Monday, March 31, 2008

Movie Reviews

I've managed to get out and see some movies lately. So I thought I'd tell you about them, which ones I liked and which ones I didn't:

Horton Hears A Who - As expected, this one was darling! I'm not a huge Jim Carey/Steve Carrell fan, but I really enjoyed this. I did this story as a play in college, so it's always been one of my favorite Dr. Suess stories. Blake, Matt, and Tony liked it too.

27 Dresses - I've wanted to see this one for ages and it's a definite keeper. I've told Matt he can get this for me for Mother's Day so I can add it to my collection of "chick flicks". Whenever I get depressed or upset, I dig out one of these movies and it's a big help. There's a bit at the end where James Marsden flashes those bedroom blues and you just melt. Kathryn Heigel is great in this too. It's nice when a romantic comedy just clicks for you.

The Other Boleyn Girl -Hmmmm. I wasn't sure if I liked this one or not. I had very high expectations for it because one of my friends really talked it up, but I was a little bit disappointed for some reason. One thing is that the characters seemed a little too one-dimensional. The mean people seemed a little too mean, and the nice people seemed a little too nice, and both the parents seemed way too wimpy. And Henry was such a wuss, you couldn't really believe he was actually the head of a country. At one point, he had a illegitimate child, a son even, and he refused to ever see it. Knowing how desperate he was for an heir, I can't believe he would do that. Does anyone know if that was historically accurate? I didn't remember him having a healthy son. Anyway, this one was kind of so-so for me. Not bad, but not something I'd really want to see a 2nd time.

Sweeney Todd - I actually get to see this one tomorrow and I literally can't wait. I've heard it's really gory and normally I would avoid a movie like this at all costs, but Matt burned me a copy of the soundtrack last month and I've been listening to it constantly. It's really got some beautiful music in it and Johnny Depp can sing! So now I'm dying to see the movie to see what they're talking about on the soundtrack. Based on the soundtrack, it seems like it will be a great movie and I'll just close my eyes on the gory bits.

Update on Sweeney Todd - Ughhhh! If someone wants you to go and see this movie, run the other way, fast! I tried to close my eyes to the gory parts, but it was pretty much ALL gory parts. Plus the sound was terrible for some reason. It was very hard to hear a lot of the dialogue. I liked Helena Bonham Carter, but I thought Johnny Depp played it a little too gloomy and depressing. I mean I know it's depressing when you lose your wife and child, but after 20 years, you'd think you'd get a little perspective. Anyway, not a great movie IMHO.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

American Idol - Season 7

Thoughts on American Idol. I don’t know what to think about this season. So many of the people this season just seem kind of bland and forgettable. There are a couple of them that really stand out for me, but it seems like they may be on the exit track. I absolutely LOVED Amanda, I thought she was original and sassy and a fantastic singer and I was so shocked when she got voted off last week. It seems like that just takes the flavor right out of the competition. My 2nd favorite is Carlie and she was also in the bottom 3, which was also shocking. I completely expected to see Amanda and Carlie in the finals, so seeing them in the bottom 3 really makes me wonder about the people who are voting. Of course, these are the same people who kept Sanjaya in for about 7 rounds, so I guess you have to take it with a grain of salt.

As for the boys, you’ve got a mixed bag and no big standouts. Chikezie has a nice Teddy Pendergrass-like feel, but he’s not very consistent. Jason has a decent voice and is simply gorgeous. He really should be on a show like Make Me a Supermodel, but I’d love to hold him down and shave off all those durn, dirty, nasty dreadlocks. Those things just gross me out – ugh!

That guy from Australia, I can’t think of his name, he just looks uncomfortable. He’s not a bad singer, but hasn’t got any stage presence. And the rocker guy, David Hernandez (I think?) He just needs to go. He’s like a bad imitation of Chris Daughtry. There was one guy in Hollywood week who looked like a Bo Bice reincarnation. I wish he’d made it through, he would have been a lot more interesting.

Now David Archuletta is another thing. Don’t think I’m prejudiced because he’s a Utah boy, but he’s got a lot of talent for a High School kid. I just hope he can handle the pressure. I don’t think these kids have any clue how much being on this show can change their lives. Last month, he was just another High School kid, but if he stays with it long enough, he’ll be coming home to a huge parade and signing autographs and all this stuff. Everyone he’s known for years will be treating him totally differently and he won’t be able to go to the store or just hang out with his friends without people pestering him. I think that’s hard to get used to for a kid that age.

Brooke White and Christy Lee should have been long gone. They are just like white bread to me. They have nice voices and they are definitely nice to look at, but to me, they just don’t have Idol-quality talent. Same thing with Ramiel. She’s a cute little thing and has a big voice for a little girl, but she doesn’t have the confidence needed to pull off these big performances. I’m betting that she’ll go home this week. Don’t tell me though. I record the show on my Tivo and watch it back later, so I’m always a day or so behind. I have to really watch what I look at on the Internet because all the Internet news services are breaking their necks to tell everyone the results of shows like these.

I love Tivo! I especially love the feature to fast-forward through all the commercials. With 5-7 minutes of commercials between each segment, I figure I miss about a week of commercials every year. Sheesh!

What do you think about the new set? Durn! I’m thinking it’s about time. Those corny graphics and stuff from the first few seasons really needed to go. Now if they could just get a new host, I’d be delighted with it. I never could stand Ryan Seacrest. He just makes it seem like too much work. I much prefer someone light and breezy like Tom Bergeron from Dancing with the Stars. I loved him on America’s Funniest Videos and I love, love, love him on Dancing with the Stars. He’s so funny and has such a quick wit and just makes it all seem effortless.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Happy Keister!

I just love this picture, it always makes me smile! I hope that you and yours had a nice Easter weekend. We had a lovely Easter weekend. The weather was wonderful. We got up early on Saturday and hit a couple of Easter Egg Hunts. These are so much more fun with Blake than they were with Matt. Matt was always a bit shy about them and would invariably come back in tears with an empty basket. After a few years, we decided it was too traumatic for him, so we stopped taking him. Blake on the other hand, isn't a bit shy and just piles right in there with the other kids. He's kind-hearted though and will usually share a few of his eggs if he sees a kid who didn't get any.

These pictures were from our church Easter Egg Hunt. The Easter bunny is actually our good friend Bill Cooper that Blake has known literally all his life. He's kind of like a 2nd Grandpa to most of the kids and especially to Blake, so he just walks right up, says "Hi Bill" and plops down in his lap for a picture. What a character!

Bill is going to be his honorary Grandpa next month when they have Grandparent's Day at school. When you have a limited selection of family members like we do, it's comforting that you have good friends like this you can call on to fill in the gaps. He was also Matt's confirmation partner and mentor, so they've probably spent more time with Bill than either of their actual grandfathers. They say friends are the family you choose yourself and we really believe that.

After that, it was so pretty out, we decided (well, OK I decided) that we needed to do something outdoors for a change. It's been a long hard winter and it's a treat just to be outside. We haven't been to the Zoo in ages, probably a couple of years, so we decided to plan a spur-of-the-moment visit to the Zoo. Matt had to work all day, so it was just Tony, Blake and I. The weather was a bit nippier than we had thought (a smidge over 40 degrees), so we were glad we had some warm jackets, but it was actually very nice.

Utah's Hogle Zoo is definitely a small town zoo. They typically only have one or two of each animal and it used to be kind of depressing because some of the animals used to be in cement cages with plain wire mesh and nothing much to entertain them. Also a lot of the animals have died of various causes over the years, which always causes an uproar (very punny, huh?). But the last few years, they've been making a lot of improvements. They've put in a new elephant and rhino enclosure, made a wonderful new area for the large cats that is a whole lot nicer for them, and they're working on a new carousel with all sorts of unique animals. So it made for a much nicer visit this time.

We stayed until our feet got tired and we started getting chilled, then we headed for home and had a nice dinner of some beef stew we'd put in the crock pot and watched a movie. I played in my stamp room for a bit - made some more of Diane's One Sheet Wonder cards to replenish my stock of pre-mades, and then I shooed the boys off to bed so the "Easter Bunny" could get to work.

Some years, I've really gone all out on Easter and ended up spending a fortune on new outfits, candy they don't eat, and all sorts of doo-dahs that they don't really care about, so this year I decided to take it easy on myself. We colored some eggs, got a couple of bags of candy, some peeps and a couple of chocolate bunnies and that was about it. Then I had Matt pick me up some gift cards - one for iTunes for him and one for Burger King for Blake and voila! A very nice simple Easter for less than half the price and they were just as pleased.

We got up, hunted some eggs, found their goodies, and had a little "war" with the chocolate candies. I'll tell you, these kids are SO bizarre. They'd much rather pelt each other with the little chocolate eggs than eat them! Then we had some orange rolls, our favorite Easter breakfast and off to church we went. Had some Honeybaked Ham (yum!) for lunch and dinner and managed to sneak in a viewing of Horton Hears a Who in the afternoon. All in all, a very nice day!

PS: We did have a bit of sadness during our day today. One of our nice ladies from church has been battling lung cancer for a couple of years. She had her lung removed and several rounds of treatment so we thought she was on the mend, but we heard today that she is going in for another round of radiation for tumors in her brain. Poor thing! She and her husband are just the nicest people and they have two young sons about 6 and 8 or so. It's been a rough couple of years for them and it looks like they still have a rough road ahead.

We also had a bit of drama in the parking lot. A close friend of ours was going out to the car with her family and either had a seizure and fell, or fell and hit her head and it caused a seizure. Either way, it caused a tremendous blow to her head and she had to be taken off in an ambulance. What a scary business for us and her family. Matt has some first aid training from school, so he took off running to try and help, but they had things pretty well under control, so all we could do was watch and try to keep her comfortable until the ambulance got there. We are sure hoping that she won't have any lasting effects from this. She's another young mother with kids Blake's age, so this could really cause some complications in her life if she is having a seizure disorder or something like that.

I hope you will be kind enough to keep these fine women in your prayers. I know we will be keeping them in ours.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Computers R Us!

Well, I am now the possessor of one-half of a brand new Macbook computer. I am sick and tired of the slowness and all the virus garbage and complexity of Microsoft, so my son Matt and I went down to Best Buy yesterday and picked out a Mac. We got a pretty good deal on it because it had supposedly been a floor model, but it was still in the original case with all the original wrappings. Sweet! as Matt would say.

Now it's starting to look like a computer warehouse around here. We literally have more computers than people living in the house now. I got my first computer about 17 years ago. I was unemployed during the last recession and my Dad bought it for me to help me put together my resume's and things. I don't think the Internet was in wide use at the time, or at least we couldn't figure out how to use it, so at first I mostly used it for Word Processing and to practice my spreadsheets and DOS on (remember DOS?). I even had a small business for a while, going around to people's houses and teaching them how to use their computers.

I got a lot of use out of that first computer. Around the time Blake was born, I decided we needed some extra $$$ so I started a minor career as an Ebay seller. Over the period of about 5 years, I did several thousand auctions and sold everything I could think of. Junk out of my Mom's garage, stuff left over from our garage sales, kid's clothes I found on sale, teacher workbooks, craft supplies, you name it. That brought me enough money to purchase my first laptop, which I still use today. Along the way, we finally outgrew that first desktop computer and bought a new Dell Dimension which we're still using for the kids.

A couple of Christmases ago, Tony decided that he needed a laptop of his own and he got in on one of the post-Thanksgiving sales, the kind where you have to stand in line at 4:00 in the morning. He managed to get a brand new Compaq laptop for about $400 so he wouldn't have to fight the kids to use the Dell.

Also, for the last 10 years or so, I've worked from home off and on, so I have a work-related laptop that I bring home pretty much every day. I'm very limited in how I can use it because of increasingly strict security restrictions, but I do use it for fun stuff once in a while, but mostly it's just for my work.

Naturally to run all this hardware all over the house, we had to get a four port wireless router. It is rather nice to be able to use all the computers at once, the kids downstairs and us upstairs. Blake does his homework or plays computer games, Matt is all about music - he's always downloading songs and looking for guitar tabs. Tony does mostly E-mail and computer games, and me, well I do it all. E-mail, blog sites, spreadsheets, stuff like newsletters and stuff for my Stampin' Up! business, and of course managing my blog and my website.

I guess I'm actually quite the computer nerd here. I spend probably 40 hours a week on the computer at work, managing about $3 million a month in phone bills for my company and then I come home and mess around on my computers here. It's a wonder ever manage to get outside and spend time with the 3-dimensional people!

I've been Tagged by the Pink Ant

I received this from my blog friend Rita at L8dybugStamper. This Pink Ant is to remind us about Breast Cancer. October is Breast Cancer awareness month, but we need to remember all year long.

"Hello, Pretty Lady! THIS IS A TOAST.....TO US. FOR THE MEN WHO HAVE US, THE LOSERS WHO HAD US, AND THE LUCKY PEOPLE WHO WILL MEET US!!

If you're reading this, consider yourself tagged. You have been considered one of the prettiest ladies with a warm loving heart on my friends list. Then go out and tag some more pretty ladies to help this most worthwhile cause.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Projects for my Class Night

I had my Stamp Class tonight. Gosh, it feels like ages and ages since I've actually stamped anything. With everything that's been going on lately, I guess it has been a month or so. Anyway, I knew I had this class coming up and I needed to get some projects ready for it. It was a nice feeling to forget about my problems and spend some quality time in my stamp room for a change. (Sorry the pictures aren't great. I was having battery issues.)

The theme this month was a One Sheet Wonder. I had found a great OSW design on my friend Diane's from the Stamp With Diane blogsite. I had originally planned to center the whole class around this project, but I finally decided that it was a little too complicated and time consuming cut up all the pieces and do all the prep work. Instead, I made a set of samples and let them pick their favorite few to make and then I gave them the instructions, along with the cardstock to make their own set.

Aren't these designs gorgeous? I think this Ginger Blossom paper is so pretty and it looks great with these colors. River Rock, Cameo Coral and Ruby Red have never been favorite colors of mine. In fact, I didn't even have ink pads of them, so I had to buy some stuff. But they do look fabulous here and it's a great way to get a nice supply of cards in a very short time.

I also showed them a different kind of OSW. This is one where you make several identical projects instead of different ones out of a single sheet of cardstock. At my last downline meeting, they handed out patterns for both 12 X 12 and 8.5 X 11 sheets to make these cute gift cards in a monochromatic color scheme. This is the 8.5 X 11 version. I think these are great. They whip together quick as a wink and you could do them in a ton of colors and patterns for any occasion.

The 3D project I taught was this cute birthday magnet. You know all those fridge magnets that companies always give out? I thought it would be fun to use one of them to make this quick and easy project. These would also be nice for any kind of invitation because they could just slap them on the fridge for a quick reminder.

Monday, March 10, 2008

100 Miles - Achieved my Walking Goal!

Don't know if you've been paying any attention to the ticker down at the bottom of my page, but I've been slowly accumulating miles in my Walk Away the Pounds challenge and I have finally reached the 100 mile point. It's taken me several months to do it, but as averse as I've always been to exercise, I think it's quite a major accomplishment for me. It's now gotten very natural for me to get up in the morning and pop in one of my tapes and do a quick mile or two of my little walk routine. Especially this winter, when we've had so much snow, it's been a real life saver.

I'd love to say that I've lost a bunch of weight from all this walking, but unfortunately, I wasn't as careful as I should be with my eating, so I'm actually up a few pounds rather than down. All that cruise food didn't help much either. However, it's nice that I've made a lifestyle change that will hopefully do my health good in the years to come. For example, while we were at the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport, I had a couple of hours between planes and set off on a long walk all around the huge terminal. Before I would have just sat and ate snacks and read books, so hopefully this is a change that will stick with me.

I'm still planning on continuing with the challenge until I hit the 500 mile mark, so keep an eye on that ticker!

Monday, March 3, 2008

More Cruise Pictures - Formal Night

We didn't take a lot of pictures of the ship. Now, I wish I had so I could show you how ugly the decor was on the ship. Some of it wasn't bad, but most of it was really pretty ghastly. Lots of red marble with purple neon and overly eye-catching accent pieces. However, they had photographers just about everywhere on the ship, taking your pictures whether you want them to or not! It was actually kind of annoying after a while, but we did decide to get a few pictures done on the formal nights. It isn't that often that we get dressed up and we don't have very many pictures of just the two of us together.

This picture was kind of sweet, one because they took in on our actual anniversary and two because we have a very similar picture that was taken of us on our honeymoon, so I thought it was kind of nice to have this one. They even made us a pretty cake to share with the group at our table.

This was our first formal night. I'm always having to get after Tony because he never smiles in pictures and I get so mad at him. I love this dress. It's Isaac Mizrahi and it's kind of a taffeta blend, so it has that nice "swishy" sound and it just feels wonderful.

It's kind of bittersweet because Tony's Dad always used to send us money for Christmas and this dress is what I had bought with my share of the money. I had meant to send him a picture of it to thank him, but I never got the chance before he passed. Notice the shoes - Vera Wang kitten heels. Uncomfortable and slippery as the dickens on the marble floors, but I thought they were really cute.

Here is the 2nd formal night picture. This one came out a bit better, although they made me take my glasses off, so I look a little odd. I threatened Tony with bodily harm if he didn't smile, so we finally got a smile out of him. The photographer wanted me to leave out my little purse, but I thought it was cute, so I insisted on leaving it in. Too bad you can't see it well. It's got a row of rhinestones to match my shoes, and it had the cutest little bow on the front. After all, it's my picture, so I can have it the way I want!

I like the black shirt with the red tie, but I think the vest was a little bit much. He looks like he's going to sing in a barbershop quartet or something! We went to a guy who runs a whole tux shop out of his basement and he fitted Tony up with two complete suits including the shoes and all the accessories for $55 for the whole week. That's a lot less than we would have paid if we'd had to buy him a nice suit and he probably wouldn't have had many places to wear it to anyway, so I thought that was a pretty good deal.

I wish you could see more of my actual dress, it was really beautiful. It was beaded black velvet and fit me like a glove, but it was sleeveless and I'm a little self-conscious about my heavy arms, so I put this red lace top over it. This was actually one of the main staircases on the ship, not one of those phony backgrounds, so I liked this picture the most out of all of them. There were some gorgeous outfits that people were wearing. Of course, you still have some people running around in flipflops and shorts, but they had to eat in the informal dining rooms. Most of the people in the main dining rooms were pretty nicely dressed.

Back to the US - Our Everglades Tour

Actually, one of the most awesome sights we saw on the Cruise, was right in our own backyard. We had about half a day to kill at the end before we could catch our flight back home, so we opted for a tour of the Everglades. Who knows when we would be in that area again and we wanted to see the Everglades while they are still here. No surprise that they are disappearing at an alarming rate. Our guide showed us a point in the city and said he wanted us to remember it. I think it was 114th street or something like that. That is where the original everglades had been at like 20 years ago. From that point, we drove for about 45 minutes through nothing but strip malls and run down houses before we got to the present-day everglades. What an object lesson in what a terrible job we are doing in preserving the environment!

We got to ride in one of those airboats, which is apparently about the only way to get through the everglades. It's very loud, but pretty exciting, especially when it skids around corners and you feel like you might tip over. The water was full of saw grass, lotus stems, and lots of this dense underbrush, all of it chock full of poisonous snakes, snapping turtles, alligators, crocodiles, and iguanas. Definitely not a place where you want to get out and explore on your own! But as long as you stay in the airboat, you can see some pretty amazing stuff. There were beautiful birds every where - wood storks, whooping cranes, roseate spoonbills, and pretty little multicolored birds.

There are also alligators and things that you can see right from the boat. They would stop the boat every so often and point out a little bump here and there that was a large crocodile or alligator (I couldn't tell the difference!) sunning itself in the mud.

They had a show where this crazy guy went and got in the pen barefoot with 6 or 8 full grown alligators all around him. He seemed pretty casual about it, but said that the previous week one of them had whipped a big tail into his chest and cracked two ribs - wow! He went around and petted each one of them and told us it's name and then fed each of them some chicken, by hand. A couple of them snapped at him, but I guess he's pretty used to that. Not a job I would want by any means.

Tony even got to hold a baby alligator. His name was "Snappy". I was glad he was doing it and not me. Besides the fact that they bite, you can get diseases from those buggers! I made him wash his hands really well after this. It looks like he's just standing out there holding this alligator, but the crazy, barefoot guy is just right outside camera range in case Snappy decides to take a little Snap of his own!

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Our Visit to Atlantis - Nassau, Bahamas

OK, I just skipped right over San Juan. Honestly, we were really disappointed in San Juan. The ship didn't have hardly any excursions there - they were either go visit historical sights, which bore me silly, or 3 hour hikes through the rain forest, which might have been interesting, but wasn't really designed for our couch potato selves. So we did a little shopping, called to check on the kids, and basically walked our feet off. We did find a nice little shop and bought a miniature chess set for the boys and a pretty painted box for Matt's girlfriend. Otherwise, it was not a great day and we were happy to get back to the ship for a nap and our usual enormous meal.

The Bahamas on the other hand, was really fun. It was a pretty short day and we got off to a very late start due to some hold up at the dock, but once we got off the ship, we had a nice little tour of the harbor and headed straight for the famous Atlantis resort. It was absolutely gorgeous, but you could tell it was definitely where the rich and the famous go to hang out. We had lunch there and it was $31 for two sandwiches, some chips and a couple of Cokes - yikes!

But, they had a beautiful casino. Naturally, we had to leave our ritual $20 sacrifice to the gambling Gods. I don't know why I even bother to gamble any more. I would have had more fun leaving it on the sidewalk for someone to find!

The big attraction for us were these huge glass sculptures by an artist named Dale Chihuly. During the Olympics, he came to town and did a huge gallery of these beautiful sculptures. I was lucky enough to get to go see it and I've been a big fan of his work ever since. We have a huge one, kind of like this red one, but tall in one of our big concert halls downtown, so I knew immediately whose work this was. Funny to see something so familiar all these thousands of miles away.

The big draw for me was the aquarium. It was really amazing! They had these huge tanks just crammed with hundreds of beautiful tropical fish, whole schools of them and they were glorious! There were some manta rays that just took your breath away. They were just gliding along right through the middle of the tank. It looked almost like they were flying through the water and some of the females had a "wingspan" of more than 13 feet. You just can't imagine it. It was SO cool!

There were lots of sharks too. Some of them were in with the other fish and some of them were in a tank by themselves. Guess they were too interested in eating their neighbors! I kind of liked this tunnel of lobsters. Tony said they were crayfish, but they looked like lobsters to me and they were in a circular tank, all around you, on the ceiling and down each wall. Made my mouth water just to look at them - yum!

Of course, that's probably what the sharks were thinking about us, come to think of it. We got the boys each a shark tooth necklace and I think that's been about their favorite souvenir.

After visiting Atlantis, it was time to get down to some serious shopping! We found an open-air Bahamanian swap meet and set to work. I wanted to bring back some things for the boys, some goodies for the nice people who were helping watch them, and I wanted a purse for myself. I also needed a large carry-on bag to lug all this home with us, so it was time to get down to some serious bargaining.

It took me about 5 minutes to find a purse I wanted and I think I should have kept looking for a while. It was supposedly a Gucci knock-off, but by the time I had even gotten it home, the surface of the vinyl was starting to bubble in four different places. I figure I'll get about 2 weeks out of it for $40 - sheesh! They sure saw me coming! However, the sellers were all friendly and good humored, not pushy and aggressive like they were when we went to Acapulco. We bought T-shirts, necklaces, a bag, a picture frame, key chains, all the usual touristy junk, but it was fun and the prices were pretty reasonable. I wanted to try the Conch Fritters, a local delicacy of deep fried abalone meat, but Tony wouldn't let me. He didn't want to be nursing me all the way back to Miami if it upset my stomach and I figured he was probably right but I still wish I'd tried it.

Back on the ship for our last fancy dinner and our last night to enjoy a beautiful sunset from our balcony. I had run out of film by then, so I didn't get a picture of it, but it was a beautiful one, all orange and gold. I sure miss the sound of the sea at night. That was the most peaceful, soothing sound. Maybe I'll have to get one of those sound machines to put me to sleep at night. Of course it won't be the same without the movement of the ship, but then again, Tony does turn over a lot, so I guess that will have to do - tee hee!

Cruise Pictures - St. Thomas Excursions

Saint Thomas was hands down our favorite island. It was beautiful and peaceful, the people were very nice and not pushy at all, and we really enjoyed our day there. We would love to come back and just spend a week or so hanging around there.

We had a VERY busy day planned. Tony's Parasailing excursion had been cancelled at Half Moon Cay, so we had three different excursions planned for the day - parasailing, the helmet dive, and a visit to a butterfly farm. Busy, but what a great day!

Here are some pictures of Tony and his parasailing. This was the only excursion he did on his own. I'm not particularly afraid of heights, but I am a little afraid of water and I was afraid the harness might be a little uncomfortable, so I opted out of this one and did a bit of shopping instead, since they wouldn't let me on the boat just to watch. So he asked some of the other people on the boat to take pictures for him. Yeah, he's not shy, that man of mine!

Next, we were off to an aqarium called Coral World for the Helmet Dive. Again, this was a little scary for me due to my fear of water, but once I managed to get myself into the water, it was just amazing.

Here are some of the pictures we took with a waterproof camera 16 feet below the water:

Don't we look goofy in these strange, space age helmets? They were cool though because you could breathe pretty normally without getting your face in the water. But they were really heavy and you had to be very careful to walk upright because if you leaned over, you'd get your chin in the water.

Caribbean water is extremely salty and nasty. We've been at California beaches all our lives and this is at least twice as salty. Look at this sea spider, they gave us to hold. They also gave us a sea cucumber, but I swear it felt and looked just like a piece of poop, so I wasn't too anxious to hold it.

Did I mention the iguanas? There were about a million of them all running around loose and all kinds of little lizards too. Here's a picture of one lazy guy sunning himself by the side of the path.

At one point, we saw about four of them on the path looking like they were getting ready to race. We also got to pet starfish, anemonies (yeah, I know that's not spelled right), and this sand shark. He said be sure to pet him close to his head, or he'd whip around and bite your hand. Definitely not for the faint of heart!

After a bit of lunch and a visit to the gift shop (of course!), we were headed back to the dock and our visit to the butterfly farm. This sounds like an ideal way to make a living and apparently this guy does just that. He goes to all these beautiful tropical islands (I think he said he'd been on 16 of them) and he just sets up these beautiful enclosed gardens and then fills them all full of gorgeous butterflies. Then he gets to live on these beautiful island and charges people to walk through them and look at the pretty butterflies.

Not a bad life, sez I!

Sadly, some of our butterfly pictures didn't come out, but we did get some pictures of this Owl butterfly. Here it is with it's wings closed and looking definitely brown, but when it opens up his wings, the inside is the brightest, clearest blue you've ever seen. This guy hopped a ride on my shoulder and rode around with me for about 15 minutes. Magical!

That was the end of our day in St.Thomas. We were exhausted and our feet were killing us from all the walking, but you can see why we'd like to go back sometime and have a little more time to explore the island.

1st Cruise Excursion - Half Moon Cay

I finally got some more pictures developed, so I thought I'd share them with you. Here are some pictures from our first port of call - Half Moon Cay, pronounced Key. This is a beautiful little private island owned by Carnival and Holland America. The weather looked a little dicey in the morning and it was windy enough that some of the excursions had to be cancelled, but by mid-morning, it was really nice.

It has a beautiful beach with soft, fine sand like sugar. We didn't really have a chance to get down to the beach, instead I spent most of my time relaxing at the bar, looking at the pretty scenery while enjoying a Pina Colada and listening the caribbean music. That's exactly what I had pictured as a relaxing vacation and it was the most peaceful feeling.

In the afternoon, we had a chance to go swimming with the stingrays. As I mentioned in my earlier post, this was slightly traumatic for me, due to my fear of water, but I still managed to enjoy it.

Here I am all tricked out in my life vest and snorkel mask. We were in a shallow lagoon that was netted off from the open ocean to keep out the sharks and barracudas - yikes! There were about 8 fully armed stingrays in the pool along with an assortment of small, pretty fish. They said that they can remove the stings from them, but it's traumatic on the animals and they just grow back anyway, so we were asked to step very carefully - yeah, you bet!

We could pet the stingrays - the were a little scratchy and slightly slimy and they gave us some squid (yuck!) to hand feed them. They sort of vaccuum the food from your hand, which feels really weird. One of the stingrays tried to attach itself to Tony's butt, which kind of freaked him out.

After our adventure, we were treated to a great island style BBQ in a lovely covered complex where we could watch all the pretty birds and palm trees. All in all, it was a very interesting and fun day.

Pages