Vacation Photos...

A pretty sunset - but please don't ask me what night this was taken or where we were - I have no idea!

Jack en route back to our ship after a rainy morning on Grand Turk.

Leaving the city - one of the most beautiful sights I'll ever see. It never fails to move me to tears. We were standing next to a man who was with his 15- or 16-old daughter. As we passed Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, he told her that her grandmother had come through Ellis Island in 1895. She kept asking him questions like, "Was the Statue of Liberty there then? How old was Grandma? Does she remember what it was like going through immigration on Ellis Island?" I was so moved that he knew enough about his family history that he could teach it to his daughter and that she was so interested...

My first lunch on the ship, before we even left! Mozzarella, roasted peppers and tomato on an Italian roll, with pesto. Mmmm!!!

Waiting in the terminal in NYC to board the ship - SO impatient to get our vacation started!

The last towel animal our cabin steward left for us (and my favorite!).

Can't go anywhere without stopping into a bookstore!

This photo was taken from the tender returning us to our ship; we'd spent the morning and early afternoon on Half Moon Cay, Carnival's private island in the Bahamas.

What beautiful shades of blue! They really, really looked this wonderful! (the beach at Half Moon Cay)

Sitting by the pool on board the ship - not our best photo, but we were having fun!

The pool at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville, on Grand Turk. All cruiseship passengers were allowed to use the pool at no charge. It's the largest pool on the island (it totals three pools, each this size, connected at the far end, to make one giant pool).

Our first Cruise Elegant night; another passenger offered to take a photo of the two of us. (I look thinner when my legs are showing!)

"To your muster station!!!" (lifeboat drill before we left NYC)

A hallway off one of the bars on deck 3, I believe. That's Jack in the red shirt, off in the distance.

Darling Daughter Is Engaged!!!

It just happened last night!!!
A romantic proposal, Mr. Right-for-Her, and the rest is history!
Suffice it to say that his proposal made her forget they had to leave the Mets game - her first at CitiField! - early!
He faked being sick, took her to a hotel on the NJ waterfront, overlooking the Manhattan skyline, had arranged for a a table-for-two to be set up on an outside terrace, complete with 2 dozen roses and a bunch of candles - and the ring!
A beautiful diamond solitaire, set in platinum.
We're very happy for our girl, but I must say, here where it's only you and me, that Dad is having a bit of a hard time dealing with his baby girl getting - gulp! married!

More about the engagement (and our vacation!) later this week!

A picture is worth...

Mom and me at the wedding reception...

My darling daughter and her beau...

Hubby and me, enjoying ourselves immensely! (this was at the end of the evening, so tie is askew, hair is a bit flat... sorry!)The GORGEOUS bride and groom - what a lovely couple!

At church, after the wedding, before the reception...

The wedding is here and gone...

And MAN-O-MAN, was the bride gorgeous! (I will download some photos later on - I'm at work with no access to my photos on my home PC...)

My daughter described it perfectly: "She looks like she's wearing a cupcake!" And if you know my niece, that's an incredibly apt description! The gown was strapless, the softest, whitest white you could imagine, with crystals on the body of the dress, a basic A-line but with a crinoline underneath that just ballooned it out, gathered with fabric roses scattered across the skirt. It bustled up underneath so the look of the skirt wasn't compromised once it was danceable! She had a removable cathedral length veil, edged in crystals and a shorter one that stayed attached to her tiara. Her hair was just GORGEOUS! Curls on top of softer curls...

To backtrack a bit... awesome appetizers at Gianna's, where the rehearsal dinner was held.

Wedding cocktail hour? O.M.G. A recap: fajita bar, grilled vegetables bar, antipasto bar, salad bar, fruit and cheese bar, pasta station (cheese or lobster-filled ravioli, with your choice of red seafood sauce or alfredo), carving station (turkey, lamb, pork, prime rib), raw bar, seafood bar, sushi bar, hot appetizers (shrimp scampi, shrimp w/ peppers, steak tips, stuff I never even looked at 'cause I was stuffed to the gills!), mashed potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes served in footed sundae glasses, waiters circulating with mini stuffed pizza appetizers and bruschetta, and there was a martini bar, too.

Entree choices: stuffed chicken breast, chilean sea bass, chateaubriand.

Open bar.

Wedding cake and Venetian table, with chocolate fountain, ice cream sundae bar, Italian pastries, fresh zeppolis and canolis, espresso and cappucino bar, and coffee bar with your choice of liqueurs.

I starved myself to fit into my gown and I must have really outdone myself 'cause everyone told me how beautiful I looked. What? I look like a dog every other day of the year??? My hair looked so nice that even Jack offered to try to help me blow it out like that more often - when I told him it took my hairdresser 1/2 an hour to blow it out and my hair isn't even shoulder length, well, he didn't withdraw the offer but he stopped mentioning it....

Come back tomorrow or the next day to see some photos...

Win an Elisa Lou bag!!!

Melissa at The Inspired Room is giving away an Elisa Lou bag!
OMG! The colors! The design! The bag!
Go leave her a comment - maybe you'll win!!!
(But if you don't, I hope I do!!!)

Oops, I missed it!

I missed 04:05:06 on 07/08/09.
And there were two of them, AM and PM.
And I missed them both.
I also missed 07/08/09 @ 10:11:12.
Again, missed 'em both, AM and PM.
Oh, well.
Saw a challenge on Liz Kartchner's blog Just Us and thought, "Cool! I can do that!"
But I didn't.
Par for the course.

Michael Jackson Memorial

I thought it was tasteful and a lovely couple of hours.

EXCEPT for the couple of speakers who insisted on politicizing the event. When Al Sharpton walked on stage, I took my earphones out, and went back to work, only checking every few moments to see if he was done yet. I refused to watch him. But unfortunately I did turn back in time to hear him tell those beautiful, grieving children (paraphrasing here) that they shouldn't believe every awful thing they hear about their daddy.

WTF???

This was their father's memorial service! Don't you think that with all the trouble MJ took to protect his children from the public and from the media that perhaps they might not know all the gory details of his life??? So you bring it up at his memorial service??? AS is an ASS.

I'm not a huge fan of Michael Jackson. But as is almost always the case, I can certainly go back and appreciate his work post-mortem, which is a real shame. I knew he was talented while he was still alive, but admittedly I sometimes got distracted by what others called his odd persona. Brooke Shields' eulogy was lovely - she briefly mentioned that others might have called him "odd" but to him he was just her friend. She truly humanized him in a way no one else did, until his beautiful daughter got up on stage, took a deep breath, and told the world just how much she loved her daddy.

And that's when I cried. That's when the loss of his great talent, this man who really did mean so much to so many - that's when it hit me. And that's when I cried.

Better Late Than Never

I was sans computer for the whole weekend (definitely need to buy a laptop post cruise!)...

Happy 4th of July!! And a special thanks to the military, active and retired!

Had a lovely weekend - for a change, the bulk of the long weekend was without rain. It seems as though it's been raining here in NJ for months; actually it's only been one month...

Here's the story of the weekend: Daughter and her boyfriend and a girlfriend came up on Saturday, and I picked Mom up so she could celebrate the 4th with us. We sunbathed, ate, sunbathed some more.

In between sunbathing and eating, hubby and daughter's boyfriend decided to take the paddleboat out into the lake. A little while later, my daughter asked me where they were. We looked up and saw them waaaaay out on the other side of the lake. "Oh," she said, "there they are." I looked up a minute or two later and saw a cabin cruiser passing in the general area where the men were, then I kept reading my book.

All of a sudden daughter says, "Hey, what are they doing? Are they standing up?"

It turns out they were standing up, to put on their life jackets! That cabin cruiser swamped the little paddleboat and they were submerged for a moment, then they were really low in the water! And they started bailing with their hands! Several boats passed them; the one that caused it didn't even stop! Eventually a party boat stopped, offered them a cup to bail with, then offered to tow them home!

So they got towed home by three young 20-somethings, each drinking a beer, and 4 dogs!

It was better than TV!!!

Thank goodness of course that no one was drowned or panicked out there in the water, but from shore? How funny!!!!

My answer is...

"Yes, and what's wrong with that???!!!"

Click on this link to see what I'm talking about!!!

http://www.snotr.com/video/2630