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Hey, hey sweet shoppers!  laura here this morning and my blog post today is twofold 🙂  first off, in case you have been hiding under a rock (haha), i was gone for 6 days.  my husband and i went on a cruise to cozumel.  all by ourselves, no kids, just us.  we took a cruise to cozumel 2 years ago, and vowed to do it again every other year for as long as we can.  we aren’t the type of couple who goes out on dates a lot, we don’t ask others to babysit for us often, i’m a stay at home mom…i have guilt issues about doing that.  anyway, i digress…so, it was just us.  no kiddos.  we were ready for a few days of partying in the sun and a few more days of just relaxing as we sailed along the ocean.

 

are you laughing yet?  if you know me, i should have known, this was NOT going to be the case.

 

we left IL about 830 on Wednesday morning, as soon as we dropped the kiddos off at school and the pooch off to the vets to be boarded.  we had our parents all set to go with the girls’ schedules and lists of medications and well, we were good to go.  we got about 20 miles away from town and it starts raining.  it rained the whole way to New Orleans.  Illinois to New Orleans.  for those of you keeping track, that’s 13 hours.   no joke, it rained for about 12 of those.  in fact, while we were in Mississippi, it rained so hard we had to pull off to the side of the road.  even then the wipers couldn’t keep up with how hard it was raining.  it was an amazing thing to see, but one i’d rather have watched through a window of a hotel, or a house, not from the front seat of my car.  alas, we trekked on.  we made it to Hammond, LA where we were going to spend the night (about an hour north of New Orleans) about 10 PM.  as you may have guessed, we crawled into bed and that was the end of us.  no excitement for us.

 

the next morning, we headed to New Orleans.  we got there about 11, and we knew that they weren’t supposed to let us board until noon, but we thought we’d give it a try.  surprisingly enough they did!  we got on the boat and started to enjoy ourselves.  we ordered drinks, we ate, we just sorta hung out, we got ourselves in our room….but we noticed, we didn’t have any luggage.  we weren’t overly concerned about it because they told us it may take a few hours and we were early, so we’d probably get ours last since everyone elses would go on top of ours.  after we’d eaten, i started feeling sick to my stomach.  it wasn’t really surprising since i’ve been having stomach issues, but still, we were on vacation.  so, i decided to lay down for a bit.  my husband decided he didn’t want to waste his vacation away napping, so he went to just hang out on the deck for awhile while i napped.  he called me about an hour after i was in the room.  now, i tried not to act annoyed, but, seriously, let me nap dude.  he told me i needed to come up on the deck because there was something he knew i’d want to see.  after my whole ‘seriously?’ schpiel, i decided to go up there and maybe then he’d leave me alone.  i get up there and see that there’s a huge oil spill on about 500 pieces of luggage.  yes.  you read that right.  500 pieces of luggage were ruined by oil.  after finding out what happened (apparently a truck driver screwed up and well, ran into a barrel of oil, punctured it and poof.  spillage everywhere), we decided to go down to our room to see if our luggage was there yet.   as we were walking off the elevator, we saw it arrive.  THANK YOU BABY JESUS!  to make an even longer story short, our departure got delayed from 4 pm, until 2 am.  yes.  2 am.  the crew of the ship had to determine whose luggage was ruined, who needed to be compensated, yadda, yada, yadda.

 

so, obviously, our day in cozumel was going to be pushed back too.  instead of arriving there at 8 am on saturday morning, we were going to arrive about 11 am.  we spent most of friday in limbo because no one was sure exactly what time we’d get there.   now, i’m a scheduled control freak.  this was no bueno for me.  i had a bit of a panic attack about it all and was sorta freaking out thinking we wouldn’t make it back to New Orleans in time….yes, i realize, i was a hot mess.   anyway, the rest of our trip to cozumel was fairly uneventful (for once).  we arrived about noon on Saturday  and since we arrived late, they were going to let us stay until 7 pm.  we had booked an excursion to spend a day at Playa Mia.  this is a beach that had free food, free drinks, and gorgeous scenery.  we could just lay on the beach, be bums, and drink.  perfect.   the day was awesome…no need to dwell on awesomeness, right? :p

fast forward to our sail back to New Orleans.  the day started off windy on sunday.  no biggie, we’re in the middle of an ocean, it’s bound to be windy.  i sat my butt down and proceeded to finish my 3rd book of the trip.  my husband went off to do lord knows what and he told me he’d be back in a couple hours and we could get lunch or whatever.  well, the wind picks up.  a lot.  by the time he got back, the wind was ridiculous and the temperature had dropped probably 15 degrees.  i went down to change because i was frozen and we then went up to eat.  when we were up there, the boat started rocking.  a lot.  our room was on the 4th floor and the waves were even with our windows.  i’m not one to get seasick, but this was ridiculous.  12 hours of this.  12 hours of the waves rocking the ship back and forth so much that you couldn’t walk straight.  it was horrible.

 

now, i can guarantee we will not take a cruise with carnival again, (yes, i realize that most of what happened was not their fault but things were SO unorganized on their part it was ridiculous) but we did have an AMAZING time regardless.

 

if you’ve made it this far, you deserve a medal LOL so, how about some pictures?  now, i didn’t bring my big ol’ awesome camera, i just brought my iphone.  i didn’t want to have the ‘need’ to take pictures and only wanted to take the ones i felt were worth it instead of just taking a ton of pictures.

one of my husband’s only requirements was that we stopped at Lambert’s Cafe for a meal.  he got it and was thrilled.

 

here’s a peek at the oil spill.  insanity, right?

here’s the aftermath.  they were transferring people’s clothing to new luggage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

just a cute little picture of us waiting (forever) to leave.

my 6 year old daughter was texting us on my mom’s phone.  this totally made my whole night.

 

Playa Mya.  gorgeousness and the weather was absolutely perfect

here’s a few more pics

and just a few awesome pics….

this was the main deck of the boat

 

 

Now, if you remember correctly, i said my blog post was going to be twofold.  i have an opportunity for you to receive an extra portfolio point!!

one of my favorite challenges of old were the spin-a-lifts so that’s what i bring to you today!

i want you to do a SAL of this layout by Arumrose titled Dreamer

here’s my take on it…

now, go run and make beautiful layouts <3