The beginning of my adventure....

So most of you know that I went on a Superbowl Cruise with my parents and my brother Jon and his lovely wife Lori. We had so much fun. But first I have to say a humongous thank you to my dear friend Rachel who watched my little guys so I could take this fabulous vacation. I really missed Bruce a lot while there who couldn't go because of being deployed. But I already signed us up to go next year after he gets home. He's gonna love it and it will be nice to be a couple.

It was a trip that almost didn't happen. I got stuck in Syracse when I was trying to flyout to FL at first due to weather, than to mechanical failure on Delta's part. Something to do with thier deicing equipment on the plane. So Delta was great to me, put me in a taxi with a nice older gentleman and drove us to Rochester and put us up in a nice hotel, and gave up vouchers for dinner, breakfast and lunch. Took us to the airport in the morning to flyout, only to find out my flight was delayed. OY!!! But at last I got to New York Kennedy just in time to catch a flight to FT. Lauderdale. I landed at about 2:20 and had to be on the ship by 3:00. Luckily the airport is close to the docks, and I made it. And my lovedly family and friends that I met up with, FINALLY, had drinks waiting for me!!! gotta love that :)

This is the Navigator of the Seas, the ship we were on:






So the cruise was amazing, I'm so glad I went. I had so much fun. I was a little seasick the first night at dinner because our table was right by the window so we watched the water go by. Makes me dizzy now just thinking about it. But other than that I did pretty well with it.

Of course we sailed the rest of Saturday and just hung out by the rails upstairs and watched the land disappear. Lori and I did a little Electric Slide with the dancers on the pool deck. So much fun. Then of course Judy got a piece of a$$ from the dancer guy on board.!!!



Then Sunday was the SuperBowl of course. :) We had so much fun hanging out in one of the lounges watching the game. I thought for sure my brother was going to get into a fight with all the Patriot fans around us, he was being a wee bit obnoxious. :) Lori of course had gameday goodies for everyone. I ended up with a football necklace!!! I wore it proudly, as I rooted for the Giants. Although at halftime, we'd had all we could take of the Pats fans, and Lori, Denice and I headed out to show on board of music from the 70s and 80s, which was awesome. At the end of the show the cruise director came out and was talking and his cell phone went off, and he was like excuse me please.... then said " I thought you all might like to know that the New York Giants are the new Superbowl Champions"




So of course we were screaming and hollering and high fiving each other. Others were cringing. :) I heard we missed a great end to the game though. Oh well, the Giants won and that was the important part. :)

My Jamaician Adventure

Monday we pulled in Jamaicia Mon. :) The weather didn't look very promising, very cloudy. In fact while we were walking down the plank thing we got poured on. It rained for a little while, but a warm rain. Then we found our tour guide, Phil, boy was he a talker. So proud of his country and all the flowers and plants. We learned lots we didn't want to know or could even remember. He was super nice though!!! He drove us into Ocho Rios (Eight Rivers) and we went to the famous Dunn River Falls.



It was scary looking but we all conquered it without anyone getting seriously injured, one guy lost a toenail, but that was pretty much it. We actually climbed up the water falls. I didn't think I'd be able to do it when I saw it.

We all did a great job though. They actually stopped quite a bit, as we waited for those in front of us to go. There were some spots that were scarier than others, and we stepped in a lot of holes, and lots of slippery rocks. Thanks goodness for our water shoes. It was great!! I'd do it again in a heartbeat!!!



After climbing the Falls Phil took us to a nice little off the road type place to eat.

We had real Jamacian food, all kind of different meats, and fried bread, and well it was delicious. And some Jamaician rum, that was really strong.






After we left the Falls, Phil drove us into a not so nice part of Jamaicia and I was a little bit nervous. Especially when he stopped because of people blocking the road. I've seen way too many movies and could just see the guys coming out with machine guns and killing us all or kidnapping the Americans. My imagination ran a little wild. :) But all was good as he took us to another part of Dunn River to go tubing down it. That was a lot of fun too.



I of course was the only one that flipped over in my tube after I ran into a big rock. Luckily I was right by the edge and grapped a tree root to stop, then out of no where this man jumps in and saves, regular day Robin Hood. He helped me get my tube back and got on it, and I contiued down the river where everyone had left me. :) They couldn't help it, the current had taken them away.




So then we got out for a bit, and jumped off a cliff into the water, right where the guy had jumped in to save me. I can't believe that my Dad actually jumped off the ledge too, I was so proud of him, and worried about his back. But he did great, and wasn't sore at all. Here we all are after we jumped in:



We finished up in Jamaicia with a little shopping before we got back on the ship. I bought a few souviniers for the boys and that was about it.

The boys at Dry Hill

So this past Sunday, DJ had a ski day with Boy Scouts. He earned his first Merit Badge as a Boy Scout. He earned his Snow Sports Badge. He was a bit bummed when we got there and he had to ski instead of snowboard. He went snowboarding last year and loved it. He was a little nervous he'd fall and break something skiing. But when I saw him come down the hill the first time, after about an hour of lessons, he had a huge grin on his face and gave me two thumbs up. He is definately hooked I think. I asked if he liked it better than snowboarding but he said no, that is was a tie. Here is a few pics of him with his skis.


While DJ was off learning how to ski, I took Adam and Jack over to the tubing part. Jack absolutely loved it, and I thought it was fun. Adam went down one time and decided that wasn't for him. He was scared he was going to flip over in the tube, no matter how many times I promised him it wouldn't. And even though we never saw anyone flip over. It was nice because all we had to do was sit in the tube and be drup up the hill to slide back down. No work involved, my kind of fun. Here are a few pics of these crazy boys.




We all had a really fun time for the most part!!!!

Thieves In Iraq...

So I guess it doesn't matter that my husband is in the middle of a war zone, he can still have his identity stolen. Or at least his debit card number. Some how someone got a hold of Bruce's debit card number, because he still has his card, and have charged over 3600.00 to our checking account in Brazil. Nice huh? So, for the past few days I've been on the phone with our bank trying to rectify this situation. I have no idea how this happened or when or where. But just beware of the threat if you husband is deployed, that it can happen. My friend seems to think that maybe when Bruce used his card in Kuwait, on the way back from R&R someone got a hold of his number then, and maybe printed a new card which takes a few weeks I guess, which would be about the time that this happened. So now I get to deal with that headache for a week or so. Since it may take up to 10 days for them to reverse all the charges. Don't be jealous!!!! Just pray it all gets taken care of please!!!

Wow, it's been almost a month!!!

Where has the time flown? I can't believe it's been so long since I posted anything. I have been super busy the past few weeks I guess. No time to sit and write down my thoughts and our going ons. I will have to break all of our adventures down into a few posts though. Too much info overload to put into one.

The boys are on winter break this week, typically the coldest week of the year. It hasn't been too bad temp wise, and we haven't gotten too much snow. In fact a lot of the snow started melting on Sunday because of the rain, and some more yesterday morning. Then we got hit with a big band of snow last night and got a few more inches. You have to love Lake Effect Snow!!!