Cruise Pictures and I'M GOING TO LONDON!!!!

First of all, I'M GOING TO LONDON! The night we came back from the cruise, Chris had three UPS notices on his door. The next day I was at a conference and called him during the lunch break, and he said, "Are you ready to ask for more time off?" Chris's grandmother entered him in a sweepstakes and he won! On June 3rd we are flying to London where we will attend the Derby Festival at Epsom Downs Racecourse on June 6th, courtesy of the Woodford Revere's Derby Tip Your Hat Sweepstakes! Chris is required to wear a tuxedo with tails and a top hat! How exciting is that?!?! I did some research and finally picked out a dress from Betsy Johnson (luckily the prize also comes with money toward dress clothes and spending money!!). I ordered a fabulous hat off ebay, which will hopefully arrive this week! Below is a picture of my fun dress and a picture of the hat. We will fly back Monday, June 8th. I am absolutely psyched! Luckily my boss is amazing and is allowing me to take another vacation; therefore, I will be working on Memorial Day and one day next weekend. I will be sure to post lots of pictures from that!




The cruise was spectacular! We departed Saturday, May 9th and spent the next day at sea. May 11th we docked in Jamaica, and five of us went on an excursion where we climbed Dunn's River Falls then spent the day at the beach eating Jamaican food and drinking rum. The next day we went to Grand Caymans and went snorkeling at two sites where the second was the sunken "Rice ship". It was really awesome! I did lots of sleeping, eating, and no working-out on the cruise. It was wonderful! Diane even straightened my hair one night. That was fun. I definitely need bangs to pull off that look, but it was interesting seeing myself with straight hair! Caitlin and I decided to be lazy and just do our challenge work-outs when we got back. It was too difficult to coordinate times when we both wanted to work-out. After all, we were on vacation! Our ship had a mini golf course, and we played that one day. We also went to a few shows and just laid out in the sun reading books. (Okay, truth be told I hate laying out in the sun. I'd much rather go to a tanning bed a couple times before vacation and avoid tan lines, so I read my book in the shade.) The food on the ship was spectacular! Especially the chocolate lava cake for dessert and lobster night and the escargot and the strawberry cream soup... oh yes, the list goes on! (Needless to say, Caitlin and I went back to the gym the following week...more on that in a second.) We had one more day at sea before arriving back in Miami on Saturday. That evening we all went to see Star Trek, which I loved! The next two days I had to attend a conference and give a poster presentation. I also saw the movie Angels and Demons, which was spectacular! Naturally, I thought the book was better, but I still really loved the movie.

As I mentioned, Caitlin and I went to the gym the next week. We had only a week to prepare for a 5K, so we made sure to do cardio on the track all three days. Unfortunately, Caitlin has a summer class at 8 am Monday-Thursday. We decided to meet at 6 am Monday and Wednesday (that is the earliest the gym is open) and 6:30 on Friday. Now that our challenges are getting longer, we have found that they are taking significantly more time. Last week we decided to just do the challenges in cardio. Starting this week, we are going back to our regular weight routine and cardio in the morning, then we will separately do the challenges at home in the evening (probably via telephone to make sure we both do them). I am honestly very excited to get back to the weight routine. I was really loving the results, and my abs could use a little more plank pose after two weeks off and lots of food and beverages.

This past week I had two days of meetings with a committee for a new project I'm working on over the summer. Work this summer is going to be crazy busy! It was hard to concentrate completely, since our trip wasn't officially confirmed until this past Thursday night. I had previously gone out and found the dress, but then had to wait to purchase it until the trip was confirmed (which worked out great because I got 30% off due to the Memorial Day weekend sale). I have spent the weekend shopping for my trip to London, and now I need to get ready for work tomorrow. Since the gym isn't open tomorrow, Caitlin and I are going to the gym Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. It's probably best to wait another day, because my legs are pretty sore from yesterdays run (yay for a PR!).

I hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! Pictures from the cruise are below!

Showing off our room

Chris and I in front of the boat in Jamaica

Dunn's River Falls

Jamaica

Snorkeling in Grand Caymans

Pictures on the ship