Ten Year Anniversary Trip

J and I celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary in September. We were planning a cruise for October, but J's brother was planning a family cruise in December right before Christmas. J asked what I thought about joining his brother. I really like Michael, his wife Triska, her three kids, and the little baby they have together. So I said heck yes.

It ended up being a really good move, because the week we were going to go in October that hurricane hit.

The first complication was that we were leaving the 16th and coming back the 22nd which mean I needed to be done with Christmas shopping. It was a little stressful, but I got it done. Except for my present to Megan, but that's not my fault. More on that later.

Since we were flying into Orlando, I told J we needed to go to Harry Potter World in Universal. He has been talking about going for years. And it's always nice making someone's dream come true. So we booked our flight one day earlier.

And found out that J's sister was getting married the day we were leaving, which was the second complication. Oops. J looked into changing the flight to leave a day later but it was going to be expensive. We felt bad, but we went on our trip anyway.

The Orlando airport had this awesome Christmas tree.

We caught a cab to our hotel, which had an amazing restaurant attached.

Then the next day we had the hotel hold our luggage and hopped on the shuttle to Harry Potter land (or, as J kept correcting me, Universal Studios, but since I wasn't interested in the rest of the park I didn't think it worth mentioning).

I was really surprised it was so awesome.

The little window shops were very well done. You could buy a wand, and there were places marked where, if you waved your wand, you could make different things happen in the windows. It was pretty neat to watch. But some people stood there waving their wand, nothing happened, and it was kind of awkward, so I was content just to watch. And mutter about Squibs. 

There were a lot of different costumes, it was awesome.

The goblins were animated, so they moved and spoke. It really looked great.

And Gringotts was guarded but a fire-breathing dragon. You could feel the heat when it roared. 

You know we went to the Leaky Cauldron and had some butter beer. 

Joseph only closed his mouth to chew.

Harry Potter has two sections in two different parks. Which means you have to buy two different tickets (lame Universal, very lame) but the cool part was taking the Hogwarts Express from one area to the other.

The window was actually a screen and it played an interactive movie. The other side of the cabin had the door, which also took part with shadows and noises. 

After we spent the day checking out everything, we decided we really weren't interested in any other part of Universal. So we met up with J's brother Michael and his family. Michael, his wife Triska, her daughter Alyssa, and their son Crew had driven from their home in Pennsylvania. They picked up Triska's oldest two sons, Mason and Taylor, from the airport, and we headed to our hotel that was right off the beach.

The next day we hung out at the beach again, then packed up and get on the ship.

Our first cruise stop was Freeport.

You could see the hurricane damage.

We took a taxi to the beach.

The second cruise stop was Nassau.

 We took another taxi, this time to Atlantis. J and I have been to Atlantis before, but this time we were going to the waterpark.

There is a slide where your tube goes through the shark pool.

And it's right near the beach, which is my favorite.

The third day was a day at sea, which was a relaxing day to nap, read, and hang out on the ship.

At dinner, we got a special treat and they sang to us for our anniversary.

There was one night where everyone was walking around with jingle bells and I was jealous. I knew I had missed the activity where the bells were handed out. There was an activity the following night in front of the Christmas tree, and I informed J we would be going and I would be getting jingle bells.

I got my bells, and they made it "snow" while singing Christmas songs. It was pretty neat.

The shows were pretty good.

I always love the towel animals.

The baby's name is Crew.

I was a little bit worried about the ride back to the airport. It is a seven seater car and there were eight people. The ride from the airport to the hotel on the beach wasn't bad, because Michael and Triska had checked into the hotel already so they didn't have any of their luggage. J and I shared a seat but it was still tight. I honestly didn't think we would make it back so we were going to take a taxi or an Uber. But Triska insisted, and they figured out a way to pack it up even tighter. I was very grateful they saved us a good chunk of money.

On one of the car rides J was in charge of entertaining the baby. Michael told him the baby liked it when you nibble him. So J was nibbling the baby and the baby starts to cry. Turns out J bit him too hard. It reminded me of years ago, when we were in the car with our friend Jacob, his wife Rachel, and their little baby. Rachel was telling us what a good baby she was, so chill, you could do anything, you could even scream in her face. What does J do? He screams in her face. The baby did not take that well and we spent a few minutes in the car with a screaming baby. So lesson learned is to be careful what you tell J about your baby.

It was such a good trip. It's always nice to go with friends and family.

Christmas Party

The weekend before we left on our cruise we had the family over for a Christmas party.

I did a little bit of planning but I tried not to go overboard.

The cheese snowman was a pretty big hit, but that may have been because everyone was waiting on dinner. He only had part of his face left by the end of the night. I had wanted to make these chocolate mice I found on Pinterest, but you need the cherries with a stem for the tail, and they must not be in season because I couldn't find them. So I didn't have too many themed snacks, but we had a delicious Mexican dinner....

...and then painted cookies with frosting, which everyone ate for dessert. I don't think anyone took their cookies home on a plate, because they all went home in a belly.

The ugly sweater contest was a big hit.

But not as big a hit as the white elephant gift exchange. Poor Breezy picked a candle she really liked, but it was stolen by Danielle. So she had to choose another present.

We cracked up laughing when she pulled this out of the bag. Breezy hates these strange head massagers and can't use them, we have found from previous experience. The tingles are just too much.

Luckily there was other stuff in the bag she could use.

We played some Minute to Win It games.

The prize for winning was pretty fabulous. Homemade caramel and apples. Which was the only thing I allowed myself to stress over, because prizes need to be taken seriously.

Everyone in their ugly sweater glory. I feel bad, because we didn't get a photo of J's family, but the majority of them weren't there.

I am always amazed at how many people my house can hold.

I also had a Christmas ornament crafting station, but that wasn't horribly popular. A few people did it, but it just took too long. I think in the future I'll skip that activity. 

We also broke in the new fire pit with smores, but it was too dark so I didn't attempt photos.

Overall it was a really fun night full of laughter. And I wasn't too stressed out which was nice.

Sofa Table

I found this sofa table on Pinterest:
http://blog.jennasuedesign.com/2015/06/diy-sofa-table-tutorial/

J and I eat in front of the TV and my little table gets filled with my yarn and supplies when I am working on a project. So I thought an extra table would be a great idea for storage space.

Also, J is getting new speakers for a surround system for Christmas and I didn't want speakers mounted on my wall. He agreed to put them on the table.

So I went to Lowe's and got the wood. I needed a big 2 x 10 x 10 and those things are unwieldy. Two different employees strode over, offering to help, confidence shattered when I politely declined. They hovered for a bit, nervous, watching this crazy woman examine and shift around these large pieces of wood. When I found one that wasn't cracked, warped, or had a weird cut, I put everything back and I didn't drop anything on a toe so it all worked out. Plus my abs were sore for days afterwards so that was interesting.

Jacob helped. And by helped I mean basically did everything for me. Which was nice.

Do you see that piece of wood that is obviously too short? That was an oops. I measured it out, J cut it, put it on the table, and he and Jacob both looked at me in confusion. I burst out laughing. Somehow I got it in my head that it needed to be 46.5 inches long instead of 86.5. I really did not feel like going and buying another piece, even though it was only $10. Jacob was very kind and offered to sand and work on the edge to make sure it matched up nicely.

J and I had to leave to baby-sit for a friend who needed a favor. When we got back after 11 that night, Jacob had finished.

And then when I woke up the next morning, he had completely finished staining it. Jacob is my new favorite. Until someone else does something nice for me.

The only potential issue I didn't think about is that my wood floors really get dusty and there is fur child hair everywhere. With the open design, I think we may be able to see the grossness behind the couch. J thinks we can just reach back there and vacuum. I may get a piece of plywood and nail it closed. We'll wait and see.

Jacob's Wedding

I am a bit late in posting this, but Jacob got married.

He is an old friend. At Meghan's wedding about two years ago we recreated a photo from high school:

Meghan, Me, Jacob, Toni, and Jill.

I love these guys.

Jacob's wedding was a lot of fun. We sat at a table with Jen and her hubby Jeff, Toni, Chris Leigh and his GF Christine. 

The DJ announced that she would pick tables to get food based on their enthusiasm. We hooted and hollered and thought we had been picked (it was a general pointing gesture, could have been anyone). After we got up to stand in line, we realized we had not, in fact, been picked. We decided a true rowdy table would just get up and get food, so we congratulated ourselves on a job well done and a dinner well deserved. 

J has a spider man shooting a web on the back of his phone. Christine glanced and it and thought the spiderman was shooting a web out of his crotch. She looked at him with a mixture of horror and judgment.

Olive Garden catered the event. Christine and I both have a love of the chocolate mints. Christine pretended to steal J's mints when he went to the bathroom. I encouraged her. Jen asked what we were going to do with them, thinking we were going to hide them. Christine and I looked at each other and said, "We were going to eat them, duh."

There were stickers on the tables. We saw a guy with a sticker on his back. Being the mature adults we all are, we took the challenge and tried to get more stickers on his back. Toni was not subtle at all (our laughter may have given her away) and he noticed and got paranoid and kept touching his back. I said the new game should be to just touch him and not even put stickers on him. But Chris became our new target instead.

J was dancing with his moon pie like it was a glow stick.

It got a bit colder as the night went on and Chris and Christine were handing out hand heaters like they were drugs.

I have an idea for an app that J needs to make me. I'm not going to go into details on the internet, but I did share it with the group and it was met with enthusiasm. So afterward, whenever anyone met the criteria, someone would shout out, "Oh! The pants just came off!"

I don't remember how or why, but someone dared Chris to twerk. He did. And that's when his name was announced over the speaker to give his best man's speech.

There was an open bar. Jeff eyed me and said, in a very judgmental way, "You got a regular coke?" I responded, quite indignant, "Why? You think I need diet? I don't need diet Jeff!"