Hi all, sorry I've been away so long. It's been a very busy month with school ending, dance recitals, birthdays and computer camp. We have one more camp to go (a weekend mother-daughter Girl Scout camp) and one more birthday and then it's chill out till vacation (I still have to work though).
I figured I'd do one more post on our trip details and then let you guy know how the dieting is going.
As I mentioned in a previous post, we are going to FL 4 days early to spend time with my sister before the cruise. As it happens, my niece, my sister's oldest daughter who lives in Boston, had a baby last month. He's so cute I can't resist posting a photo of him. Here he is on his very first day.
That's my grand nephew Benjamin and I'm very happy to have him in my life. Anyway, because of Benjamin's birth my sister has been up twice and so we've had some time to discuss plans for our trip. My sister has Sunday and Monday's off work so I decided to let her plan our time for those days. Keep in mind I'm a planner, so giving up control to someone else is a big deal for me. The only thing we really want to do while there is go to Kennedy Space Center. I told her if she wants to go with us, that's great, otherwise we'll go on Tuesday before the cruise.
We fly in on Sat and I have a big surprise planned for Sarah on that day. She somehow heard that the Fantasy had a Bibbidi Boppidi Boutique on board and thought there would be one on our ship. I've explained several times that our ship doesn't have one and she cannot go to the spa either since it is adult only. So the big surprise is that We are going to stay one night in downtown disney and then go to Cocoa Beach. We fly in via Southwest Saturday afternoon and are staying at the Lake Buena Vista Resort with a Disney view suite. Sarah has a late afternoon reservation at the Downtown Disney Bibbidi Boppidi Boutique and then as a nice surprise for the rest of the family we have reservations at T-rex. Then it's back to our hotel room to watch illuminations from our balcony. I've only told DH of my plans and I know he won't remember every detail, so this should work out as a nice surprise. As a nice plus, I think on Sunday we'll visit the Disney outlet stores before driving to Cocoa Beach.
Once at Cocoa Beach, I have a suite reserved at the Country Inn & Suites. The plan is to check in and then meet up with my sister for whatever she has planned for us. I'm thinking it will be an afternoon of visiting and swimming in her pool followed by dinner on Sunday, and then she will have an outing planned for Monday. My sister is also a big planner/organizer/controlling personality, so this is why I trust that whatever she does will be great. In fact, in many ways she is the standard that I live up to (but that is really a discussion for my therapist and I
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A few weekends ago, MIL and I got together to plan our cruise activities. We decided that we would have nothing really planned for our Nassau day. We will hang out on the ship in the morning and then walk around Nassau for a few hours after lunch. I know for sure we will go to the straw market. Sarah thought about having her hair braided, but when I explained that there would be a lot of hair pulling she decided against it.
The one thing that we all agreed on doing is snorkeling on Castaway Key. I really wanted to do the bike rental as well, but DH said no. I knew that if his mother said she wanted to do it then he would agree. So while we were all there I said we had a choice. We could do just the snorkel rental or do the rental for snorkel, bike and float for the whole day. MIL said she wanted to do all three. DH tried to poo poo the idea, but MIL said she wanted to do the bikes. Of course DH gave in. After 15 years of marriage, I've learned a few things about how to get DH to agree to things, and I'm not above using MIL to get what I want. She's usually in cahoots with me anyway.
The other thing that MIL and I really wanted to do is a spa treatment. I was really surprised to find that many of the options at the spa were already booked. My advise to anyone is book early if you have something you really want to do. On our at sea day MIL has booked a massage in the morning and I have a facial booked at the same time. I used to get a massage gift certificate every year from DH for mother's day. Then I learned that if you have a facial that you also get a little mini massage. So from then on I was hooked on facials. I told this to MIL but she said she wants a full massage. So she's having a massage. While browsing the spa offerings I noticed that they also have personal training. I go to a very cut rate gym that offers no extras like classes or personal training so I thought it might be a good idea to spend some time with a trainer. On the morning of our Spa day, I will go early for some personal training and then get MIL for our spa treatments. We should be done by late morning and then will meet up with DH and the kids for whatever else is going on that day.
That's about it for our trip planning. I want to post more about the dieting. I'm still working toward my goal and am excited to let you know how it's been going and to hear how you guys are doing as well.