{"id":11870,"date":"2012-02-22T04:30:02","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T09:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/?p=11870"},"modified":"2012-02-21T22:06:51","modified_gmt":"2012-02-22T03:06:51","slug":"carnival-adventures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/2012\/02\/carnival-adventures\/","title":{"rendered":"Carnival Adventures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hey, hey sweet shoppers! \u00a0laura here this morning and my blog post today is twofold \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0first off, in case you have been hiding under a rock (haha), i was gone for 6 days. \u00a0my husband and i went on a cruise to cozumel. \u00a0all by ourselves, no kids, just us. \u00a0we took a cruise to cozumel 2 years ago, and vowed to do it again every other year for as long as we can. \u00a0we 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. \u00a0anyway, i digress…so, it was just us. \u00a0no kiddos. \u00a0we 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.<\/p>\n

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are you laughing yet? \u00a0if you know me, i should have known, this was NOT going to be the case.<\/p>\n

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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. \u00a0we had our parents all set to go with the girls’ schedules and lists of medications and well, we were good to go. \u00a0we got about 20 miles away from town and it starts raining. \u00a0it rained the whole way to New Orleans. \u00a0Illinois to New Orleans. \u00a0for those of you keeping track, that’s 13 hours. \u00a0 no joke, it rained for about 12 of those. \u00a0in fact, while we were in Mississippi, it rained so hard we had to pull off to the side of the road. \u00a0even then the wipers couldn’t keep up with how hard it was raining. \u00a0it 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. \u00a0alas, we trekked on. \u00a0we made it to Hammond, LA where we were going to spend the night (about an hour north of New Orleans) about 10 PM. \u00a0as you may have guessed, we crawled into bed and that was the end of us. \u00a0no excitement for us.<\/p>\n

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the next morning, we headed to New Orleans. \u00a0we 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. \u00a0surprisingly enough they did! \u00a0we got on the boat and started to enjoy ourselves. \u00a0we ordered drinks, we ate, we just sorta hung out, we got ourselves in our room….but we noticed, we didn’t have any luggage. \u00a0we 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. \u00a0after we’d eaten, i started feeling sick to my stomach. \u00a0it wasn’t really surprising since i’ve been having stomach issues, but still, we were on vacation. \u00a0so, i decided to lay down for a bit. \u00a0my 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. \u00a0he called me about an hour after i was in the room. \u00a0now, i tried not to act annoyed, but, seriously, let me nap dude. \u00a0he told me i needed to come up on the deck because there was something he knew i’d want to see. \u00a0after my whole ‘seriously?’ schpiel, i decided to go up there and maybe then he’d leave me alone. \u00a0i get up there and see that there’s a huge oil spill on about 500 pieces of luggage. \u00a0yes. \u00a0you read that right. \u00a0500 <\/strong>pieces of luggage were ruined by oil. \u00a0after finding out what happened (apparently a truck driver screwed up and well, ran into a barrel of oil, punctured it and poof. \u00a0spillage everywhere), we decided to go down to our room to see if our luggage was there yet. \u00a0 as we were walking off the elevator, we saw it arrive. \u00a0THANK YOU BABY JESUS! \u00a0to make an even longer story short, our departure got delayed from 4 pm, until 2 am. \u00a0yes. \u00a02 am. \u00a0the crew of the ship had to determine whose luggage was ruined, who needed to be compensated, yadda, yada, yadda.<\/p>\n

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so, obviously, our day in cozumel was going to be pushed back too. \u00a0instead of arriving there at 8 am on saturday morning, we were going to arrive about 11 am. \u00a0we spent most of friday in limbo because no one was sure exactly what time we’d get there. \u00a0 now, i’m a scheduled control freak. \u00a0this was no bueno for me. \u00a0i 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. \u00a0 anyway, the rest of our trip to cozumel was fairly uneventful (for once). \u00a0we arrived about noon on Saturday \u00a0and since we arrived late, they were going to let us stay until 7 pm. \u00a0we had booked an excursion to spend a day at Playa Mia. \u00a0this is a beach that had free food, free drinks, and gorgeous scenery. \u00a0we could just lay on the beach, be bums, and drink. \u00a0perfect. \u00a0 the day was awesome…no need to dwell on awesomeness, right? :p<\/p>\n

fast forward to our sail back to New Orleans. \u00a0the day started off windy on sunday. \u00a0no biggie, we’re in the middle of an ocean, it’s bound to be windy. \u00a0i sat my butt down and proceeded to finish my 3rd book of the trip. \u00a0my 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. \u00a0well, the wind picks up. \u00a0a lot. \u00a0by the time he got back, the wind was ridiculous and the temperature had dropped probably 15 degrees. \u00a0i went down to change because i was frozen and we then went up to eat. \u00a0when we were up there, the boat started rocking. \u00a0a lot. \u00a0our room was on the 4th floor and the waves were even with our windows. \u00a0i’m not one to get seasick, but this was ridiculous. \u00a012 hours of this. \u00a012 hours of the waves rocking the ship back and forth so much that you couldn’t walk straight. \u00a0it was horrible.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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if you’ve made it this far, you deserve a medal LOL so, how about some pictures? \u00a0now, i didn’t bring my big ol’ awesome camera, i just brought my iphone. \u00a0i 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.<\/p>\n

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one of my husband’s only requirements was that we stopped at Lambert’s Cafe for a meal. \u00a0he got it and was thrilled.<\/p>\n

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here’s a peek at the oil spill. \u00a0insanity, right?<\/p>\n

here’s the aftermath. \u00a0they were transferring people’s clothing to new luggage.<\/p>\n

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just a cute little picture of us waiting (forever) to leave.<\/p>\n

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my 6 year old daughter was texting us on my mom’s phone. \u00a0this totally made my whole night.<\/p>\n

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Playa Mya. \u00a0gorgeousness and the weather was absolutely perfect<\/p>\n

here’s a few more pics<\/p>\n

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and just a few awesome pics….<\/p>\n

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this was the main deck of the boat<\/p>\n

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Now, if you remember correctly, i said my blog post was going to be twofold. \u00a0i have an opportunity for you to receive an extra portfolio point!!<\/p>\n

one of my favorite challenges of old were the spin-a-lifts so that’s what i bring to you today!<\/p>\n

i want you to do a SAL of this layout by Arumrose titled Dreamer<\/p>\n

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here’s my take on it…<\/p>\n

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now, go run and make beautiful layouts <3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey, hey sweet shoppers! \u00a0laura here this morning and my blog post today is twofold \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0first off, in case you have been hiding under a rock (haha), i was gone for 6 days. \u00a0my husband and i went on a cruise to cozumel. \u00a0all by ourselves, no kids, just us. \u00a0we took a cruise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":11874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[129],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11870"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11870"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11891,"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11870\/revisions\/11891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}