La Petite Chic

Honfest 2009

Finally!!  The photos I've been promising from Honfest way back in June.  My parents were born and raised in Baltimore and I was born and raised in Baltimore until I was three so I would say that's enough to make me an honorary hon!  I absolutely adore this festival.

A hon sitting patiently for her beehive.

Two lovely hons hamming it up for my camera.

 

There were a few guy hons too!

 

This crabcake won the record for the world's largest crabcake.  After the record was won, they sold pieces of it to the crowd.  I love my crabcakes, but you couldn't have paid me to eat that thing!

 

Even the little ones get dressed up!  (Funny true story: My mom used to put pink foam curlers in our wet hair before bedtime when my sister and I were little girls.  To keep the curlers from falling out, she would stick a pair of our clean underwear on our heads!  We used to giggle so hard over that.)

 

Those were some serious beehives!

 

Yes, that is a dog with a beehive and no, Lola would never allow such a thing on her head.  You can't deny the cuteness though!

 

I think she likes it.  Look at that smile!

Jimmy Buffett Summerzcool Tour - Camden, NJ Edition

What. An. Awesome. Time.  Every year it gets better and better, probably because each year we improve our tailgate and get more creative.  This time we brought a pop-up tent and thank god we did because it rained almost the whole day, really, up until the concert began.  Jon made margaritas from scratch and that made all the difference in the world.  Yes, it rained almost the whole day but we didn't let that spoil our fun.

Yes, this was a real, live parrot.  Or some sort of tropical bird...I'm no bird expert!

This tailgate had a "Bob for Pickles" station set up.  I love pickles and I always loved bobbing for apples as a kid so I just couldn't resist.  Jon got plenty of high fives from the guys because I grabbed that pickle in a few seconds flat!   Hee hee :)

 

I'm not exaggerating when I say people go balls to the wall at a Buffett tailgate. 

Exhibit 1:  A freaking volcano and bow of a ship!

 

Exhibit 2: A fully functioning shark-mobile!

 

Exhibit 3: Not one, but two blenders! (Serving delicious rum runners and margaritas, respectively).

 

Exhibit 4: A full-sized tiki bar!  Maybe next year we'll bring one of our own. :)

 

There was also limbo...which I earned a shot of tequila for.

 

And a parrot taller than Jon!

 

You end up making friends with everyone you meet! 

 

Of course when you get into the concert, your lawn seats are so very far away from the stage, but the music is loud and wonderful and that's all that matters.

 

Ahh, Buffett...how I love thee.  We get to do this all over again in September for the Labor Day weekend show in Bristow, VA.  We can't wait!

On Driving in New Jersey (BAD) and Sherry's Bridal Shower (GOOD)

Let me start this post with an apology to the people of New Jersey:  I'm sorry.  I said some really awful stuff about your state on Sunday.  Stuff that would make a sailor blush and stuff that I thought back on later and thought, "Holy crap!  Where did I even come up with some of those curses?" 

In my defense, I was lost and late, two of the things I hate most in life.  When I'm lost, I get scared and frantic and when I'm late, I get irritable and anxious.  Those things do not add up to a pleasant Kate, as Jon can attest to when I called him frantically from some highway in New Jersey that morning.  Somehow I almost ended up in Staten Island, as in one of the five boroughs of New York City, when I was supposed to be on the Jersey shore for a bridal shower. 

Best of all, my iPhone crapped out on me.  Like screen froze, couldn't even power the damn thing off crapped out on me.  Thankfully, it re-booted itself five minutes after I tossed it on the passenger seat in disbelief and I was able to call Jon to get me the hell out of dodge.  All I'm saying, New Jersey, is that it would be helpful to label the Garden State Parkway road signs with it's appropriate title and not some green symbol and a large P because that was not at all useful to an out-of-state driver. 

I did eventually make it to the bridal shower, even before the bride, and promptly rewarded myself with a margarita for my efforts.  To say that this shower was organized would be an understatement.  There was a trivial pursuit theme and each category had something to do with the bride, Sherry.  There was a category by the drink section (i.e. What is Sherry's favorite mixed drink) and a category by the gifts, her childhood photos , etc. 

Sherry happens to be one of my best girlfriends from college.  She was one of my teammates and roommates and we, along with two other teammates/roommates, called ourselves The Core.  Sherry and I share a particularly important bond, however, because we both specialized in the 3k steeplechase as our race.  We've suffered through intense hurdle workouts and survived jumping over and in freezing cold water pits together and I love her to pieces.  I can't wait for her wedding next month! 

Sherry, the gorgeous bride

 Taylor, our fellow CORE member and a bridesmaid

Lisa, Sherry's twin sister and Maid of Honor

Sherry opening one of the many gifts she received.  I think we succeeded in showering Sherry with everything she and Matt will need for their marriage!

Sherry and I did take a photo together but the girl who took it completely cut our heads off!  Oh well!

Some Beach, Somewhere....

I must admit that recovering from oral surgery at the beach is the way to go.  Sunshine, cold beer, yummy (soft) seafood, salt water...what more could you need? 

We stopped by Seacrets before dinner one night and saw the cutest little family of ducks swim by the pub tables in the water.  

I love going there because the atmosphere reminds me so much of Sandals resorts.  You know, drinking in the water, island music, people hanging out in swimsuits...my kind of place!  Jon brought our son, Pleepleus, along to join in the fun.

On a recommendation from my uncle, we discovered a new hangout, Fish Tales, that we absolutely fell in love with.  Like Seacrets, it also faces the bay side and has colorful adirondock chairs lining the docks.  The crowd was a little more mature, not really in age, but in behavior, so it was a nice place to grab drinks and dinner after a long day at the beach.  Apparently I was so enamored with it that I forgot to take pictures, but here's one I grabbed from their website.

Pretty, huh?  As I mentioned in my last post, my parents were in Ocean City for the annual Ravens Roost Convention.  They held a big parade on Saturday and each Roost entered floats with a tiki bar theme.  My dad's Roost didn't win, but I thought their float was pretty amazing, regardless.

They even had a moving shark swimming after a Raven!

My favorite float was one made entirely from soda cans, mostly Welch's to be exact.

Can you imagine how much soda they had to drink?  Mind you, this float was huge; it was being towed by a tractor trailer!

Like most beach vacations, ours ended much too soon, but it was so nice to get away for a long weekend.  We'll be back in July for a whole week with Jon's family.  I'm already counting down the days!

Fun With Campfires

Let me premise this post with a statement: Jon and I are not campers in the traditional sense.  We don't do tents and we don't do hiking boots and we don't start our own fires from scratch.  We're more of the cabin, flip flops and fire starter-using kind of campers and we're okay with that.  (Though I've been swearing up and down for years that I could totally win Survivor because it's always the small, skinny girls that go far.  'Course their huge boobs might also be a factor, but I'm just saying, I could totally rock Survivor if given the opportunity).

Anyhow, our friends Allison and Ryan invited us to go camping with a group of their friends at the beautiful and historic Harpers Ferry.  They mentioned cabins and beers and s'mores and we said, "We're in!"  Save for a few run-ins with large, buzzing insects and some rainy weather on Sunday, we all had a blast and promised to make it an annual tradition.  All photos below are courtesy of the lovely Allison.

What better way to spend a Friday night then by playing flip cup by the light of the fire?

Jon and I were in charge of breakfast on Saturday morning and we made omelettes in baggies over the campfire.  Yes, eggs + baggies + fires = omelettes.  Did I just blow your mind?  They're magical omelettes!

We went on a short hike on the riverbank which led us into the town of Harpers Ferry.  The town itself actually sits on cliffs above the river(s).

Saturday night started out innocently enough...(and yeah, no makeup, I must really love you guys)

But a few rounds of beer pong and flip cup later, Jon and I were up to our old routine of rodeos and goofiness.

Any night that ends with warm, ooey-gooey delicious s'mores (just look at the perfect toast on that marshmallow!) is pretty close to heaven in my eyes.

I think I'll wait until tomorrow to share my super, secret best-ever garage sale find with y'all since I loaded you down with photos in this post.  It's totally worth the wait, I promise.

St. Lucia and Barbados

For San Juan, St. Thomas and St. John, click here and for St. Maarten and Antigua, click here. 

We had a bit of rain in St. Lucia, but that didn't stop us from going into town and exploring a bit.  We did some window shopping, then found a tiny little bar that overlooked the sea.  Jon and stopped in for a beer (Piton, the national beer, named after their famous mountain peaks!) and watched the rain fall until it finally dwindled into sunshine.  Typical St. Lucian weather!

 

St. Lucia is often described as the Hawaii of the Caribbean, and if you've ever been to Hawaii, you'll understand why.  It's very tropical and green with lush plants covering the rolling hills and mountain peaks.  It's breathtakingly beautiful with small lagoons scattered about, surrounded by colorful houses. 

 

This trip marked our first time back to St. Lucia since our honeymoon in September 2006.  We actually went to two islands on our honeymoon because Jon and I both felt very strongly about where we wanted to go so we figured, why not do both?  You only go on your honeymoon once, right?!  Jon picked St. Lucia and we decided to go there first because the atmosphere seemed more relaxed and secluded and we figured we would need that after the excitement of our wedding!  It was perfect.  (In case you're wondering, we went to my pick, Jamaica, for the other half of our honeymoon.)

Imagine my surprise when our cruise ship sailed out of port and we passed right by the Sandal's resort we stayed at!  I took over 40 pictures because I was so excited, but I managed to narrow it down to one for you all to see.  Notice that blue building peaking over the right side of the main building?  Jon is convinced that was our honeymoon villa.  It was definitely around there somewhere, but I'm not so sure that was the villa.  Regardless, it was pretty cool to see that place where we spent our first week as husband and wife.

 

I took this picture of Jon as we were sailing out of port.  Rain brings rainbows and this was one of many of the gorgeous ones that we saw throughout the week.  Doesn't hurt that it's right behind my gorgeous husband too!

 

This was the only group portrait that we managed to get the whole week.  The only time you're ever really all in one place is when you're at dinner and this is exactly when it was taken.  From top to bottom, left to right:  Joani (my mother-in-law), Eric (my father-in-law), Linda (my mom), me, Jon, John (my dad), Tiffany (my cousin-in-law) and Bradley (my cousin).  We really had such a good time with everyone.  I couldn't have asked for better and more fun-loving parents, in-laws or cousins and of course, my incredible husband who loves to travel as much as I do!  I'm such a lucky girl.

 

Our very last port of call was Barbados and it was certainly worth the wait.  We took our third and final snorkeling trip here where we visited a popular sea turtle hangout and a shipwreck.  Can you make out the skate (kind of like a stingray, but mainly found in warm seawater) in the sand below?

 

We also saw another beautiful rainbow from end to end.  I haven't seen this many rainbows since my family and I visited Scotland when I was younger!

 

We waited and waited and waited for a turtle to come and I had just given up and gotten back on the boat when one finally decided to visit.  I jumped back in for a closer look and it was really one of the coolest things I've seen.  It glided so gracefully through the water and was such a serene and peaceful creature.

 

The shipwreck was actually a submerged barge that was sunk there as an artificial reef.  All of the wrecks Jon and I have dived and snorkeled on have been submerged barges, but they're still pretty cool because they attract a lot of fish. 

 

After we were done snorkeling, we went to a beautiful beach with our rum punch in hand.  Here I am looking for more seashells.  The racerback on my bikini is totally what made me fall in love with it.  I think it's safe to say that this is my favorite swimsuit EVER! 

Now this is what I call paradise.  Just look at the blue of that water and the sand on the beach.  That's our boat in the distance.  And of course, rum punch in hand!

 

I found these baby hermit crabs when I was searching for seashells.  They were so tiny and they tickled when they crawled across my hands. 

 

If I were ever stranded on a deserted island, Jon is definitely the person I would want to be stranded with me.  Especially if he brought rum punch along too! :)

 

This was the view of Barbados from our ship.  Isn't it exquisite?  I would love to spend a whole week there.

 

The second formal dinner on the cruise was that night and I finally got to wear my emerald dress!  I love it so much that I think I'll be wearing it to every wedding we attend this year!  May as well get my money's worth.

 

This was the very last picture I took, the striking view from our balcony.  Le sigh.  Until next time, Caribbean. 

 

St. Maarten and Antigua

To start at the beginning in San Juan, St. Thomas and St. John, click here.

I think St. Maarten is my favorite port of call.  They have it all; white sandy beaches, warm, calm water and lots of duty-free shopping, all within walking distance or a short water taxi ride away from the dock.  It's a trifecta of awesomeness!  In the bottom of the photo below, you can just make out the construction area of the new dock being built in anticipation of the Genesis of the Seas, Royal Caribbean's newest ship.  When the ship is completed, it will be the largest cruise ship in the world, with a passenger capacity of 6,400!  Jon has already decided that we'll be cruising on it at some point. 

The first thing we did upon arriving in St. Maarten was renting beach chairs and an umbrella for the day.  When you walk along the boardwalk, you are immediately met by locals trying to get you to sit in their chairs.  Jon and I have learned from previous visits to hold out and keep walking until you get to the chairs with the nice cushions, about halfway down the boardwalk.  We were able to rent four chairs, two umbrellas along with a bucket of 6 beers for only $20!  We bargained them down to that, of course!  That's the secret in the Caribbean...never pay what they ask for because they are always willing to go down in price.

We were some of the first people to arrive so we snagged a prime waterfront spot.  (Remember the purple bikini that I just had to have?  This is it!)

 

The beer of choice in St. Maarten, and much of the Caribbean, is Carib.  It comes with a lime and tastes very similar to Corona.  Very delicious and refreshing.

This is a side view of our beautiful ship at dock.  Believe or not, this class of ship is one of the smaller classes that Royal Caribbean boasts.

 

Jon and I always have to take this same sort of picture in the water.  He must have been a few beers in because he took about seven of these and this was the best one!

 

I remember taking this picture, trying to capture the gorgeous turquoise color of the water.  I didn't think it turned out until I uploaded and saw that it was pretty accurate.

Our next port of call was Antigua, an island which we considered honeymooning on.  We took our second snorkeling excursion with my parents and got to experience the beautiful water around the island.  They dropped anchor quite far out and the sea was a bit rough, but it was such a great experience.  One of the snorkeling guides actually led me far away from the group on my own private tour of the reef.  I grabbed his hand and we spent a good ten minutes snorkeling over spiny sea urchin and following colorful schools of fish.  The same guide later found a huge sand dollar for me and presented it to me on the boat. 

Jon is great in the water and has no trouble going all the way down to the bottom so that I can take fun pictures of him.  If you've noticed, all the pictures of me snorkeling are taken from below.  I just can't seem to dive down under the water when I have a life vest on!  I just bobble right back to the top!

 

This reef had a lot of beautiful plants and bright blue fish.  You can see one peeking out of a nook below.

Once we were back on board, our captain and crew served us pimiento cheese sandwiches and you guessed it, rum punch!  Jon and I sat on the front of the catamaran enjoying our treats and watched a storm roll in beside us.  A funny note about snorkeling excursions and rum punch...you will not be served any rum punch until after the snorkeling part of your trip is done.  There will be no drunk snorkeling!

 

They sailed the catamaran right onto the beach where we spent some time sunbathing and enjoying the water.  I love the photo of my mom below.  Can you see the heart shape surrounding her in the water?

 

This is typically how you'll find me on any beach, hunched over looking for seashells.  There are some beaches where you aren't allowed to collect shells as they are protected under the Natural Wildlife laws, but most of the beaches we visited had a plethora of seashells for the taking.  I'll share what I did with my collection of shells in a later post.

 

In case you're wondering what the staterooms are like on the cruise, here is what ours looked like.  It's quite small, but you're really only in there to shower and sleep.  For the first time in our brief cruising history, we had a room with a balcony and absolutely loved it!  I would go out on it every morning to greet the day and we also hung out on it in the evenings, while getting ready for dinner.  We would order a cheese plate from room service (FREE!) and enjoy a red bull and vodka while sitting in our chairs and watching the sea below us. 

For those of you who might not know this, Jon proposed to me on our very first cruise together, just about in the same spot where I'm standing.  Aww!  I actually don't think I've ever told the proposal story on here, so I'll have to share that at some point.

 

Also, please note my running shoes and workout clothes...we ran two miles on the outdoor track almost every day.  It was a great way to burn all those extra calories we were consuming!

On this night, we had our "Repeater's Party" which is Royal Caribbean's way of thanking you for cruising with them again and being members of their Crown & Anchor Society.  You get to meet the Captain and there are trays of free drinks and hors d'oeuvres floating around.  I made Jon take this picture of a carved watermelon for me...go Richmond Spiders!

I enjoyed many glasses of free champagne at the party, thankyouverymuch!

 

Coming up in my next post, our last two destinations of St. Lucia and Barbados.  Don't miss it!

San Juan, St. Thomas and St. John

Since I have so many photos that I want to share with you all, I'm going to do it a couple of destinations at a time... (click on photos to enlarge, if you fancy)

Our trip began in beautiful San Juan, Puerto Rico.  In anticipation of the gorgeous weather, I boarded the plane wearing a safari dress over leggings, which I stripped off as soon as we landed.  It was wise choice in theory, but I forgot to consider that the metal buttons would set off the alarms in security resulting in a lovely body pat-down by the lady TSA agent. 

Our hotel was just a few blocks from the beach, which we took advantage of as soon as we dropped our luggage off in our room.  We stopped at a tiny, yet busy, restaurant en route to the beach where Jon and I shared a mofongo.  What's a mofongo, you ask?  It's pure deliciousness, that's what it is!  Really though, it's a native Puerto Rican dish of plantains mashed with olive oil and various spices and includes a meat of your choice.  We opted for chicken and wasted no time in scarfing it down.  I was really proud of myself on this vacation because I stepped out of my normal food boundaries almost every single day.  A cruise is the perfect time to do this because your meals are included in the cost and really, if you don't like it, you can send it back, or if you have a husband like Jon, he'll finish it for you!

Compared to other islands, this was an expensive rental fee for a chair and umbrella for the day.  I couldn't resist this picture though.

 

After lunch and our stroll on the beach, we caught a taxi to Old San Juan, one of my favorites cities in the Caribbean.  You may remember my photos from last year.  I just can't resist the beautiful colors of their homes.

Wouldn't you just love to relax on this balcony every morning?

 

Before we knew it, Saturday was upon us and we were finally able to board our ship.  We were on the Serenade of the Seas, which is a sister ship to the one we were on last year, Jewel of the Seas.  Jon tends to like the bigger ships because they have more to do on board and well, they're just larger, but I really love this class of ship because it's more intimate and you end up making friends with total strangers.

Our first port of call was St. Thomas, famous for it's duty-free shopping and gorgeous beaches.  You can sign up for excursions on the cruise (mini day trips) and St. Thomas held the first of the three excursions that we had planned throughout the week.  It turned out to be our favorite of our whole cruise, and quite possibly, out of all of our cruising experiences. 

We boarded a gorgeous catamaran in the port of Charlotte Amalie and it whisked us away to a beautiful snorkeling spot over a reef. 

Guess who joined us on our little adventure?  Yes, that's Pleepleus with the beautiful Charlotte-Amalie in the background!

 

On the way to our snorkeling spot, we sailed past none other than Eric Clapton!  Well, who knows if he was actually in there, but that is most definitely his private yacht according to our guide!

 

I had the forethought to sneak a roll from breakfast and used this to lure fish to me as we snorkeled in the sparkling turquoise water.  A handy trick learned from various SCUBA guides!

 

The fish below was Jon's favorite and he tailed it for a few minutes, getting some awesome shots in the process.  Just look at the teeth on it!  By the way, Jon's underwater camera case for his Canon was my Christmas gift to him.  He had one for his old Canon, but needed a new one for his new camera that he got for his birthday.  It takes wonderful pictures and can even go deep enough for SCUBA diving, though we didn't dive on this trip.

 

This school of fish loved my roll!

After snorkeling, the catamaran sailed us to a picturesque beach on St. John (another island to check off our list!).  Jon has carved our names in a heart on the sand on just about every beach he's visited, just one of the many reasons I love this man!  Unfortunately, this one got blurred by some water drops, but you get the idea.

Le sigh...isn't this dreamy?  And yes, totally posed!

 

One of the best parts of our excursion (or any excursion for that matter), was the rum punch that was served for our sail back to Charlotte-Amalie.  You will never taste the same rum punch twice in the Caribbean, of this I'm sure.  The version we had on this trip had nutmeg grated on top of it, making it slightly spicy which I loved!  We actually chose to do this excursion because it was described as a Champagne Catamaran Sail to St. John, with cheese and bread served as well.  All I had to read was champagne and cheese and I was sold!  Though I actually ended up drinking more rum punch than champagne (even though I'm not a rum drinker!) because it was just that good. 

This is what happens when you get a bunch of tourists drunk on rum punch on a catamaran cruise, then send them on their way back to town on a route that includes a terrifying stretch of road named Donkey Hill.  It was such a fun group of people!  I wish we had taken a video so that you could hear the "woo-hoo's!" and see the whole busload raise their hands in unison on every dip!

 

Drunk, no?  And don't you just love how the windows on the bus are heart shaped?

 

I had so much rum punch that shortly thereafter, I purchased a Bernard K. Passman piece in town that I never knew I wanted!  It is absolutely gorgeous, though it did blow my whole cruise budget in our very first port of call!  At least it's a collector's item!

After some shopping, we got back on board and Jon joined one of the poolside activities.  That boy never sits down!  I opted to enjoy a margarita instead.

It was our first formal night on the cruise, which I love and Jon abhors.  He has to wear a suit for work every day so it's not really a treat for him to do it while on vacation.  I, on the other hand, will find any excuse to don a pretty party dress!

I adore this photo of Jon's mom with her two favorite men...aren't they cute?  And wowza, doesn't Jon look just like his dad?!

 

Here's me with my parents, though my dad is making a funny face.  It's really so much fun to have our parents come along.  Now if only we could convince the rest of our families!  My cousin Brad and his wife Tiffany did join us for this cruise (so fun to have another couple our age along!), but they were celebrating Brad's birthday in a different restaurant that night.

 

Stay tuned tomorrow for St. Maarten and Antigua!

And We're Back...

Lest you all think that I fell overboard or that Jonathan and I decided to permanently stay in the Caribbean, I thought it was about time that I checked in to say "hello!" and to let you know that we made it back safe, tanned and much relaxed.  I was actually waiting to post until I had all of our pictures uploaded and categorized and labeled so that I could share them, but as that doesn't seem to be happening (they're at least uploaded), I didn't want to wait any longer to say hi.  So...hello!  I had a phenomenal time but I missed all of my blogosphere friends!

I've decided that rather than induce any stress or anxiety at having an astronomical amount of blogs to catch up on in Google Reader, I'm going to just push the handy "Mark All As Read" button and call it a day.  I hope you all don't mind, but there is just too much to catch up on at work and at home, so if I missed any big announcements, share it in the comments or send me an e-mail because I truly do care to know!

The weather has been quite a rude awakening, going from temperatures in the lovely and balmy 80's to temperatures in the not so lovely and frosty 30's.  Ughhh.  I really shouldn't complain too much as we did miss out on the ice storm last Tuesday and that's really the worst that we've seen this whole season.  The end to winter does seem close at hand, however, with a forecast of 57 and 62 respectively this Saturday and Sunday.  Thank goodness!

I promise I will post photos and perhaps a video in my next post so stayed tuned for those.  Don't forget to fill me in on what's been going on with you, too!

Leaving On a Jet Plane

Before I get started, I want to send a big congratulations to Maria P, the winner of my Pepsi Super Bowl Party Pack giveaway!  Though I no longer have a vested interest in the outcome of the game (ohh, my poor sweet Ravens...), I hope you enjoy hosting a fun party with your awesome prize!  Thanks to everyone who participated :)

Moving on, Jon and I leave for Puerto Rico in (ohmyholyheck) 10 hours!  I had planned to do a super packing post last night like I did for our European vacation, but I was having a seriously difficult time packing last night.  I got started at 7:30 PM, right after I kicked Jon out of the bedroom and out of my hair to go have a beer with our neighbor, figuring that I would be done in a couple of hours or so.

WRONG.  I didn't go to bed until after midnight last night and I didn't finish until 6:00 tonight.  I usually don't have a problem with packing but I just couldn't seem to get it right this time because I kept second guessing my choices.  Oh well, I decided to just give myself plentyof options so I think I'll be fine, rain or shine, fancy or casual.

We've had this cruise booked since last January and I'm thrilled that it's finally here!  The ship departs on Saturday so that means we have a day in Puerto Rico and then we'll set sail for St. Thomas, St. Maarten, St. Lucia, Antigua and Barbados.  We haven't been back to St. Lucia since our honeymoon so it's going to be so lovely to get to spend some time there again.  We've never been to Antigua or Barbados though Antigua has been on our list of places to visit for quite some time so Jon and I are both very excited to finally see those islands.

I decided not to do guest bloggers as I think I'll try to check in at least once next week and say hello and post a quick update.  I'm not making any promises though!  I might get too swept up in the sunshine and margaritas to make a trip to the internet lounge!  When we return, we'll be meeting with our realtor to discuss our plan to get our condo sold, so I definitely want to make the best of this vacation before it's back to reality.  I hope you all have a wonderful week and I'll catch up with you soon!