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!
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
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
The day of my 30th Birthday we arrived in The Grand Cayman Islands..We did not have an excursion booked so we had planned on roaming around the town for shopping and lunch. We only had a few hours to play in the town and we hadn't planned on going to the beach. But after we got there we shopped for a little bit and decided we should go to the beach or we would end up kicking our selves later for coming all the way to the Caribbean and not seeing the Ocean! We found the cabs that were going to the beach and we decided to go, even if it were going to be for a few minutes. We wanted to make sure we got back to town so we could celebrate my Birthday at The Hard Rock Cafe. The beach wasn't far from where we were, it cost us $4 a person each way to and from the beach. We stayed at The beach for about a half hour then decided to go Celebrate! The nice thing about cruises is that the ship pulls up, lets you off and you are in walking distance of things there are to do. And if you booked excursions they have people waiting at the port to pick you up. It really is the best way to see the world. And a few hours there is enough time to really see what you want to do, even if it is just going to lay out on the beach. Which is what a lot of people did. The other nice thing is that you don't have to worry about converting your money to their money. And everything was written in American dollars! We got back on the ship early and took a nap. I am getting older and I tend to need naps now haha. Later that night we ended up going dancing at The Disco. I ended up getting a Disco Ball Sippie Cup. My favorite thing ever!
