Sunday - Embarkation Day

We woke up this morning and looked outside while holding our breath that the fog was gone as predicted. Then we were able to breathe a sigh of relief as it was gorgeous blue skies, and no fog in sight! We got dressed and walked over to IHOP as we were staying at the Hilton. While at breakfast we made the decision that we would go back to the room and try to get a parking spot at the parking lot my parents used last year as we didn't really feel like waiting for the shuttle that we were currenlty booked to take from the hotel. After calling around and talking to my mom, we found out where Lighthouse parking lot was and at 9ish we were on our way to the parking lot. We found it quick and they had openings, phew. We had one of the first spots by the gate. The bus made it over to us and we were on the shuttle in less than 2 minutes. We got to the terminal and were in line at 9:45. They opened the doors at ten and we made it through security, then to the check in line to get our sea pass card. We were sitting in the waiting area by 10:30ish and about five minutes later they opened the doors for us to begin boarding the ship.

Once on board we decided to look at a ship layout to get a handle on the ship. It was relatively light crowds as we were in the first group to board. We first went to the royal promenade and found someone that was selling the beverage packages. We got signed up for a coke pass on ians card. I honestly don't think we will do it anymore in the future. We hardly drank any sodas while on board. We mainly drank water, tea or lemonade which are all included. We of course had coffee too as they had a nice cafe with unlimited coffee set up for 24 hours a day. This became one of our favorite spots on the ship.

After exploring the promenade we made it up to the windjammer for a yummy lunch. When the clock finally rolled around to 1:15ish we decided the rooms were probably open and ready for us to go to. Our luggage was dropped off quickly. I had us unpacked by 2 if I remember right. Might have been closer to 2:30. Then we chilled on the balcony for a bit before it was time to go for the muster drill. Thank god, wearing the life jacket is no longer required. It was fairly painless. While standing out there waiting we saw the conquest head out at 4. Once the capt. dismissed us we ran by the room to get our cameras and headed up to the pool deck for sailaway party.

We decided to hit up Johnny Rockets for dinner this first night. We had a st.louis burger which had bacon, lettuce, and some yummy sauce. Ian got a chocolate malt of course and I had a flavored soda. You get unlimited onion rings and fries. We didn't make it to the show tonight as we were kind of tired. We went to the room after dinner and just relaxed on the balcony.

quick post

I just wanted to post that I haven't forgotten about writing my update. Work has been kind of hectic getting back into. I haven't wanted to get on the computer at home. However I plan on taking time on Monday or tuesday to do my post for each day along with some pictures. I also have a video to finish editing and will probably be sending that out as well. So by Tuesday I should have it all completed, cross the fingers. hehe...

~ Hugs

What a vacation!!!

We had a wonderful time!!! If I were to rate our cruise vacations, this one is ranked number one officially! I just can't say enough of the trip. I plan on being back soon with a day by day recap. However I have been in front of the computer for a long time this afternoon, paying bills and filing for our income tax refund. I'm ofically sick of the computer already. Hehe... But please come back tomorrow as I plan to write a nice review and do pictures to go with that day. That's all for now though. I will leave you with a picture that I like to call "this is how to relax"

OMG....A new post for the new year!

Good morning! It seems like I don't have enough time in a day anymore to do simple things that make me happy. One of my new years resolutions is to change that. I am taking time to do things that make me happy such as reading, working on my scrapbook, etc. I am going to make a Dr. appt for next month and start working on becoming a healthier better me. Ian is too. Speaking of vacation, it's just right around the corner now. So excited. The more reivews I read of the ship and staff the more excited I become. I need to stay away from my favorite cruise site because it makes the time go slower but alas it's great for tips on shows not to miss, or things to avoid so I must sacrifice myself. LOL. When we return from the trip I promise to take the time to write a nice review of everything and post pictures and video that I capture. We are only doing one excursion this trip. We figured we really loved our beach day in Cozumel last year that we are going back again this trip. However in our other two ports we will just jump ship long enough to shop and hopefully find some deals and then we will be back on the ship to really just enjoy it. I want to explore and we have vowed we will take naps in the afternoon so we can stay up late for the late night fun this trip.

We leave on Saturday for Galveston, and then if all goes well, we will board the ship by noonish on Sunday. I'm hoping thats the case so we can explore the ship before it gets more cruisers on board to get some good shots with the camera. Then we will have two sea days, one of which we are going to particpate in a mystery dinner theatre option in the optional resturaunt on board. It's an upcharge but it really sounded interesting and Ian really wants to do this so I figured why not. Then on Wed, we will be in Roatan, Honduras. We get long port days for a change. Each port we visit, we will be there from like 7 am until 6 pm. Most cruises we have been on, it's like 9 am till 4 or 5 pm. So we are really looking forward to this. On Thursday we will be in beautiful Costa Maya, Mexico. It was hit pretty hard back in 07 from a CAT 4 hurricane. The pier was torn in pieces that we had just been on with our first cruise. It was pretty bad as it's just a tiny fishing village, where the people are very friendly. We loved that town on our first cruise so I'm very happy to see they rebounded as quickly as they did. Then on Friday, we will be Cozumel. We plan on jumping ship around 8-9ish and heading for our beach day at Nachi. We plan on relaxing there until about 2ish and then we will head back to the port so we can shop for a while. Or we will reverse this and shop, take the goodies back to the boat and then go to Nachi. Who knows. We are on vacation with really no major plans this time so it will be relaxing all the same. Then on Sunday we will be back in Galveston and have to go through vacation withdrawl. That feeling always sucks. We plan on dropping in to Kingwood to visit my folks and drop off goodies for the family. Then we will either head back that evening after dinner or wait till the morning time. We keep going back and forth on this as we both will be ready to get home to start the unpacking/laundry/grocery shopping, etc. We will see how we feel on Sunday and then make the decision.

I will send both parents our cabin number for the cruise and phone numbers in case an emergency should come up to reach us. Expect that sometime this week.

I guess that covers it all for now. I will post when we get back.

~Hugs

Happy Holidays!

Greetings to all of our blog readers! First we want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year. Yes, I know that is early but as we are working both holidays and how crazy things have been around here I figured I better do it earlier than later...hehe....

We had our annual chritmas party last night. We had such a blast. They gave away some really nice things to in the raffle. Of course the Faas curse continues and neither of us won anything. We had a great time and that is really what matters. I won't go into a lot of detail here, but lets just say, fun fun fun!

We booked our vacation finally. We are going on another cruise to the caribbean. We set sail on Jan 24th and will be back on Jan 31st. We put in for the saturday prior through the wed after off this time. This way, we can have a shorter work week when we get back because lets face it after you are on vacaion, going back to work is tough! We will be doing the Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas cruise to Roatan, Costa Maya and Cozumel. We plan on snorkeling in Cozumel and will just shop in Roatan and Costa Maya probably. Then again we might choose to do snorkeling in Roatan and shopping in Costa Maya and Cozumel instead. We still need to work those details out.


I think that about sums it up for now.

~Hugs

A POST...HOLY COW...CAN IT REALLY BE?

Good morning!

I know it's been awhile since I last posted but once again times are truely crazy in the Faas household. We have finally started to heal after losing Mistophelees. So I thought it would be nice to come and post something upbeat after the last sad news. Things are going really well for both Ian and I. We both had birthdays in the last two months. Crazy how time truely does speed up each year after celebrating a birthday. I can't believe it's almost December. We will be working through the holidays this year again. We received our year end reviews and both received good marks. I was a tenth of a point off of a 4 and the highest you can get is a 5 so I'm pleased. I received almost a dollar raise because of my good performance. I have been put up for the next tier at our work so I have been attending training classes to get me prepped for the test we have to pass in order to officially be promoted up. Once that happens it means I will be taking on more responisibilites and will actually get to help out with the coaching of my fellow team members to help improve their scores. So, I'm a little nervous about that because they will looking at me and how well I do that by measuring the results of the team's survey scores, etc. I am looking forward to this new title but first have to pass the tests. This will likely take place in Jan.

Speaking of Jan, Ian and I will be celebrating 8 yers on Jan 5th. It's a tuesday so we are off of work automatically with our current schedule. We will probably go out to dinner and maybe a movie that night. We will be taking a trip probably the first or second week of Feb. We have postponed our usual Jan trip till then because of not knowing when exactly the tests will be scheduled just yet. We are debating between two trips. One would be a 7 night cruise on Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas out of Galvesto. She does two different routes, with every other week alternating between Cozumel, Grand Caymen, and Montego Bay. The other goes to Costa Maya, Cozumel and Roatan. For those of you that don't know of Roatan, it's supposed to be some of the best snorkeling in the world. It's an island off of Honduras if I'm not mistaken. The other two things we have debated against would be a week in Cozumel at an all inclusive resort instead of cruising there. We really love that town and it would be nice to spend a week there to really explore it and see some of the nightlife even. The other would be going to Las Vegas for 5 nights and seeing some of the shows that great city has to offer. We have only been once before and it was just for two nights, so it would be great to spend more time there.

So we have a lot to think about in the coming weeks. We plan on making our decision in December after we see how much our bonus checks are worth. We have set a certain budget for our trip as we would like to put half of the bonus back into savings. We have our holiday christmas party coming up as well on December 19th. They are having it at the same place as they did last year, so we are really looking forward to it. It was a blast last year. We got a room again for the night so we wouldn't have to worry about having a drink or two and then driving home afterwards. Plus it puts us closer to work which is always a good thing.

I think that about sums it up for us right now. I hope to get on a more regular once a week posting again but we will see.

~Hugs

RIP Mistopheles

I know it had been an extremely long time since I updated this blog but we have been busy. We had a very sad day yesterday. We took our beloved cat, Mistopheles to the vet as she had not been eating very well and just was not herself. So after researching we found what seems to be a friendly vet hospital. They did an evaluation of her from listening to her heart, looking in her ears, etc. Then asked us what our concerns were. After doing some blood work and a urinanalysis(sp?), they came back to us with some bad news. Her kidney had went into failure and there was nothing we could do. They said it was toxic and irreverisble at this point. They were very kind and empatheic beyond words. They gave us all the time in the world to be with her and even told us we could take her home for one last night if we would like to. However we knew that would just drag it on and were already very upset and did not want to drag it out just for us. Although now in hindsight it might have been nice to have had some time with her in her home setting where she would have been more confortable. Then again, it wouldn't have been easy to take her in this morning to be put down. That is probably one of the hardest things I have gone through. She was our first pet and was a great pet. She will be missed. For those of you that never got the chance to meet her, she was a one of a kind. She had a lot of personality and at the same time loved to be loved on. She would come sit in your lap and wanted your hand to be on her giving her some affection. We always thought she was part dog too because she sure loved to play fetch. I had these fuzzy pink house shoes and Ian would toss one and here she would come with it back and she would have to walk funny because it was so much bigger than her. We plan on making a stepping stone with her initail on it and putting it underneath the front window in the bushes as we would come home from work and that is where she would be waiting for us. Well, it was either in that window or on the chair's armrest facing the front door. We will both miss her. We both had a hard night as it was hard to adjust with her not being here. She would love to come in and lay at our feet in bed or curl up in the crook of the leg. She loved laying on my chest if I was laying on my back in bed too. I think that is enough sadness for now. I will end this with some pictures of her for those of you that knew and loved her and for those of you that never met her.