Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

Every year my friend Kim and I celebrate our birthday's together since we are a few days apart. This year we were kicking around a few ideas, maybe going to Disney World, or going to Miami.. Everything we were looking into was so expensive. It was going to cost us more than $700 to book a hotel room, get food, pay for gas, tickets, entertainment etc. My husband Ryan kept saying go on a cruise. Which is something I have always wanted to do. So I said I would see what Kim thought of the Idea. She said that sounded wonderful. We didn't know anything about cruises, but my Aunt sure did. She is a cruise a -holic, and as a side business she books cruises for people. I called her up to check cruises out of Tampa since it is about 30 min away. She found a few Cruises for us, and the one we chose was to go to The Grand Cayman Island and Cozumel Mexico. It left on a Saturday with a return day of Thursday. I about fell over when she emailed me the prices! $298 that included, room, food,entertainment, port fees and taxes!! And I didn't need a passport! When I say food, I mean FOOD! We were in pure gluttony the whole trip. We had free 24 hour food service, 24 hour pizza buffets, ice cream, anything off the grill you wanted. During regular dinner you sit in a fancy dining room and get to order appetizers, entrees and desserts! Not only that, if there was more than one thing you wanted you could have endless food served to the table. Our table was great, we all ordered different things to try, like Duck, lobster Tail, Gator, etc. It was heaven. For breakfast and lunch they had huge buffets or you could choose to sit in the formal dinner halls to be served. The buffets were nice!

We were a little worried we would get bored because we weren't sure what kinds of things to do on the ship. Well, let me sell you on this! We got itineraries of all activities going on for each day, there was so much stuff going on that there was no way you could do it all. They had Vegas style shows, musicals, trivia, tea parties, stand up comedy, karaoke, concerts, put put golf, game show style games, talent shows, they had a casino, a dance club, piano bar, shopping, they had dance classes. We went to a hip hop dance class, they even had Thriller dance class, disco dancing etc. I mean endless amounts of fun things to do. We danced a lot, we loved the stand up comedy shows, and my favorite was the Tea Party. It was fancy. The staff was dressed up, they sat you at a table. Someone came over with a tea pot to pour the hot water, then someone else came with a wooden Tea Box, then someone came around with Scones. And the best part was when they came out with a trolley cart full of sweets! Cakes, tarts, cookies etc. It was like Harry Potter where Harry says "I'll take the lot". It was one of my favorite highlights.

We made a pact that we would never go back to our room before midnight! Only because I didn't want to feel my age of 30 haha. So after dancing, we would go to a peaceful area and layout every night in the wee small hours of the morning. No one was usually out there but maybe a few people. We would just lay there and listen to the ocean waves and look at the moon. I can't tell you how peaceful that felt. One of my fears is to be in the pitch black night in deep waters with no land around and no lights! But it wasn't scary at all, it was very relaxing and we looked forward to it every night.



I will blog more about our trip visiting the countries. If you have never been on a cruise, I hope this blog will persuade you to go. I can't tell you how much fun they are and how inexpensive it is to go! You can't beat the prices which includes everything! We upgraded our room so we would have a window. So worth it! Now that i have been on a cruise, that is all I want to do now for future vacations. I can see how people can get addicted to going on those!

Tea Party!

Welcome to Gulfport

One of my many new years resolutions was to explore Florida on the weekends. We live so close to so many different fun towns and areas. And every where you go here is just absolutely gorgeous. I get so excited for the weekends because it is our time to explore. The weather here is beautiful so it makes it even better! Gulfport is a little town inside the city limits of St Petersburg. It is a very historic area. Everything looks like time has been in stand still mode. By the beach they have a town hall where they have weekly swing dance balls that have live jazz and blues bands play. They encourage everyone to dress up from different eras. All the stores were in really old homes with old mail boxes. No air, just fans and an open door. All the locals sat out on their porch. I loved the fact that everything was small business owned. No corporations or anything. They didn't take credit cards, they didn't sell Pepsi or coke products at the restaurants. They had their own root beer on tap, and their own homemade lemonade.

The town had those old moss trees on every block. We liked how time just kind of stood still there. Seems like you could just imagine southern bell ladies serving lemonade in their long dresses, and on up to the Glenn Miller era where people were so in love, and took long strolls, and wrote their loved ones during the war. I love to think of things like that. My mom and I had a great time. They guys were supposed to come but they decided to stay at home and watch the games. I can't wait for our next little diamond in the rough trip.

Sitting on The Dock of The Bay

Now that the weather has been getting nicer here we have gotten into the nightly routine of sitting on the dock of the bay. We wait until about 8 or 8:30 at night and we head downstairs to the pool area which leads right into the bay. We love going out because we get to feel the ocean breeze in the bay and we hear the palm trees sway. It gets pretty windy at night and very cool. Not only is it relaxing but it has served as a huge stress reliever for us both. It gets us away from the computers, the TV, and we can just enjoy the peacefulness and the beauty. Ryan always puts his arm around me and we start to have our nightly chats and sometimes we just sit there in silence and just reflect on things. It's really nice to be able to get things off your mind and feel like you have been meditating. It has been very soothing for the soul. We love it!

Surprise Flowers and my new Doctor

I walked into work one morning to find this adorable display of flowers sitting on my desk. I actually thought they were for the girl that sits next to me until she said.. Someone delivered flowers for you. I was so surprised, I opened the card to find out they were from my best friend Kim. She said that since she couldn't be here in FL to hug me this was the next best thing. I thought that was so sweet. I told Kim a few weeks ago I was starting to have problems again with my health and that I was really concerned and I needed to get into see a new cancer Doc asap. Last year I was having problems with my lymph nodes swelling to a concerning level. I was tested for lymphoma cancer to see if cancer spread to my lymph nodes. I was sent to an infectious disease doctor and was tested on for months like a guinea pig. I broke down and told her I REFUSED to go through this again. Along with my problems with my lymph nodes, I was gaining weight at rapid speed again, and I was losing large amounts of hair everyday in huge clumps. I have bald patches on my head, and my hair was starting to thin out again.

Last week I met my new cancer Doctor, we met in her office and we sat at her desk and talked for over an hour and she read my pathology reports from last year. She seemed a little concerned that no one has been able to find out why my lymph nodes are having problems. I also still have tumors in my throat that were found last year. She has ordered me for more tests and ultrasounds to make sure my tumors have not grown since last year. She has also completely changed my medication routine, and since I did not do the radiation treatment after my surgeries I am at higher risk for my cancer to latch on to other cells and grow in other parts of my body. The reason I did not do the radiation treatments is because since I have not had children and want children the radiation would have "fried my insides" their terms. So they have me on strict watch for followups and testing. I haven't been monitored in months because before we moved here my cancer doctor quit and moved so I had no doctor and then when we moved here I didn't have insurance to get proper testing. The next order of business is that I have to get a full body scan to make sure that no cancer has started growing anywhere else. In order to do the testing they will have to take me off my meds which will make me very ill and very tired. There are other alternatives and I can do injections on a weekly basis. The meeting with the doctor was very overwhelming and I teared up a few times because I thought things were fine and it felt like I was going through the whole cancer ordeal all over again. On top of that, all the testing gets extremely expensive, and I have to do all of this and still work. where do i find the time? (pulls hair) blah!!

I am still learning how to roll with the punches, but cancer is nothing but a big annoyance, a huge inconvenience and even after you beat it, you still have to go through hell to make sure you are ok. There is nothing simple about it. Not only do you have to go through something major in your life it still haunts you and the people that care about you. I just wish it were over with..Cancer sucks!! But I have faith that things will be okay. I just wasn't expecting to have to be under this strict watch again. I would be lying if I didn't say it didn't worry me. But along side the flowers my friend also said she was just a flight away. That is so comforting to know that someone is willing to go so far to be there for you. The flowers completely brightened up my day! Thanks Kimmie

Strawberries and Music

My hubby sure has been keeping me busy lately. He is the type to always sit at home and watch tv and nap all day on the weekends. But since the weather is getting nicer. It's always nice in FL but it has been stay in side weather. There are so many things to do here and tons of free things. We live so close to everything and the big areas such as Tampa, and St Petersburg. I have to go to Tampa a lot for work and Ryan actually works in St Petersburg. Plus tons of little towns in between that are so close and have so many fun things to offer. One of the biggest things every year is The Strawberry Festival. It is a huge ordeal, people come from all over to come to this event. It kind of reminded me of Court Days in Mt Sterling back home, only they have Strawberries, famous people, and rides. We decided to make it a family day but my dad backed out so it was my mom, Ryan, and me. We didn't stay very long because it was so crowded you could barely move and it was extremely HOT. We did buy Strawberries and other souvenirs. Ryan bought me and my mom strawberry earrings. They are seriously too cute and then we left and had lunch at Cracker Barrel. Being at the Festival brought back a lot of memories from KY. They had people playing Bluegrass music.. Kids from the FFA, and KY Kettle popcorn. I did get a little teary eyed because I am a KY girl, and it made me a little homesick. It was a fun family day!




A few days later at work I was helping someone and he gave be a flier for a benefit show for an officer who was shot. He asked if I could hang it the flier in our break room at work. I looked at it and smiled. I told him that me and my hubby have been trying to find local bands (we love to support local music). We had actually given up on any local music scene. We had looked and gone everywhere. The guy was actually a band manager and had his own business booking bands and such. He asked me what kind of music we liked. I told him, and he said it would be worth my while to check out the 12 bands at the benefit show. He found me on facebook and started sending me links to other bands and their music. We listen to some of the bands that were going to be at the show and we were so excited. On Saturday night we ventured into downtown St Petersburg, we had never been there before but I was in HEAVEN! The area that it was in was like a slice of Seattle. It was full of art galleries, punk rock stores, art studios, lots of venues for live music, restaurants where you sit out side. You could hear the music in the streets. There were punk rockers, skaters, heavy metal people, artsy fartsy people. I LOVED IT!! It was nothing but art and music and cool people lol.One of the people from Hells Kitchen TV show was there to promote his new restaurant that was open in our area in Clearwater, we got to meet some of the bands, they were so nice, they gave us photos and stickers, and we ended up buying a few bands CDs. The guy I met at the bank got us autographs. It was cute! We had a blast. Some of our favorite bands was of course an 80s cover band. They looked and dressed the part and played some of my favorite songs. And another band that sounded like Sublime, and a rock band that was amazing. There was a variety of everything. It was a good night and we cant wait to see the bands play again. We have been busy with getting out and exploring our area. There is so much to do and to see. Can't wait for more to come

Ryan's 30th Birthday Bash!

A few months ago I asked Ryan what he would like to do for his 30th birthday. Like always, he said "Nothing". Ryan is not much into the whole celebrating his birthday shindig. He insisted on just going out to dinner. I threw a few other ideas at him, then I said, I would like to take him to Disney World if our finances permitted. So we started saving our lunch money, I started saving my mileage reimbursements from work which paid for our hotel and our food!! I was at the mall and stopped by the Disney store one day on my lunch and found out they sold park tickets there and had a special going for Florida Residents. Since we were not going during peak times we got a 4 day pass for $99 that is just around the cost for a 1 day pass! The sale was ending the day I stopped in so I took the deal! Going to Disney World can be very expensive so I have everything budgeted. I scouted out places to eat before hand so we could eat at an affordable cost. The only splurge food was on Ryan's Birthday dinner and lunch. We ate at The Rain Forest Cafe in Animal Kingdom. We LOVE going to The Rain Forest Cafe. We were so excited we got to go, and that we did it on a shoe string budget.

We had an absolute blast. We started our first day at The Magic Kingdom, 2nd day in Animal Kingdom, and our 3rd day in Epcot. We were too exhausted to go to Hollywood Studios, but we still have a day left on our passes and we will be going back to finish up in a few weeks. Although, Ryan did not like the fact he was turning 30 but celebrating at the most happiest place on earth sure did help! We don't normally do BIG things for our birthdays but when you turn 30 you have to do it BIG! We were the biggest kids there and we loved it! We even got to meet a few characters along the way. We can't wait to go back and experience the magic.

Ryan's new hobby

Since the move and the new year in Florida we have both picked up new hobbies on our adventure here. Besides being a beach bum Ryan has started his new hobby "Genealogy". He has been so dedicated to doing it. Just on a whim one day he started playing around with it and now he is hooked. I never could get into genealogy, primarily because I had no luck doing it. I always got stuck and got irritated and gave up. But, Ryan has a true knack for it. He enjoys doing it, he is great at the research involved and he is LOVING the fact that he can find out things in his family, seeing the similarities, finding old pictures, and documents of those who have passed on. Researching the kind of lives they lead and what they did in life. When he shows me some of his finds, they are actually pretty impressive. He gets true joy out of doing it and the more he does it the more he wants to do it, to see what other good things he can find. It is almost like treasure hunting!

I never really thought there could be a testimony in doing genealogy, until I saw Ryan getting pure joy and comfort out of what he is doing. He tries to dedicate an hour a night to it -if not more. ( sometimes he gets carried away, I have to drag him away). I am so proud of his diligence and his efforts. He has even started doing my family genealogy for me, since I am a slacker and I give up to fast. I can now say that he is an example to me and has given me a testimony of doing genealogy!!