very long post about vacation (with photos - but not of me!)

Hello blog friends! What an interesting week you have all had. I was excited to get home and get caught up. I am still only about half caught up (some of you post a LOT) but I thought I'd blog about my vacation.

It was incredible. Seriously, the best week of my life. Every night on the boat we had the most delicious dinner (lasagna, chile rellenos, fancy pasta, etc etc, and the hubs had all sorts of meat to choose from). The deserts kicked ass. I ate my weight in pineapple.

We took a solid two-hour nap every afternoon. The drinks were awesome. We ended every night in an adults only whirlpool. It was an amazing time.

We left last Sunday and flew to Miami, had dinner at a fancy restaurant and spent the night. My best friend (of the past few years), "Gwen", and her husband, "B" went with us. Monday morning we woke up, ate our complimentary breakfast, hung out at the pool for a while, and then it was time to get on our ship.

The embarkation process went fairly quickly and after waiting a short time, we got into our stateroom. Whoops - it had two twin beds instead of the king we had requested! Don't worry, the dude came and combined the beds for us very quickly. We cruised through Carnival for our honeymoon, too, and this ship was bigger and nicer than that one, and our stateroom was bigger (we even had a couch!).

The first night we went to dinner, got to know the ship a tiny bit, and went to a welcome show. Our cruise director, Noonan, cracked me up and hassled these really drunk college kids in the audience. It was the first of many bouts of hysterical Lulu laughter.

Tuesday was a fun day at sea, which means we didn't get off the boat. When I woke up I went to breakfast with Gwen and B (A slept in) and we had this view while we ate:

Then I basically languished poolside all day. I read, drank a fruity frozen drink (they were incredible), and watched the events going on at the deck party. Tuesday was pretty slow-moving, which was good because the rest of the week was a whirlwind. I caught this photo of the sunset:

Wednesday morning we got off the boat at Grand Turk, an island in the nation of Turks and Caicos. We caught a catamaran and went snorkeling. A and I saw a sea turtle swimming around! It was gorgeous! I chose to be daring and jumped right off the side of the boat instead of using the steps...which I paid for slightly since I kind of hyperventilated when I hit the water. But a few minutes of deep breathing and I was okay.

We saw so many types of fish. I jumped off the boat right on top of a coral reef, which was beautiful, and the water was 18-25 feet deep there. But just about 10 feet away is a giant shelf and the depth dropped off to 70,000 feet instantly. After about 45 minutes of snorkeling we got back on the boat and that's where the insanity begins.

One of the catamaran crew members started calling himself "Dr. Feelgood" and serving us these really strong, complimentary rum punches. Now I don't usually drink rum, but what the hell, I was on vacation right?

I went from stone cold sober to shitfaced drunk in about 15 minutes, no exaggeration. I had never been "day drunk" before so I really lived it up. Dr. Feelgood was swimming from the boat to the beach they had dropped us off at with pitchers of rum punch. We sat on the edge of the water and drank and I got increasingly less coordinated until I was basically somersaulting every time the water washed ashore. Here is a photo of the place I got completely wasted:

Gwen and I were dancing our asses off on the boat when we got back on, and I actually fell on aforementioned ass, and have a giant black and blue bruise to prove it. When it was all over and we got off the boat, B (Gwen's hubby) and I were the drunkest, so Gwen and A deposited us on the beach and went to get some h20. I proceeded to prance around in the water, banging the hell out of my shins because there were some really serious rocks in there! The B buried me in sand.

I couldn't sober up! We got back on our cruise ship and ate lunch and I was still exceedingly drunk. I am a happy drunk, so everything was hysterical, and I kept yelling "I love vacation! This is the best day of my life!" Then we took a long nap and needless to say I was sober and not feeling so hot when we woke up. But it was all worth it.

Thursday was much tamer. We stopped at Half Moon Cay, took a tender in (the island isn't big enough to have a pier) and A and I went horseback riding. First we rode along the shore and then we actually rode into the water and the horses were swimming. It was about two parts exhilarating, one part terrifying. A's horse's name was George and he was the laziest damn horse we have ever seen. He just wouldn't keep up with the group no matter how much prodding A did. As we were leaving the horseback area, we saw George, who had collapsed in a heap.

HIlarious. Then A and I rented an inner tube and lazied around on the beach of Half Moon Cay for the rest of the afternoon. The water was startlingly clear and there were thousands of fish swimming around in schools even up in the shallow area. Every frat boy we passed said the same thing: Dude, hold my beer, I'm gonna catch one of these fish. Riiiight. We also saw this really long, blue fish with a pointy nose. It was the most exotic fish I've ever seen in nature.

Friday we got off at Nassau, the capital city of the Bahamas. It was a pretty low-key day. Gwen and I went to a beach resort which was, mercifully, quiet and not at all crowded. We hung out there for a few hours, had lunch and did some shopping, then got back on the boat. The guys did a walking tour of the city and learned about pirates.

Saturday we debarked and flew home. A and I somehow managed to attract unwanted attention from about every official person we walked past. He got questioned going through customs (what do you do for a living? Hmmmm you seem too young to be a college professor. Is everything you're bringing back into the country yours?) and I got the all points bulletin bag search at the airport, all because I forgot I had my Nalgene full of water in my backpack. They made me feel like a moron for bringing home hot sauce (for my dad) and a water bottle full of sand (to remember my drunken Turks and Caicos day by -- which has now been thoroughly tested for explosives). We waited a good 9 hours at the Ft. Lauderdale airport and then made it home around midnight. Our house was a balmy 47 degrees after leaving the heat off for a whole week.

All in all, vacation was fabulous, worth every penny. The food kicked ass, I got completely relaxed, am sporting an awesome tan, have great photos and memories, and I hardly thought about my infertility at all the whole week. I have tomorrow off to face mountains of laundry and try to convince myself that my house isn't actually swaying back and forth (this ship moved a LOT more than the one on our honeymoon, I guess because we were in the honest-to-God ocean and not the Gulf of Mexico).

So that was my vacation. If you read this far you're truly a gem.