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!

Date Night with 3 Guys

For Christmas I bought Barrett tickets to see "3 Guys", the comedy show with Larry the Cable Guy, Jeff Foxworthy, and Bill Engvall. Barrett always laughs at their jokes when he has watched them on tv, so I thought it would be a definite surprise to get him tickets. Friday night we went to the show.

Before the show we stopped and ate at Cracker Barrel and looked around the store inside. I thought this little decorative box was too cute and so true!

Here we are before the show!

We were only 14 rows from the stage, which was great! Sorry for the picture quality, I took this one with my iPhone!

We had a great night of laughs and it was wonderful having a night out with my best friend!

Build-A-Bear

For Christmas Barrett and I purchased a gift card to Build-A-Bear for our niece Aubrey. I couldn't wait for her to be able to make and dress a new teddy bear. Here are pictures I took while she made her bear "Princess".

Here she is ready to get the stuffing!

Stuffing time!

Princess all stuffed!

Giving the bear's heart a hug!

And leaving the store! Aubrey wanted to hold her bear's house. I thought this was too cute because you can't even see her over the box!

I think her smile says it all!

Aubrey loving on Princess!

Being an aunt is honestly one of the best blessings in my life!

Thanks Aubrey for such a fun day!