9 more days!!!!!

Only 9 more days until the cruise!! I am SOOOOOOOOO excited that I don't know if I can make it until then!! This is our first cruise and hopefully not our last!!! Walter & I are bringing Sean & Cameron this time and then might look for a special and go on another one alone sometime next year. I found out that I have to bring a notarized letter from Cameron's dad in order for him to disembark in Mexico (where both of our shore excursions are). Apparently, if a minor is not traveling with both natural parents, the absent parent has to write a letter giving their "ok," so Neil is getting a letter notarized for me to take with us. Here are some pictures of the different staterooms, as promised for my friend, Jan. She has sailed on the same cruise ship before and didn't remember the Balcony and Penthouse suites. When I come back, I will verify if they really exist or not!!

Above is the type of room that we got for Cameron & Sean to share - an interior stateroom.
This is the oceanview stateroom.
This is supposed to be what we reserved for Walter & me - oceanview balcony suite.
This is what most of Walter's family rented - penthouse suites.

Now, along with my excitement is also a bit of anxiety/panic! BESIDES the anxiety/panic that I already have from being scared to get off the boat in Mexico (because I might get left behind!!), is the problem that i've gained back the 5 lbs. I lost recently PLUS a couple. 9 days left and I'm going to look like a beached whale in my bathing suit. My friend, Kelly, asked me the other day how much weight i've lost and I said "oh no, it's ok, I FOUND it!!" I pondered what to do this morning and thought back to several years ago when my friend, Lesley, and I lost a lot of weight on the Atkins diet. I know that I didn't eat great on the diet (lots of bacon, pork rinds, etc.), but I lost 20 lbs. rather quickly. I looked into the South Beach diet several months ago and it says you can eat steaks but NOT ribeyes - HELLO?? Steak night is a 10 oz. ribeye and I live for steak night!!! So anyway, some of my best thoughts come to me in the bathtub and this morning I was pondering the diet while relaxing in the tub. I started thinking about how healthy it would be to eat a lot of salad instead of the fatty foods and for 9 days until the cruise, it wouldn't be hard to do at all. The hardest part about the diet to me was that Walter didn't want to do it, so cooking at home becomes an issue, but i'm going to be gone to Houston all this weekend and am meeting friends twice next week for dinner, so i'm not going to be cooking much for him until after the cruise. So there. It's done! I printed out the acceptable food list this morning and instead of my Kashi Honey Almond Flax cereal (that my friend, Kelly, says takes jaws of steel to eat), I had 2 scrambled eggs! And i'll let you know how it goes!

I am going downtown to have lunch this afternoon with my friend, Terri. Our housekeeper is coming today, so I usually try to plan some things to do out of the house so I don't get in her way and then it is awesome to come home and find it much cleaner than the way I left it!

And of course, tonight is steak night!!! Walter & Cathy don't have to go to the meeting about the fire station tonight, thank goodness!! The meeting went ok last night and nobody is really sure about what is going on with the new fire station yet. If they do build one on our street, they said that most of the calls are medical in our area and the big fire truck rarely goes out. It would be nice to have help so close by if we needed it. We will see what happens!

This has really been a busy week! I am heading to Houston tomorrow to visit JP and spend some time with my sister, and I feel like i've been running around all week long! JP likes me to visit on weekend mornings when it is quieter there, so that is what I am planning to do. The visits only last 20 minutes, so it is a lot of driving for a tiny bit of time, but seeing him is worth it. He thinks if I tell them I am from out of state that I could visit for 30 minutes, so I will ask. My hotel is about 5 minutes from my sister's house, so it works out that I have plenty of time to hang out with her too when i'm in town. Walter's brother is coming over with his tractor to help Walter do some work in the yard, so I will be going solo to Houston, which is fine! I have gotten to be a big girl and with my GPS, I can go anywhere and do anything!!!

Have a great Thursday!!