1st Anniversary and 2nd Anniversary

I was skimming through some old blog posts and I found this one.  Apparently, I saved it, but never posted it.  Oops.  Better late than never...

Since I was such a slacker with blogging last year, I never blogged about my 1st anniversary--and I took pictures and everything so today you get two posts in one.  I will tell you about my fist anniversary and my second anniversary.

Our first anniversary was on a Saturday--nice timing!  Early in the afternoon I made grilled cheese sandwiches--not very romantic I know, but we both like them.  We then ate our wedding cake--it was really good, I was a bit nervous about eating cake that had been frozen for a whole year, but it was still tasty--and we drank some delicious wine in our wedding toasting glasses.  We also watched our wedding video.  Then it was time to head out of town.  I am a big Bryan Adams fan and he was playing at a casino not too far from us.  My husband doesn't love Bryan Adams, but he does enjoy going to a casino a couple of times a year so he got me tickets for a present and I agreed to spend some time in the casino.  So we drove down, checked into our hotel, and then headed to the casino.  We walked around, gambled a little.  Then Mike went to play some game while I poked around the shops.  We went to a seafood restaurant for dinner and shortly after that it was time to go see Bryan Adams.  He put on a great show.  I enjoyed it.  Even my husband said it was a good show and like I said he's not really a Bryan Adams fan.  A little tiny bit of gambling, a snack stop, and then we caught the shuttle back to our hotel.  It was a pretty good first anniversary.  Below are pics from before we left for the hotel, at the hotel, and at the concert.

Wine from our honeymoon that we saved for this event.  

Some people just dont' cooperate when you try to take their picture.  :-p

Our hotel room

Attempting a selfie at the hotel

Our second anniversary was sadly much more low key because 1.  it was on a Monday and 2.  it was the day after I got home from Ireland.  We went out to dinner to a local fancy restaurant we'd never been to before.  Mike offered to make reservations, but I figured it wouldn't be busy on a Monday night so not to bother.  Wrong!  It was a half hour wait so we just got a drink while we waited.  Then we had dinner.  It was expensive, but delicious.  And then it was time to go home because Mike had to get up early for work the next day.  (As it turned out so did I, but I didn't know that at the time, they called me that moring to see if I could come in and fill in for someone.)  The pics didn't come out so good.  I saw on pinterest a thing where on your first anniversary you take a picture of you and your spouse holding your wedding picture, then on your second anniversary you take a picture of you holding your 1st anniversary picture, etc.  We'll see how it turns out, but in theory you can look back on decades of anniversary pics in one picture.

 Watching our wedding DVD

Day 8 Home Again Cold Again

On day 6 of the cruise, I did spend some time outside, but on day 7, I stayed inside all day so when we got back to NYC and stepped off the boat around 9am it was a bit like getting smacked in the face since it was so cold!  A short (pricey) car ride to the bus stop where we went to a diner for brunch then it was time to board the bus and go home.  The bus made good time.  I was surprised at how early we got home (well back to K and B's place and then we drove home from there).  Just in time to order a pizza (hey one last night of not cooking) and do laundry before it was back to reality the next day.  It was a fun trip, but as they often do, it went by too quickly.

Days 6 & 7

It is taking me way too long to blog about this trip so I'm going to combine days 6 & 7 and try to finish this up soon.  Both days were "at sea" days.  They were relaxing and enjoyable.  Some highlights included:  reading outside on the deck, good food, good dessert/snacks, cute towel animals, sleeping in, watching karaoke, watching a comedy show, mango meltodwns--my favorite drink on the cruise, and a wine tasting--I'm not a huge wine fan, but I did learn that chocolate makes wine better.  I may have enjoyed some of the chocolate more than the wine ha ha.  I took very few pictures the last two days and none worth posting so there you go, a nice short post.

Day 5 Nassau

Day 5 we were in Nassau.  We had a tour of the island scheduled.  Some of the people on our tour were really loud and a bit annoying and our guide was not one of the best tour guides I've ever had, but I did enjoy getting to see Nassau.  We saw a lot of the big stops and enjoyed free:  rum cake, a shot of rum, and chocolate.  We spent a short while walking around The Atlantis Resort (cha ching cha ching, holy expensive looking) and we climbed the Queen's Staircase.  We also drove by some historical spots and the beach.  We enjoyed our tour of the rum distillery as well as our free samples of rum cake and chocolate.  When the tour finished, it was a little after noon and we were close to the cruise ship so we went back on the ship to drop off the few things we had purchased as well as our beach clothes since we decided to skip the beach (it was so crowded) and poke around the shops instead.  Once back off the ship we went to Senor Frogs for lunch then peeked at some of the shops. Then it was back to the ship.  We met up with K and B later and had dinner and drinks with them that evening.  That was our last stop.  Two more days at sea and then we'd be back home.  Ahh,  it was going so fast!

Day 4--The Best Day

I think day 4 was my favorite day of the cruise.  It was the day we went to Norweigian Cruise Line's private island, Great Stirrup Cay.  We had booked a cabana for the day and though it was a little pricey, it turned out to be worth the money.  The cabana was nice.  The food was delicious--sushi, fruit, hummus (that may or may not have been homemade--it was good), chips, etc.  And I enjoyed a few Mango Meltdown drinks.  Enjoyed time on a float in the water as well as time chatting with my husband and friends, and readin in the cabana.  My only complaint:  it went by too quickly.
That evening back on the ship we enjoyed the musical "Rock of Ages."  I forget where we had dinner and drinks that night, but most likely we made an appearance at the karaoke bar at some point.

Day 3 Drinks

Day 3 was our first stop.  We arrived in Port Canaveral, FL in the early afternoon.  We had a relaxing morning:  breakfast, gift shop, etc.  We had an excursion booked to the Florida Beer Company.  As you may know, I do not like beer, but this place had a variety of ciders available to try so I agreed to go.  We took a shuttle to the FBC, did a tour, and then had the rest of the afternoon to enjoy 5 free samples (yes, 5; they were 1/2 pint size) and some food.  I enjoyed the ciders and I tried Shandy for the first time.  It was good.  I also enjoyed a chocolate peanut butter popcorn snack--yum!  We ordered some food, which was really good.  I can't remember what kind of pizza it was now, but it was good and so were the rolls.  Then we headed back to the cruise late afternoon.  The people on our shuttle were a riot, lots of laughs.  We spent the evening enjoying dinner and doing some exploring on the ship.  Even got to play some ski ball and mini golf.  They had a 9 hole course on the ship.  It was so nice to be warm as usually in February I am home and cold.  :)

A Cool Day 2

Day 2 of the cruise was another day at sea. Since in typical me fashion it's taken me a while to write about what's happened I may be a little off on the details so suffice it to say day two consisted of eating, drinking, relaxing, a comedy show (er, that might have been on day 1), karaoke watching, and some trivia where I learned that the Jeopardy theme song was originally written as a lullaby and Christmas Island is part of Australia.  Despite my strong dislike of being cold, I braved the cold to go to an ice bar for a half hour--technically I only lasted 25 minutes.  I layered up as much as possible and the bar people gave everyone a coat and gloves, but I was still cold.  It was a "cool" thing to experience though.  At least now I can say I've been to an ice bar, and the drinks there were good there.  On an unrelated note, I would just like to add that the cruise had delicious macaroons and mini cupcakes (and you know since they're mini it's okay to get one three days in a row, right?).