we just chatted to our little hearts' content! I even got to color with Journey! I call it a success. A picture-less success maybe, but a success none-the-less.

Homework: invite someone over for dinner this month. You try, you like. =D

**Special thanks to Erika and Dereck for re-instilling the desire to do this, to Pioneer Woman for the tasty recipe, to Mark, Kayla, and Journey for the awesome company, and to Dac for cleaning up afterward.