I'm Bananas...B - A - N - A - N - A - S...for my nephew

I've known since the day Sister told me about her "plus one" that it was a little boy. Obvs, it is my auntie intuition.  The Goog and I had the following conversation on the way to lunch no more than an hour after Sister told us about her plus-one, Squirt:

Me: What do you think Sister will have? A boy or a girl?
Goog: A girl. Your family only has girls.
Me: I think it is a boy. Because I don't know what to do with little boys.

The weekend after we found out about my future nephew/niece, my mom and I went shopping for some gender neutral clothing.  The very first thing I found when shopping was this cute little monkey blanket that said "I'm bananas." It was the PERFECT first present because 1.) monkey stuff can be for boys or girls and 2.) I have bought Sister some kind of monkey (weather it be a stuffed monkey or a monkey on a coffee mug) every Christmas and birthday for probably over 10 years.  Sure, it was blue but GIRLS can wear blue too. I wear blue just about every day. If the plus one ended up a girl, I was going to move the monkey's little orange bowtie above it's ear.



I also got this little monkey bath towel. Because do you know what would make a baby even cuter? If it has a monkey...on it's head.

Sister and B-i-L officially found out last Thursday what Squirt will be, and Sister texted me as soon as she found out: "Squirt is a boy!!! He'd like some buzzz and mickey stuff please!!" Well you don't have to tell me twice to go to DisneyShopping.com, so I headed over there with absolutely no clue what little boys actually like.  Luckily for me, Disney Shopping has a whole section called "boys toys" for all us aunts that don't really know. 

 The boy toy section includes Mickey Mouse, Toy Story, Cars, and Handy Manny.  Which of these toys will Squirt get? Probably all of them by the time it is all said and done. This is going to be one spoiled little boy!

This past weekend, my mom and I went shopping yet again, except this time we were looking specifically for little boy (and little monkey) things. Although I want to keep most of the things I bought a surprise, I can't help but share the most precious little pair of monkey booties!! They are for babies sized 0 to 12 months, so I guess Squirt can wear them for awhile.  They even have little rubber grippers on the bottom so that when he learns how to walk, he won't slip on those hardwood floor!

The ABC's of our Disney Cruise

 Now that I've fully recovered from my week-long trip to Florida and the Caribbean, I'm ready to give a quick A to Z run down of all the fun we had on our Disney Cruise.  While I'm sure approximately 1 of my lovely followers would enjoy browsing through the 2,160 pictures taken between 3 cameras in 5 days (take that, Japaneses couple! Who is the shutterbug now??), I'll spare you THIS time. Instead, enjoy my ABCs of the Disney Cruise Line, with corresponding slideshow below.

Arts & Crafts: We made  frisbees, Sister and B-i-L learned how to fold napkins for their next big party and we all learned how to fold our towels into cute little animals.

Bon Voyage! cake and decorations in my stateroom, thanks to the Goog.

Castaway Club Silver Members: You are automatically a member of the Castaway club once you go on a Disney Cruise.

Disney Dreams: We got to see a Broadway-style show almost nightly, but Disney Dreams was the BEST of all.

Ears: Every time I go to Disney World or on a Disney Cruise, I get a new pair of Mickey ears. This time, I got some pirate ears.

Freebies: The number of freebies that I got this cruise was ridic and really deserves its own blog entry. I'll save that for another day!

Golden Mickeys: Another of the Broadway-style shows. This one was about an Oscars-type show giving out awards to the best Disney films (you know, like the Hunchback of Notre Dame...). Best part was the Red Carpet outside the theater that Sis and I could pretend we were celebrities on.

Hidden Mickeys: Little Mickey Heads hidden all over the boat. My favorite was the Mickey head made out of coconuts on one of the statues on Castaway Cay.

Ice carving: Every buffet had these elaborate ice carvings, and we even watched a demo of the professional ice carver in action!


Jazz Hands: It's a revolution, y'all.


Kickin' it with Goofy: Goofy randomly came over to the Goog and I one afternoon and was making the Goog clap along to the music. It. Was. AWESOME.

Lobster, Peacock, Dog, Turtle and Rabbit Towel Animals on the bed every night.

Midtown- A cover band that was like listening to the Blend on XM, except LIVE. They were Canadian.

Next cruise booked for June 21, 2010: Because who doesn't like to save 10% AND get a $100 onboard credit while only paying half the deposit?

One year anniversary: The Goog and I celebrated our 1st anniversary (a week late) with lots of cake. Chip and Dale made us hold up a #1 for our 1st anniversary.

Pirates IN the Caribbean night: The night where we all dress like pirates and then watch fireworks. Fun fact: Disney Cruise Line is the only cruise line that does fireworks off their ships.

Quiet Cove Pool: The adults only pool. No kids around here to put their wet little hands on you.

Rain in Nassau: The worst day, weather wise AND port wise. Let's just say I was not impressed with Nassau.

Smoothies in Souvenir Glasses: I'm a total sucker for souvenir glasses.

Toy Story 3 Premiere…in 3D: Probably the coolest part of the cruise was we got to watch TS3 in 3D at 12:01 AM the day it came out in theaters!! They even had an "adults only" showing, so we got to watch Toy Story 3 without little kids talking during the movie.

Umbrellas on the beach:Very important for people like me who have translucent skin and burn just by looking at the sun.

Vacation Club:The Goog and I recently joined the Disney Vacation Cult Club, so this was why we got soooo many freebies!!

Wonder: Our boat, the Disney Wonder

Xtra smooth sailing conditions: The best sailing conditions I've ever seen. It was like we were on a lake the whole time.

Yellow lifeboat: Fun fact, Disney was granted special permission by the U.S. Coast Guard to paint the lifeboats yellow, in order to keep with the special color theming of the ship -- the colors of Mickey Mouse himself.

Zombie servers: Our servers, Ferenc and Lidia, were a lot of fun (even if not the most efficient). We took their pictures every night so they started making silly faces during the pictures.

Sand Castles in the Sand

This is a scheduled post because I am on the beach building sandcastles in the sand. 

 Every time I go to the beach now, I always have the Robin Sparkles smash hit "Sandcastles in the Sand" running through my head the whole day. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then shame on you, but also, here is the video. It is pure awesomeness from How I Met Your Mother.



On our final day of the cruise, we'll be spending another day at Castaway Cay. This is one of the very first 2-stops-at-Castaway Cay cruises Disney has ever offered, so our cruise is pretty much history in the making. 

Here's a fun fact. Did you know even water in the Caribbean gets cold in the winter? When the Goog and I went on a cruise at the end of December 2008, the water was a little too cold to swim in, so instead we sat under umbrellas and played in the sand. You tend to get brainwashed after spending 7 nights surrounded by Disney things, so I was making "hidden" Mickeys in the sand:

I'm not the only one that likes to play in the sand.  There was this hermit crab that made the most awesome tracks in the sand:

It was too cold to swim, but we still got to take this cool picture of us in the crystal clear water (ignoring the piece of seaweed on the Goog's shoulder).

Tomorrow morning, we'll be kicked off the boat bright and early.  With that, we will return to the real world where we must pay for food and don't have to clean our hands with baby wipes before every meal. Stay tuned for sights, sounds, stories, and maybe a little jazz hands from our trip (I have another 13 hour car ride ahead of me!!)

Crusin' at Sea

This is a scheduled post. I'm out in the middle of the ocean right now.

Today is our Day At Sea. It seems odd to me that we can get to Nassau overnight, yet it takes a FULL DAY to get back to Castaway Cay. Makes you wonder if we are just turning circles in the middle of the Atlantic.

     

We'll probably be doing some "relaxing" on our Day at Sea. Of course, by "relaxing" I mean, sitting by the pool (with me taking pictures), sitting on lounge chairs on the 4th deck (with me taking pictures), reading books and watching movies...after I take pictures. I've have to document our relaxation just so that I can go back and prove to the Goog that we did, in fact, relax.

The Day at Sea is also a good day to get Shutterbuggy and meet and greet with some characters. I'm thinking jazz hands, and lots of them.


I'm hoping no matter what happens during our Day at Sea, we at least get one thing. It is the most awesomely amazing thing in the history of amazing things and it is 2 words: Dessert Buffet.  The Dessert Buffet is about 5 tables, all pushed together with every type of dessert imaginable down either side. Then there is a chocolate fountain in the back. Oh, you don't want a ton of sugar? That's cool because there is also a tiny little sugar-free dessert table in a far dark corner of the room.

I'm going to go slip into my sugar coma until tomorrow...

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot in Nassau

On our 3rd day of the cruise we will be going to Nassau.  I've never been to Nassau before, so I have no idea what to expect with this port. Our plan is to walk around the city and do some shopping.  Maybe I will get one braid in my hair and learn to play the steel drum? Who knows. So since I can't provide you with pictures from my last trip to Nassau, here's some pictures from my favorite port-of-call: Grand Cayman. The Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory. George Town, the capital of the Cayman Islands, feels like if you took a city in England and a Caribbean city and smooshed them together.


My favorite part of Grand Cayman is the Turtle Farm, where you can feed and hold baby sea turtles. When you take the turtles out of the water, they start flapping their flippers and all you have to do to calm them down is rub their necks. They relax immediately after that.


As you can see from the picture, I pretty much became Queen of the Sea Turtles on my last visit to the Turtle Farm.They would come flocking to me whenever I was near. It had nothing to do with the fact that they thought I had food. Nothing.

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I never thought I'd spend my birthday, which is at the end of December, on a beach. So when we went on a birthday cruise, I had to go to Seven Mile Beach! Fun fact: Seven Mile Beach is actually 5.5 miles long.

See ya real soon! (As in...for tomorrow's scheduled post!)

On Which Beach Would You Most Like to be Stranded, Sarah Mac?

This is a scheduled post because I am soaking up some sun slathered up in SPF 100+ in the Bahamas. 

Travel Channel, which is owned by my place of employment, has a blog called Terminal T that let's it's employees blog about their travel adventures.  Why should the Travel Channel employees get all the bloggy fun? (You can find the actual, official Terminal T blog here). One of the series of posts on Terminal T was which beach several TC employees would like to be stranded. It just so happens that I am spending today on my very favorite of all beach.

Today we are at Disney's private island, Castaway Cay. (Don't be confused like I was the first time I came...it doesn't rhyme with May, it's pronounced key.) Fun fact according to Wikipedia, this island has been used for filming the beach where Tom Hanks first encounters Daryl Hannah in Splash is on the island. Before Disney bought it, it was called Gorda Cay and was once used as a stop for drug runners. Nice.


Today we are at Disney's private island, Castaway Cay. (Don't be confused like I was the first time I came...it doesn't rhyme with May, it's pronounced key.) Fun fact according to Wikipedia, this island has been used for filming the beach where Tom Hanks first encounters Daryl Hannah in Splash is on the island. Before Disney bought it, it was called Gorda Cay and was once used as a stop for drug runners. Nice.

I'm not normally a big beach person. I am the whitest person in Holland and I can get a sunburn from sitting under an umbrella. I'm also usually very sensitive to water and I hate to get wet. But Castaway Cay seems to turn me into the biggest beach bum. Here are a few reasons I love it:

Serenity Bay Beach is a mile-long adults only beach. No, perv, adults only doesn't mean some crazy nude beach...come on, it's DISNEY. But it does mean that only no kids or teens. I'm surprised nobody has every questioned if I was old enough to be on that beach since most people think I am 16. The best thing about the beach is it isn't as crowded as the family beach. Notice how in the picture there isn't a soul on the beach.




Caribbean water is so much better than, say, the East Coast water.  It is crystal clear and is probably made from unicorn tears just like the sand on the beach is actually pixie dust.  I am standing in knee deep water and my feet (or at least the part not buried in sand).

There are cool Disney movie and ride artifacts, so it is like being at a beach version of Disney World.  The Flying Dutchman pirate ship, from the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, is on display in the lagoon.  All the women the walk past the Flying Dutchman like to swoon over the fact the Johnny Depp has been on that boat.

It has a lot of character...and a lot of characters!  Happy Monday everybody! Now it's time for me to go back to relaxing.

Setting Sail on our Great Cruise Adventure

I'm scheduling a weeks worth of blogs so that my blog subscribers can share in all the cruise-y related fun. You're welcome.   I'm writing these blogs during my 13+ car ride to Florida on my fancy new iPad, a 1st anniversary present from the Goog.

The Goog and I have been on 2 Disney cruises, one in Aug 2006 and another in Dec 2008. We are old pros when it comes to cruising.  So the posts over the next week are my guesses on what we will be doing on this cruise. We are also going on this cruise with my parents (first time cruisers), Sister (first time DISNEY cruiser), and B-i-L (also a first time cruiser). I've been acting as our cruise director for months now, making sure all our paperwork is filled out and giving tips and advice on what to pack and do while we are on the cruise.

"Day 1" of the Cruise is really more of a half a day...that is why it is important to get to the cruise terminal as early as possible so that you can get on the boat as early as possible therefore maximizing your cruising fun and also getting your money's worth.

Typically first days don't include too many activities.  The Goog and I will give my parents, Sister and B-i-L a tour of the boat, then we'll eat, go to a deck party, and eat some more! 

Make sure you come back every day this week to see where in the Caribbean we are each day. Adventures Away!!!