Halloween~!

CRAZY last week at school! We had "Red Ribbon Week," McTeacher night as well as a Halloween dance/party after school on Friday.

Wish I had taken more pictures -- but here are a couple! :)

Here are a couple of pictures from "Backwards day:"

Another teacher at my school all backwards :) I like the hands in the "butt" pockets :)

In addition to these themed days, we had "McTeacher Night," a night were the teachers at my school actually WORKED at McDonalds! And with ever purchase, a certain percentage of the money went directly to our school -- pretty neat!

I was stationed at the front of the store, helping the cashiers. I got peoples drinks, condiments and salads! It was actually harder then it sounds!!!

And for the Halloween Party, myself and my team dressed up as Beauty Queens. Myself, Miss. Calculated :) Language Arts teacher: Miss. Spelled, Social Studies: Miss. America, and Science: Miss. Planted.

You may, however, notice that there are only three of us in this picture, not four! That is because Miss. Planted, our Science Teacher, went into labor on Thursday after school! She wasn't due until Thanksgiving, so we were all shocked to hear she was having her baby.

Benjamin was born last night, and is an adorable, healthy little boy! We're all so excited for Ashley! :) Even if she couldn't be "Miss. Planted" on Friday! :)

DisneyWorld!

After the cruise, Megan, her friend, and my friend Nicole
all spent two days in Disneyworld (and hit ALL four parks I might add!).

We started at Animal Kingdom:

and ended in Magic Kingdom for fireworks:

On our second day, we went to Epcot, which was a lot of fun. I especially liked the big aquarium. It really is true that you're never too old for Disney World!:







After a long drive back to Naples, Megan and I spent my final day in Florida on the beach. Interesting story to go with that, however. We found a jellyfish right by the shore, so Megan told me to keep an eye on it while she ran to get a stick (it wasn't alive). While standing there intently staring at the jellyfish, out of NO WHERE came 4 or 5 sting rays, and they swam around my legs! I just about peed my pants (sorry for the image, but it SCARED ME!!!!) and ran out of the water screaming!!! I got a couple of pictures of them. YIKES! Talk about a once in a lifetime experience :)

Megan later told me that this happens a lot. But it was still scary.



Oh, and there was an amazing sunset over a beach in Naples..... :)

Water Skiing?!?!

After Megan got home from work today, we headed out to "Revolution Cable Park," a place where you can water ski and wake board using a cable line that pulls you around a small lake.

I haven't skied in quite a few years, so it was a lot of fun to get back at it!





Hey, I didn't say I was able to DO it right away :) After about three tries, I was able to get up and do a couple of rounds around the lake!

See for yourself:






After a little while, Megan moved onto wake boarding - and eventually decided to try jumping off of the dock rather then sliding off of it - MUCH harder! Take a look at her first attempt:

If you watch closly, you will see the board hit her in the face - and OUCH! Did it hurt. She ended up with a pretty good bloody nose.





The guys running the park said it made her look "tough," and I quite agree.

While we had a LOT of fun, I'm now ready to rest my arms - OUCH are they tired and sore!!! Fun day! :)

Cruise: Days 4 & 5

Sunday, October 4th 2009

Sunday was a "Fun Day at Sea," or in other words, a day strictly of sailing the ocean with no stops. I always look forward to these days, because they mean a day of RELAXING and looking out the side of the boat of different places as we go by. We passed Cuba, for example, for a few hours - HUGE mountains and fun to watch.

Megan and I spent most of the morning/afternoon laying on the top deck reading, and eventually made our way to the "hairy chest" competition - a competition where a bunch of men danced around one of the decks at the pool with his shirt off. Very funny.

We went down the water slide, and read a LOT - a very nice afternoon. And I have the sunburn to prove it.

Afterwards, we went to have a snack and found some really nice seats overlooking the back of the boat! We sat here for a couple of hours talking, admiring the view and watching the sun set.







Dinner time!







Our waiters sang us all a good-bye song, which was very cute!



And with one final walk around the top deck of the boat, we packed and headed to bed.

Cruise: Day 3

Saturday, October 3rd 2009
Cozumel, Mexico

...Day 3 activities are not for the faint of heart...




We arrived at Cozumel around 1:00pm on Saturday, and watched the ship dock from our patio. We docked right next to another ship, which was fun to check out!

After getting off of the ship, we took a taxi to "Senior Frogs," a very popular bar in Mexico. I had gone to one on my last cruise, and KNEW I wanted to go again!!! We also knew that another popular, fun bar called Carlos and Charlees could be found right below, so we headed on over!

The reason, basically, that these bars are so fun - is because they are very silly, full of dancing (and dances that everyone gets on their chairs and participates in) and the bartenders and staff are always very entertaining.

After arriving, we of course, had to order shots. Now, at Senior Frogs, you don't just get any shot - but you get a shot FED to you, after being spun around... and well... either spanked or groped a bit! It is just very, very funny.

After a couple of fun, frozen drinks - a woman came by and made us balloon hats - also hysterical. I really think Mom's flower captures her innocence :)



Pretty shortly after this picture, we headed downstairs to a bar that had some better dancing music. After getting our groove on (and a couple more drinks.. they had a 2 for 1 deal at this bar!), we headed back to the ship... or so we thought.





The below picture, does have a special explanation - as it actually took dance LESSONS to look as good as my Mom does in this picture. No, seriously. We took "hip-hop" dance lessons the previous day, which by the way, Mom thought was just some kind of fun oldies dancing she never learned (IT ISN'T! Hip Hop is basically dancing to rap music, NOT Moms favorite - boy was she surprised when we got there. And boy, were Megan and I wondering all before this why she was so excited about these particular dance lessons, but went with it anyways.) That was a good laugh in itself.

Here, she is trying to do this boxed kind of dancing move we learned in these lessons.
And doing it BEAUTIFULLY I might add!

In case you were wondering, the dance lessons WERE free :)

Anyways, on the cab ride home -- I asked Mom why we rushed out of the bar (we were having a lot of fun dancing, although I'm pretty sure it was 150 degrees in the room an we needed a break anyways), and she replied, "The ship leaves in half an hour!" Confused, I informed her that the ship wasn't leaving for another 3 and a half hours, to which Megan agreed.

On the upside, this ended up being an OK decision, because we got back to the port and took some pictures on a little beach where we docked.









And now, one of the highlights of the trip.

Mind you, we're each a couple of drinks in at this point, and walking around a cute little beach area. We found a turtle and donkey (fake), and of course ran to pose with them! Megan jumped on the donkeys back, and as I went to take her picture, she starts sliding off the side.



And WHAM!
She hits the ground, and Mom and I almost died laughing (as did all of the people in the bar behind us).

id I mention this was a STATIONARY donkey, not alive or moving? :)



And I would like to add, that I did NOT fall off the turtle :)





Although, it did take a bite of my butt! Luckily, my dear sister came to my rescue.



PHEW! What a long and fun afternoon!

But WAIT! On our way back to the ship, we saw our ... "table buddies" in a bar right on the water, dancing. We walked in to join them for a little while - and somehow, ended up on the raised dance floor - which ended up being a LOT of fun.



Us with our "table buddies" dancing. I'll explain the quotes later, maybe.



Phew, what an AFTERNOON of dancing! When the sun started to set, we took that as a cue to head back to the ship and get ready for dinner.



YAY for mealtime!



After dinner, we found a really fun deck (every night we would talk walks around the ship before going to bed), where the wind was SO STRONG!

We let our hair loose and took a ton of pictures, (most of) which came out pretty neat.





PHEW!!! I think that about sums up Day 3 in a nutshell. Stay tuned for Day 4! :)