This might just be the cutest thing ever...

Be sure to watch her face in the top right corner. Priceless. 

Cruisin'

Howdy Y'all! I'm back from sailing the great ocean blue and have fun pictures to share with you. 

Our cruise left out of New Orleans on Monday afternoon. We got to Nola a few hours early and decided to hit up the Cafe Du Monde for some delicious beignets! 

 

Yum!

Day 1 was a fun day at sea so Clay and I just laid out of the deck soaking up the sun and watched our fellow cruises compete in a variety of embarrassing competitions.  

 

The wind was making my hat look crazy. Clay's face was making him look crazy...

Our first port was Progresso, Mexico. It's a new port-of-call and really the only thing to do there is a tour of Mayan ruins. We didn't go to the ruins and instead opted for lunch on the beach. Well...the beach wasn't the most pleasant experience so we ended up eating on the boat and enjoyed a nice day reading under an umbrella. 

This is how clay felt about our "lunch" on the beach

Fun drinks on the ship make everything better! This one was actually created by one of the cruisers in a mixology contest

Our next port was Cozumel. Clay and I have both been to Cozumel several times so we decided to go on a different kind of excursion. We did a Mexican cooking class and it was fantastic! We made pan seared fish, shrimp sopas, and fried plantains with chocolate tequila sauce. Yum! Our chef was great, there was an open bar, and we had a group of crazy middle-aged Australian women in our group. It was a blast! We look 109 pictures (don't worry I wont put all of them up!). 

Chef hats make everything better

Our beautiful Plantains!

I'm concentrating on splitting our veggies evenly.

Skrimpz

This was chef Oscar. I think his expression sums up his personality pretty well

My beautiful Shrimp creation! Decorating the plates was my favorite part

Clay and I with our chefs

Enjoying the fruits of our labor

 

Our final day was another day at sea. We enjoyed the sun, good food, and good company. 

One of the few nice pictures we have of the two of us. Traveling with just two people makes picture taking difficult

Our cute puppy towel animal. I pretended like it was Reggie.

This is a shot of the love and marriage game show. This older couple on the left were the cutest/funniest people ever. When asked what holiday J.O. (the man) would use to describe his love life. J.O. replied "Memorial day because we pay our respects to the dead." Hilarious.

This was our table at dinner every night. We meet some wonderful and hilarious people!

Yay for graduation vacation! 

P.S. I've been organizing all of my pictures (going back to 2005!) so be on the look out for a fabulous blast from the past post!

The Fun Ship

Well kids, I'm headed off to the high seas! See you all in a week.

Public Service Announcement

I'm sorry guys, I can't hold it inside any longer. I have to make a public service announcement regarding middle names.

Recently, I've seen an increase in people who are having babies who intend to call their children by the child's middle name. These people are giving their children a first and middle name with the intention of calling the child by its middle name from the start. For example, "We're naming him Michael James Brown, but he'll go by James". As someone who has gone by my middle name my entire life (Jordan Alexa "Alex" Smith), I feel like I have the right to comment on this.

Please people, do not do this to your child. They will endure a lifetime of confusion, constantly having to correct people, and potentially missing out on opportunities because their name couldn't be placed with their face. It's really a HUGE pain in the butt! I've wanted to change my name for the last 12 years but haven't wanted to go through the headache of actually doing it.

This trend is even more of a problem for girls. If we want to take our husband's last name when we get married then we'll either have to drop our last name (something I'd never want to do) or have 4 names. Yikes!

In conclusion, I ask that if you decide to have children, please consider that this decision will make your child's life more difficult. I'm not writing this to be hateful toward people that decide to do this, heck my parent's decided to do this and I still love them. It really is just a public service announcement. Intended to educate and inform.

That is all.

Happy Thursday!

Well, I did it!

Happy Graduation to me!

What I'm Lovin'

I officially finished all of my coursework for my MBA program last Thursday. Yay! So I've been relaxing and takin' care of business for the past week and it has been wonderful! Here are a few things I've been enjoying with my new found freedom...

Knitting

 I've taken up knitting (yes, we've already established that I'm an old lady) and I'm working on an awesome chevron blanket! I love knitting because it's so relaxing and repetitive.

Trips to the farmer's market

I've been to the farmer's market for the past three weeks. I've bought some incredible strawberries, lettuce, zucchini, sweet potato biscuits, and tomato pie! Yummy! I love fresh fruits, veggies, and baked goods!

Graduation festivities

(I didn't take any pictures because I'm lame.)

I hosted a big end of the year/graduation party with my favorite ladies last Saturday. It was an absolute blast! So much fun that I forgot to take pictures. Oh well! I've also been getting sweet cards and congratulations.

Actually having time to read for pleasure

I didn't read anything for pleasure during the semester and now I'm already on my third book since Friday! I love having time to read!

The smell of Febreze.

Clay Febrezed the couch the other day and since Reggie spends all of his time hiding the pillows on the couch, Reggie now smells like Febreze. It's an improvement over his normal corn chip smell! 

This song

My sweet friend Steph always makes me mixed CDs for my car rides to Auburn. She put this song on my latest CD and I love it! It's so heartbreaking but beautiful. I love the message of accepting your past and not dwelling on your mistakes. Lovely.   

That's what I'm lovin' this week! I hope everyone is having a great week!