princess cruise trip ~ day 1

Most of you who read this blog already know and have seen these pics on fbook. But for my own record of this trip, I am posting them on here. :)

So about a year and a half ago, I was talking to a friend about her 30th birthday and what she had done for it and started thinking that I wanted to do something totally fun and different when I turned 30 this year. So after looking at lots of options online and emailing lots of friends, I settled on a Princess cruise in December - that way my friends who were either teaching school or in school would be able to go on their Christmas break.

And honestly, I enjoyed every single minute of the anticipation leading up to it - starting a year ago even! I had decided I wasn't going to wish away the time until the cruise because then it would be there and gone. I was almost sad when it was time to leave for FL because I knew that in a week everything would be just a memory! :)

My family and Lauren, her mom and cousin all flew down to FL on Thursday since they found a cheap flight. Michael picked me up first thing Friday morning, Dec. 17th and then we went to pick up our friend Eric. This was my view from the back seat of the van for 7 1/2 hours! :) I would have taken a turn driving, but these two guys didn't mind driving and I was perfectly happy not driving. :}

Hi Michael. :)

I tend to get bored easily in the car usually. This trip actually went by pretty quickly though and it helped that I brought my laptop and sprawled out in the back seat watching dvds for a while! :)

We got to Savannah, GA in the mid-afternoon and picked up one of my roommates from college, Anita, at the airport and then headed to the old city part of Savannah to explore for a few hours while waiting for another friend to arrive and join us.

So beautiful...and so many cool spots for a photo shoot! If only Savannah weren't quite so many hours away.... :}

Boys..... :}

There were a lot of little shops like this one - kind of reminded me of Gatlinburg. I took this pic to show my kids - I could just imagine how big their eyes would be if I brought them here! lol

You're never too old to sit on Santa's lap!

My "ex". lol We were great roommates my sophomore year of college - and remained good friends even though we ended up with different roommates the last two years. (We jokingly called each other our "ex roommate"...which got shortened to just "ex".) She has a way of bringing out a side of me that not many people know exist...! No one else can make me fall asleep laughing at midnight...and then make me wake up laughing when we had to be up at 4:45am the next morning!! If you know me very well, you KNOW I am NOT a morning person AT ALL! So making me crack up when I first wake up...not to mention that early in the day...is amazing. :}

This is Eric. And the lights of Savannah.

After we left downtown, we wanted to make a last Wal-Mart run and while we were trying to trust our GPS to get us to the closest one...it was struggling! lol It ended up taking us through a neighborhood which turned out to be totally awesome because of this house! It had it's lights set to music and a sign in the yard telling you what radio station to tune your car to. Sooo cool!! I took a video...but it's too big to upload here. Oh well.

My friend (also from college) Erin is from close to Savannah. She had us meet her at her all-time favorite seafood restaurant for dinner before heading over to her parents' house to crash for a few hours before continuing on to FL. Eric and Anita both got something other than seafood. Erin and Michael shared this crab and shrip thing. Michael had never had this crab before....he might have loved it just a little bit. :) I got the best fried catfish I have ever had!! Mmm.

We arrived at Erin's parents' house after dark...and after sleeping for a few hours, we left again in the dark. Eric drove for a while and the rest of us slept some more. After the sun came up...mostly hidden by clouds and rain...we were up and ready to hang out and just enjoy being together. Since we all (except for Anita) had ipods, we played "guess this song" for a while and I grabbed the camera while Anita and Erin... well... you can see for yourself. :D

Day 2 coming soon! :)