Vacation - My Story.

So I was thinking today that I haven't really blogged about my trip. *yes another cruise post but that's all that's on my mind*

Day 1 - September 13th: Preparation
So at about 3 or 4 we had my dad and mom take us to the airport. Our flight was at 7 pm. We arrive extra early because I wasn't quite sure what we would have to go through since the last time I was in an airport there were a lot of lines. Apparently they have figured something out because the check0-in process seemed to go really quick. Well we get through the check-in process and begin making our way to go find our terminal. On the way Cassie wanted to get a pack of gum so we stop at a convient shop on the way and pick up a pack and a magazine. After the shop we head onto the moving floor, which is my favorite part :), which seemed to take forever. When we finally find out terminal I stop and get some Quiznos because I was hungry. By the time we get to the terminal we have about an hour to wait for our flight so I end up listening to music or playing my DS I'm not sure maybe both? We finally board the plane probably 15 minutes after 7 and find out seats next to an older lady. I don't mind seating next to older ladies because they seem to be nice. The flight attendent let the lady next to us know that it was an almost empy flight so she could go sit in an empty row giving us more room. Which is wonderful since I was getting kinda closterphobic and didn't realize how small the seats were. So now we are on a 3 hour flight which seemed to not take that long since I slept through most of it. We finally arrive in Orlando by midnight Eastern time. The original plan was to hang out in the airport until the 12 pm the next day to get on the transfer to the boat. The problem that we didn't think about is there wasn't anything open and we were hungry. Well mainly Cassie but I could eat. So we ended up getting a hotel room. This was probably the best hotel I have ever stayed at. We ended up ordering room service and I had a pretty burnt pizza and Cassie had an odd tasting chicken sandwhich. So we split our food and was pretty full. We fell asleep pretty quickly after that.

Day 2 - September 14th: Arrival to the Boat
I was awake around 6 the next morning and got ready for the day. We ended up checking out around 10 am and headed the other side of the airport to meet the shuttle. I thought that we would have to wait since they said the earliest shuttle left at noon. Turns out that we could board the shuttle a lot sooner so we checked in and waited for the bus to arrive. About a half hour later the bus finally arrive and we got pretty good seats on the bus. We sat behind an older mom and daughter and across from them a pretty trashy mom and her younger maybe 12 or 13 year old daughter. After waiting for everyone to board and driving the other side of the airport we finally make our one hour drive to the port. After listening to the moms and daughters discuss their diabetes I sleep for about a half n hour. Now the bus driver was extremly entertaining. Most bus drivers that I have had have always been crabby and quiet. This one was very talkative and kinda funny. He pointed out that we were going a comfortable 55 on the freeway and showed us our first view of the ocean. Let's just get one thing straight, I LOVE the ocean. I would give everything up right now to move and start a new life somewhere near the ocean. Well maybe not everything but I would think it would be neat to drop what I am doing and move my life down to Florida. Anyways off topic. So we start coming nearer to the port. We can finally see our boat! I forgot how big these ships are. It felt like I was looking at a giant. When we arrive at the port we had to wait awhile other boats empty and it seemed to take FOREVER. I just wanted off the bus and onto the boat. After exiting the boat we then have to wait again in a long line to get into the building to board the boat. After we finally get into the building the check-in at the port was surprisingly quick and painless. I guess it's best to link your sail and sign card to a credit card because everyone seemed to put cash on it. So there was empty lines to check-in. Once that was done we avoiding taking pictures and started heading onto the boat! After we get on the boat Cassie and I are in awe about the inside of the main atrium of the boat. Very purple as I had read countless times online. But I didn't mind it. I knew we couldn't enter our rooms for a few hours so we head to the Prominade deck where I knew we could get something to drink. I made a point that I was going to try the drink of the day atleast once a day. So I order the drink of the day. It was called "Cruise ship special". It was pretty good. I ended up drinking three not realizing it, I guess heat and alcohol and a waiter that speaks really fast and a hard to understand accent means I say yes a lot LOL. After sitting for awhile we go to the buffet and get our first plates of food. After eating a cold hot dog and some fries we watched an amusing game of trivia for a 24K Gold plated ship on a stick prize. I guess which is a pretty prized collectible for cruisers. I kinda wish I would of gotten one. :( After awhile I decided it was time to go head to our room. we take one of the many elivators down to our floor, the Rivera deck. We started heading down what we though was our hallway to our room. We get halfway down and realize this is odd numbers. Our room # was even (R160) so we turned around and realized we still had to wait a bit for our room to be ready. After sitting in the stair way and Cassie getting annoyed because I was drunk, not sure but after 3 drinks I got pretty drunk. After they let us through we get to our room and notice how nice our room is. For being such a small room the bed was nice even if it was two beds put together. We sit and rest for a bit watch a bit of tv take a quick nap and start heading out to our muster station to do the muster drill. The muster drill is where you gather with your life jacket and they show you how to wear it and then after that we go up to where our life boat is and they show us the exit. After the muster drill we had hoped they would have given us time to get back to our room and then to drop off our jackets before leaving but we were starting to leave during the drill! So we get a good spot on the rail and watch the boat leave. Waved goodbye to locals and saw a bunch of sting rays swim underneath us which was pretty cool. After we watch the boat leave we head to our room to watch from our room as we left our view from our window was perfect. We were basicaly right on the water so our view was perfect. I took a quick nap again. After the nap we decided to wonder the ship again. While we were wondering we passed the buffet and decided to get a quick bite to eat. We should of known we would have eaten a lot. We also went and looked for sunscreen. We bought probably the most expensive sunscreen we have seen. But we needed it and Cassie forgot to pack it. It might have been already too late we had already gotten a lot of sun without it. But we had hoped to try and slow down the burn process. We decided to head back to the room and get ready for dinner. We get ready and I debated on wearing a tie. I brought one ready to go but really didn't want to wear it. So I didn't We head down and wait for like 15 minutes before they let us in. After we get seated we soon find out that we are seated with 2 young married couples and a new wed couple. All very out going and talkative, especially one girl. They were very friendly took pictures of all of us an shared lots of stories. I guess two of the girls are local Floridians (?) and went to rivaling schools. So we had to sit and listen to their stories. They really didn't ask us much. They asked us about what we did and where we were from. They were shocked that we were from Minnesota. The dinner was amazing basically if you are really hungry you can ask for seconds or even thirds and the waiters will bring you it. No questions asked. Infact they will offer it. I had seconds on the cocktail shrimp which were amazing. After an amazing dessert, I had the melting chocolate cake which was great. We headed back to our room where we fell asleep pretty quickly.

I will continue this later...

Thoughts for a moment.

I never post anything anymore. I probably start every blog like that, but it's true I never know what to write anymore. I tend to just ramble about my thoughts and it turns into a decent blog entry I guess.

Anyways, I really have been wishing to start planning my next cruise. I just wish we could get our damn finances figured out. I swear I stress about money more than anything right now. And I may be over stressing it but someones got to do it.

So some guy in Florida commited suicide on a web cam the other day while other people watched. I guess he said he was going to do it and did it. I wonder what the people on the other side of the video were thinking. I don't think I could ever watch someone attempt to kill themselves.

I want to be where you are...

So...

So I feel as though I am addicting to cruising. So since I cannot sleep right now I am deciding on booking another cruise. The only crappy thing about booking so far in advanced is that the price is pretty high, but on a positive note when it comes closer to the day the price drops and I will hopefully get on board credit again. We got I think 300 dollars last time. Anyways this is what the outlook looks like so far. Since I posted this before I will do it again...

5 Day Western Caribbean Cruise
Cruise - $1,190.50
Flight - $570
Extra cash - $1,000?
Total - $2,760.50
Extra cash is debatable since we didn't use most of it last time, and we could be a bit conservative this time.

More details later.

One word.

One word to discribe my feelings/stress level for the day: fuck.

Thoughts for now.

Ugh I have been meaning to post so many blogs but have been really lazy and haven't gotten around to it. Plus I don't think anyone actually reads this, and that might be because of the lack of posts on my part.

So in a week I will be in the Bahamas. Hopefully not getting rained on, but from what Weather.com is stating it's supposed to rain a lot. That would just put a big damper on my fun. Oh well. Starting to get a little nervious. Only like 6 more days until we leave and I feel we are going to forget something very important. I really hope we don't.

Today...

So it's starting to hit me, vacation is coming up. Its like 26 days away or something like that. Starting to get a little anxious. Also a little nervious. I am afraid that I am going to forget something and we aren't going to be able to get on the ship. I guess that's what I get for booking everything on my own. Oh well I am probably going to call Carnival and just double check what all I need. The website says all I need to do is print off the FunPass documents and bring my passport but something tells me that there might be something more. Oh well.

I got another Halo tattoo. I like it. Some people probably think I am retarded for getting video game tattoos. But oh well.

Ugh update to vacation

So sadly we had to cut like half of the trip due to the fact we are bad with money and can't seem to save anything. So here is the new trip details.

Sep 14-18
Flight : $586
Cruise (Sep.14 @ 4:00 p.m.): $770
Extra Cash: $1000
================
Total: $2356
Paid to Date: $1356
Still Need: $1000

Co-ed Softball...

Is for the birds. So the men's league ended last week, and as disappointed as I am I played with the co-ed team last night. I bit the dust getting to third base when the baseWOman tried to tag me instead of the base. I dodged it but in doing so tripped and fell on my face. The smart person she is decided NOT to tag me while I lay on the ground leaving me to crawl on my stomach to third base. I was safe. But in a lot of pain. :( I think I would of rather been out then take this pain. Also I really don't like getting beat by little old ladies. :(

Uneventful...

So today I really haven't done anything exciting. Cassie didn't have to work for once on a Saturday so I didn't have to do a lot of driving today. Which is nice with gas being about 4 bucks a gallon. Ugggh. So I have spent most of my day watching season 5 of Seinfeld since I figured out how to stream Avi. files from my laptop. I also have been d/ling a ton of movies that I have been wanting to watch and been watching them aswell. Also Jeremy came over and we watched Jumper and I was convinced to play Halo. So we played with Jeremy and Jake. I might have to start playing again...

Updated Vacation.

*Update: Decided not to go with a rental car
*Updated again...finally paid for hotel.

So I was looking again for hotels. Realizing that what I had down for it was hella expensive and found one for half the price. So this is the new calculations:

Sep 14-21
Flight : $586
Cruise (Sep.14 @ 4:00 p.m.): $770
Hotel: $138
Car: Aprox. $30
Universal Studios: $154
Seaworld: $136
Gatorland: $40
Extra Cash: $2000
================
Total: $3855
Paid to Date: $1494
Still Need: $2361

Ugh...money and stuff.

So I am kinda freaking out about money. The vacation is only 3 months away and we still haven't gotten our passports yet. Also I just had to fix my car which was another 200 some dollars. And we haven't sent out our renter's tax return yet so who knows if we will get it on time. UGH. Still have a lot of money to save. Maybe Cassie will get a lot of birthday money, she probably won't want to use it for the trip but it would be cool if she did.

Florida 2006

Photobucket Album

Memorial day

So other then spending most of the day playing smackdown vs raw 08 we decided to hang at nicollette commons.

I hate Saturday nights.

I'm not sure what it is but my apartment is really creepy at night with no lights on. Too many dark places along the outside. Freaks me out

I really need to spend some time and clean my apartment =(

So far

Suicidal?

I look like I was suicidal but really it was the cat

The Past.

So a person from my past has been trying to contact me lately. I haven't had the urge to answer their calls yet. The thing is they never leave a message until recently, they finally left a message. I am not quite sure if I want to call back or not. Too many lies and drama that I really don't want to relive or remember to be honest. So what do I do? Do I call them back and just suck it up? Maybe they just want to chat and see whats new. Maybe they want to start things over from the beginning. Who knows. The only way I will ever know is by answering the next time they call or calling them back. UGH.

Argh...

I'm in a bad mood today. I don't know why. Actually I might of been in one all week, who knows.

Sometimes...

Sometimes it just makes life a little more easier to just close your eyes, imagine your life as told in an indie film directed by Zach Braff and listening to the Garden State soundtrack.

Hmm...

I don't think many people read my blogs. Oh well.

So again I am watching Indiana Jones today and played GTA 4 for most of the day. As much hours as I have spent in that game I am only like 30% complete.

I think I have a tumor. On the left side of my chest there is a lump or I think its a lump. I should get it looked at. It doesn't hurt so much. It first showed up after I started playing catch after work. It may be a muscle that I haven't used in awhile is starting to swell? I noticed the same thing on my right side just not as big as my left side.

Ugh continued.

I get myself into these cycles of living check to check. Which makes it hard to save any money and is really stressful on me. I am starting to get a little worried about money. We haven't saved any in awhile which is going to make it difficult to go on vacation in 4 months. 4 months, thats not far away. I am really banking on the fact that Cassie and I get the full $600 checks from the government. I will probably get the full its just Cassie probably won't. But it would be nice if we got the full amount. Also I just remembered that we are getting a large rent tax return later on hopefully in August I believe that's when I got it last year. That should help.

I haven't been feeling well this past week. I feel better today but still feel it.

Indiana Jones is on and that makes me happy :)

Ugh

Ugh....

Funny bike

Saw this at the game last night. I thought it was hilarious!

Pictures from the Twins game last night

Twins game...

Going to a Twins game tonight. Should be a blast. I will try and write about it later tonight.

Funny video.

*Stolen from Jeremy's myspace.



Seems the video was deleted. Oh well.

Softball is here!

Played my first 2 games of softball last night. Body hurts a lot today...

Vacation. (taken from Myspace blog)

So last year about this time I wrote a blog about going on a vacation. A trip to Florida and a cruise. Well it didn't happen. I was banking on having a great tax return, but in the end ended up using it on bills and not the vacation. Well this year, I hope to get a better return and we are actually saving up money this time and should have a great amount of money saved up by the time we are going. The plan right now is September 14th we leave and return around September 21st. A cruise is still in the plan. Here is the totals I have figured out so far...

Sep 14-21

Flight : $586
Car: $130
Hotel: $345
Cruise (Sep.14 @ 4:00 p.m.): $770
Universal Studios: $154
Seaworld: $136
Gatorland: $40
Extra Cash: $2000
Total:
================
$4161

Ugh I wish it was September. Why can time fly? I really just want to do this now, it's just too bad we have to save money first. heh I have been spending a lot of time on Carnival Cruise and Cheap Tickets. I guess on the Carnival website friends and family can purchase items for us as a cruiser. Someone should purchase us a fruit basket once I get the tickets and what not.

Ugh...September is not coming fast enough :(

I can't wait to get out of this cold weather :(

So I prebooked the cruise on Monday! I was unaware that you can put a deposit down, so I did. This is one step closure to the vacation. =)

Some pictures from phone...

Some cats...
Tiger...



My buddy Aslan...



Here are some scenic pictures...






Jeremy giving me an odd look...

Alexandria...

So its Tuesday, and life is back to the way it was. Alexandria was great. Here is a recap:

• Spent some time bumming around at Cassie's parent's old house before they move.
• Spent a lot of time out doors.
• Spent time at the local Walmart, Target and the mall. The 3 hot spots in town haha.
• Spent time with friends that I don't see often.
• Spent time hanging out at City Park.
• Spent time in St. Cloud.

All in all it was a good time. Especially on the fact that we don't have a lot of money right now. Bills seem to be adding up which really sucks and Wells Fargo decided to be retarded and hit us with over 200 dollars in overdraft fees, which really blows. I guess every time a charge goes through after I am in the negative $34 dollars gets charged no matter how much the charge was.

Also got a new cat, well not new, but new to the apartment. It's my baby Aslan. One of Cassie's cat's kittens that I claimed and left at Cassie's parents' house for ages. Now he is home with Cassie, Scarlett, and I. Hopefully he becomes less shy than he has been so far.

Pictures to come when I get a chance to look through the ones Cassie took.

Blah - test post

First post from my blackburrrrry.

Alexandria, MN...blech.

Right now I am in Alexandria, MN. I will post more about this adventure and share pics later. But yea.