Cruise Day 5 - Grand Turk

Thursday, was our day at Grand Turk! The picture above was our view to the right while getting off the boat. The picture below was our view to the left. Let me tell you, nothing excited me more than beach chairs to relax in! I was so excited to head to the beach with the fam and stake our claim to "our spot".

This particular port in Grand Turk was overtaken by our cruise line! We had another Carnival ship who docked at the same time we did. Here's a picture of both ships at port.

We made it to our beach chairs! Here is a picture of Reid enjoying the sand and sun with Dad's hat on!

My little brother!

Reid, Mom and me

Reid, me and Dad

My legs, the sand, the water, and our ship...

Ahhh relaxation at its finest!

With my honey on the beach at Grand Turk!

After spending a little over an hour on the beach, we headed to find our excursion group. We had decided to try power snorkeling! This is a picture of the view of the beach from the hut where we go our snorkel gear and snorkeled.

Another view! So peaceful!

Power snorkeling was SO MUCH FUN! You basically hold on to a 35 pound motor that is weightless in the water. The best part is, it does all the work for you! We only snorkeled for about an hour, but we were still pretty exhausted!

After our power snorkel excursion, we headed back to the main area around the port to shop. Grand Turk is also home to one of the locations of the infamous Margaritaville. I wish I would have taken more pictures, but Margaritaville actually had two pools and two bar areas that were really neat! While Reid, Mom and I shopped, Dad and Barrett went to check out Margaritaville!

After our day at Grand Turk we headed back to the ship. We hadn't really had anything to eat for lunch, so we hit up the pizza bar and the burger/hot dog buffet. After eating Mom and I went and spent some time looking at pictures and also shopped in the gift shops on the ship.

Before we headed to our room to get ready for dinner we were able to catch the beautiful sunset!

Dinner was our second formal night. Barrett and I had this picture made by one of the photographers on the ship. Doesn't my husband look so handsome?!?

Here are the picture of us at the dinner table:

Mom, Reid and Dad

B and Me

When we went back to our room after dinner we had this towel animal on our bed. I am guessing it is a rabbit?

After changing into a more comfortable pair of shoes, we headed to the Disco for dancing! Here's a picture of me, Mom, and Reid enjoying the music at the disco!

I LOVE this picture of my parents!!

We didn't close the disco down, but we came pretty close!

What a fun day in Grand Turk!

Cruise Day 6 - Day at Sea

Friday, Day 6, was our last day on the ship :( We were all so sad that the vacation was almost over. Our day was spent "at sea". Everyone wanted to spend the majority of the day outside enjoying the beautiful weather and working on our tans. We got up, had breakfast, and then searched the ship for 5 empty chairs together. We finally found 5 chairs near the sports courts.

Here's a picture of Dad and me!

Had to get a picture with my mom!

We noticed that the Carnival Destiny, the ship that was in port with us at Grand Turk, followed us most of the day back to Miami. Here is a picture of The Destiny. This ship was made very similar to ours, The Carnival Liberty. Here's a view of the slide. Dad and I decided to wait to go down the ship's slide until the last day. Mom took pictures of everyone going down the slide, but I don't have a copy of her pictures yet. Here's a look at the fun slide! The guys decided to shoot some hoops while we spent the day at sea. The ship held a basketball knock out tournament at 4pm, that they participated in. Reid and B weren't able to place in the competition, but Dad finished second!

Still shooting hoops...

I love relaxing on the ship!

After we spent the day outside, mom and I shopped for a few souvenirs in the ship's gift shop, stopped to get a slice a pizza and then headed to our room to finish packing. The guys had actually headed to the room to take a nap.

After taking naps and getting packed up, we headed for our last dinner together. Here is a picture of me and B at the table.

Dad, Mom, and Reid

Our waiters were singing "Leaving Our Fun Ship" for us, since it was our last dinner. We really enjoyed our wait staff!

The penguin towel animal that was in our room after dinner.

After dinner we headed to the show. We had been so excited about this particular show all week, because one of the girls who sat at our table actually played the part of Madonna during the show! During the week everyone on the ship could compete in the karaoke bar to be in the show, and Amber won the part of Madonna! She did a great job and it was neat seeing someone we knew on the cruise on the big stage!

I'm not sure what happened to my camera, but the picture is blurry :(

After the show Dad and Mom went to the coffee shop on the ship. We sat in one of the lobby areas and tried to savor every last minute we could before going to bed. We were so depressed our fun cruise vacation was ending, because we had such a wonderful time!

Day After Cruise - Miami

Saturday after getting off the ship, Barrett and I didn't catch a flight home. The cruise line actually couldn't find us a flight home on Saturday, so they put us in the Hilton Miami hotel for Saturday night. This picture above was the view from our room!

I really wasn't sure we would like staying another night and figured we would be ready to get home. We actually had a great time spending the day in Miami.

We arrived at the hotel a little after 10am and couldn't check into our room until 3pm. We decided to take the airport shuttle to the Dolphin Mall in Miami. The first stop we made at the mall was P F Chang's for lunch.

I thought it was funny that Barrett's fortune cookie word was "ship"! We shopped around the mall for awhile after lunch then found a nice patio to sit and get a drink. After our adventure at the mall, we caught the shuttle back to the hotel just in time to check in our room. We settled in our room, took a nap, and then ordered pizza for supper. We watched a little March Madness and then turned in for the night. Our check out time was 4:30am (3:30 our time at home) in order to catch our early flight home Sunday morning. We had a great day in Miami, but were both pretty sad our vacation was coming to an end!

Healthy Low Calorie Staples in Our Home

Like I mentioned in the last post, Barrett and I are trying to get healthy before the cruise! Our weight update this week is Barrett is down 15 pounds, while I am down 6.

The hardest part of this whole process for me is not the lifting weights and running. I actually really enjoy being active and love how it allows me stress relief after a long day at work. The hardest part is eating right! I have such a sweet tooth and I crave things that are not good for me. Barrett and I have been so excited about finding "different" healthy foods that we really enjoy. I wanted to share some of what we found through our journey.

Item #1 - Sensible Portions Veggie Chips

I found these little treasures on the same aisle as the rice cakes. They are not as expensive and they have less calories than baked lays potato chips. The best part....one serving = 38 chips = 130 calories!!! This is what the veggie chips look like out of the bag. They don't even taste like veggies, they taste just like potato chips (maybe even better)! Delicious!

The next two items I found to "silence" my sweet tooth.

#2 - Atkins Day Break Peanut Butter Fudge Crisp Bar

These are excellent! If you like peanut butter you will love these bars. They are a little pricey to me, but worth it to be able to satisfy my sweet cravings. One bar = 150 calories with 10 grams of protein and only 1 gram of sugar. We are able to get 5 of these bars at our local WalMart for just under $6.

#3 - Atkins Endulge Caramel Nut Chew Bar

We are able to get 5 bars in a box for under $5. Each bar has just 130 calories and they really are delicious! They actually taste just like a Snickers bar!


#4 - Hungry Jack Complete Wheat Blends Pancake Mix

Barrett and I love breakfast food, especially pancakes. We found these pancakes and LOVE them. You simply mix with water, and we usually add cinnamon to batter. We can split a one cup serving and each have 4 pancakes for a total of 225 calories. Pair the pancakes with sugar free syrup and it's a great low calorie breakfast (or in our case usually supper)!


#5 - Great Value Egg Whites

Again, I do most of my shopping at WalMart and the Great Value brand is a lot cheaper than the other name brands. If I find the generic brand is comparable in price I always buy it. I had tried liquid egg whites before and really couldn't remember how I felt about them. I bought these as an experiment for us to try, and we LOVED them. We like to scramble them with a little bit of cheese. The best part about these? The entire carton is only 500 calories. One carton usually lasts us 3-4 meals.


#6 - Diet Lipton White Tea with Raspberry

When I first bought this drink I was skeptical, but they have really grown on me. I prefer these over the diet green teas, and really enjoy them slushy. Each tea is 0 calories. You can buy a 12 pack for under $6. I love drinking these with my afternoon snack.

#7 - Great Value Decaffeinated Iced Tea with Peach

These are great to add to a bottle of water for only 5 calories. I believe you can get a box of 10 packets for $2-3. They usually will also satisfy any sweet craving I have!

Hopefully someone reading the blog may see one of these snacks they want to try. If you try one and like it, please leave me a comment!

Getting Healthy

I really haven't had much to blog about lately. We have had a few snows here in the past several weeks, but I didn't do a great job of taking pictures. Barrett and I have mostly been working and also working on our fitness! We were needing some motivation to get started eating healthy and running again. Our motivation came when mom and dad planned a cruise vacation for our family to go on in the spring! You talk about motivation!!! We cannot wait to go on the cruise and we want to be looking good in our swim suits! ;)

You may remember me talking about the Couch to 5K program back at this blog post. While I really loved this training program, I really wanted to do more cardio than 30 minutes three times a week. Since I enjoyed the 5K program I started researching the Couch to 10K program. Then I found the app on my iPhone! I LOVE IT!!!

This app tracks your workout, you can listen to your music and it tells you when to jog/walk during your workouts. You can even post to facebook when you finish a workout!

Here is what the display looks like on your phone!

Barrett and I just started the week 4 workout today. It is definitely more cardio, and we can feel our endurance improving. Today we did jogging/walking intervals for 62 minutes and covered over 4 miles. Whew, it was quite the work out!

Another thing we have been doing is watching our calories. While I don't have a lot of weight to lose, I want to eat healthier. Another app I came across on my phone has definitely made calorie counting easy! The app is called "Lose It" and it is a free app on the iPhone.

Not only does it have a database of restaurant and supermarket foods for calories, it will also determine how many calories you burn during exercise. It is such a great app!

Finally, we have been getting in the weight room at least twice a week. I am mainly sticking with one workout focusing on legs and the other on arms. I have been proud of us for sticking with our program for 4 weeks! We have already seen changes. Barrett has lost 11 pounds and I lost 5. I'll try to update the blog as we continue to see progress!

5th Quarter

One of the local churches in our area sponsored a 5th quarter last Saturday after one of the basketball games. Barrett and I stopped by to spend some time with the students. The students ate, played games, and just had a good time of fellowship. I thought it was such a great idea since there really isn't anywhere for them to "hang out" in town after the games.

The picture above shows me and B with our "king and queen of 5th quarter" gear. The students voted by round of applause who should win, and we did! Ha! The glasses and hat were hilarious!

The group played several games. One of the games I had never played before and it was quite interesting! There was a line of boys and a line of girls. Everyone had a toothpick that they had to keep in their mouth. The first person in line was given a life saver and had to transport the life saver from their toothpick to the person in line behind them. It was a really funny game. Check out the pictures below...

Barrett and I had a great time stopping by the 5th quarter. I hope they continue to offer things like this for the students in the community!