a riddle

how do you know it's time for finals to be over?

your kitchen looks like this:


your sink looks like this:


your living room looks like this:

and your daughter drinks just as much diet coke as you do:


one week from thursday and it will all be over... and i will have to clean the house.

life is hard...

well the time has come for me to show off my photos from the cruise. we had a wonderful time! it was great to just be with the girls, and it was even better to not have to worry about anyone but myself. thanks p and v for bankrolling and organizing the trip, thanks to doc for holding down the fort, and thanks to all of you who picked up the slack and watched sillygirl while i was gone. it was worth it, but boy, it's hard to come back!

so, wednesday night i caught a plane in lansing to miami. i met k and h (from virginia) at the hotel. c and her girls (from portland) were delayed and wouldn't be in until 2am. meanwhile, v (grandma), s, m, and h (all from utah) were on one of the many american airline flights cancelled that day. after 15 miserable hours, they caught a redeye into miami and got in at 8am the next day. finally we were all together! while the others got their bearings and showers, k and i caught a taxi to south beach to see the infamous miami ink:
well, the cab ride cost $70. and nobody was even there! oh well, probably better that way.... we headed back to the hotel (after taking only 3 photos) for lunch. all 11 of us sat down to lunch in the hotel before we caught a shuttle to the port of call for the cruise.

after what seemed like hours, we finally got on the boat and found our rooms. they made us do a lifeboat drill, complete with life jackets, before we left port. i almost had 2 of the little girls convinced we had to do it every morning we were on the boat. too bad they know their uncle doc too well... they didn't believe a word i said the whole trip! we went back to our rooms to get ready for dinner. we had dinner, hung out, and then went to bed since 4 of us hadn't slept at all the night before.

the next day, we got off the boat first thing in key west. key west was beautiful! if it weren't for all the tourists, i would want to live there. (i realize it's a love-hate relationship for the natives, since after castro came into power and embargoed tobacco and the cold war ended, key west's only industry is tourism.) here are some things we saw on our awesome train tour of the city. (that's a little facetious. it was fun for awhile, but after seen most of the houses on the island and learning about how much they cost, who has lived there for the last 80 years, what burned in the fire, when they got plumbing, etc... we were bored.) here's ernest hemingway's house. he's the last person to live in it, now it's a museum dedicated to his hackery.
at the very end of the tour, a tourist who had rented a scooter broadsided the train. it was hilarious! but kind of sad for the poor tour train driver. we knew that for liability reasons, both the train company and scooter company and police would want documentation and pictures, and we didn't want to wait. we got off, and we weren't the only ones who bailed off. so, we got off and shopped for the rest of the afternoon. some went to the aquarium, some of us went and shopped and got henna tattoos. there wasn't anything i liked, so i didn't get one. but the guy doing them was hottttt, so maybe i should have done it anyway.

we got back to the boat, got in our swimming suits, and hit the deck for some sun and swimming. here's a picture of my nieces:

it was at this point that i enjoyed the highlight of my trip: a glorious nap! i know it seems like a long way to go for a nap, but it was so good! now maybe i should explain that i am a napaholic. doc teases me that sleeping is a hobby for me. but i truly love it. and lately, with school, napping has gone out the window. i used to nap when sillygirl did all the time, but now i just don't have time. anyway, this was the only nap i took on the trip, i was too busy! i did sleep a lot at night though, so it was okay. so i was out on the deck, in the shade, the breeze was blowing, and i just drifted off... only to wake under my own volition and with no pressing matters except getting to the dining room for dinner! tough!

every night we had a sit down, five course dinner. 4 of them. and i didn't have to pay a dime. if i didn't like the entree, i could have them bring me a different one. if i wanted to try 2 entrees, i could. but more often, i wanted 2 desserts. during 4 dinners i ate: salmon, lobster tail, shrimp, leg of lamb, beef tenderloin, escargot (it was good!), baked alaska, chocolate mousse, tiramisu, rasperry tarts, and much, much, much more! no wonder i gained 4 pounds!

the next day, we had to be up and ready to get off the boat by 11:30am. this was a struggle! just kidding! here's cozumel from the dock:
we then got in line to go on our shore excursion: dolphin adventure. i wasn't sure what this entailed, but here we are getting ready:

from the pier we took taxis to chankanaab state park in cozumel. on the way, we saw an ambulance attending to another crazed tourist that had crashed a scooter. obviously, don't rent those. once we got there, we were given life jackets, goggles, and snorkels. then we walked down to the ocean and got into the water with a trainer and a full-grown dolphin named chaac. he did lots of tricks for us, including giving us kisses, pushing us on boogie boards, and giving us rides on his belly! it was really cool, but i don't have any pictures because they have a photographer and videographer documenting it for you. then you can buy the pics for $14 each and the dvd for $39. nice. after our dolphin adventure, we went and had lunch at an open restaurant on this beach:
i had fish enchiladas (yum!), a piña colada (virgin), and the BEST GUACAMOLE EVER! EVER. i'm not exaggerating. it was so good. then we went back into town to do some shopping. i got some souvenirs for lucie and a sweet silver bracelet for myself (happy birthday!). that night we got back to the boat and were beat! what a fun day!

on sunday, because it was actually sunday by this point, i couldn't believe how fast time was going, we were at sea all day. so, for us that meant a busy day: sleeping in, late breakfast, swimsuits and books, laying out by the pool, lunch, more laying out by the pool, um, laying out by the pool, and then showers and dinner. rough, i tell you what. actually, that night they dragged me to a show. it was, well, awful. you know how simon always says to american idol contestants that they are too "cruise ship?" well, i don't think simon has ever seen any cruise shows, because they are worse than he could even imagine. it was bad. really, really bad. in fact, i felt bad for the performers. embarrassed for them, actually.

that night, they had a dance party up by the pool. my nieces had a great time line-dancing with all the drunk people on stage with the band. they were so funny! however, all of the adults were too tired, or too sober, to participate. we did this:
and ate more desserts. i'm not kidding. i ate so much dessert i can't even tell you. then we went to bed with heartburn.

the next morning we had to get off and say our goodbyes. i had such a great time being with just the girls and reminding myself how lucky i was to have such great in-laws. my sisters-in-law and i are very similar and thus have a fabulous, silly, pervy (the stories i could tell) time. there was lots of giggling and telling eye-rolling stories about our husbands (all brothers except one) out of ear-shot of there mom and daughters. i really missed doc and sillygirl, and worried about them a lot while i was gone. i was glad to be coming home to them, but was not ready to leave florida. next time, they'll just have to meet me in miami!

good news, bad news

good news: i'm home!
bad news: i'm home!
i'm also slammed until pretty much the end of the semester. i have tests this week so i have to get studying, but here's a sneak peek of the post to come:

this is the southernmost point of the continental us in key west, fl. it is approximately 92 miles from cuba. just one of the many highlights of my last few days! the other was the GLORIOUS nap i took on the pool deck in the shade with no one to wake me but myself!

Would you rather.....

Yes, I am making myself feel better by mocking the situation and grandly justifying my own existence.

Would you rather this..........

Or this....

(Okay. I would rather the bottom one, too.)

3 days

my birthday

it was a fabulous day, aside from the fact that i was in class ALL day, so all the birthday wishes were from my voicemail! i decided i am officially old because i was way more excited about all the attention and phone calls than i was about the actual presents.... this is what i got from doc and sillygirl:

that's right, the first ipod in our family. i know it's nothing that exciting as far as ipods go, but since we're planning on getting these:

for our christmas presents this year, the shuffle is great! besides, have you seen how small these things are? it's like a stamp!

doc made dinner (french dip, my favorite!) and he and sillygirl had a cake for me. sillygirl was so excited all day that it was my birthday. she sang to me several times and couldn't wait for me to open my presents. i'm glad she's catching on to the birthday thing since hers is in a few months. maybe she'll get what's going on this year!

anyway, it was a great day. doc and i are going to go out this weekend for dinner and a movie, and of course next week is my cruise-- so being in class all day wasn't so bad considering next wednesday night i'll be hopping a plane to miami! happy birthday to me!