Sunday, March 31, 2013

I'm Engaged!


  For those of you that don't personally know us,Cole and I have been dating since August 2007. Yes, if you do the math that means we have been together for over 5 years and yes, that does mean we are "High School Sweethearts" even though we didn't go to the same high school.

      On our cruise a couple weeks ago Cole took the big step, well the Giant Kneel and proposed to me, and it couldn't have been more adorably perfect! My boo did amazing. You see when you have been together forever its hard to surprise one another and its even harder to keep a secret from each other. (well at least it is for us...we literally tell each other everything.) In fact we have had several conversations about getting engaged and married well before it actually happened. Cole asked forever ago how I wanted him to propose, my response was "that's your thing, you decide how to do it and when to ask...but ideally it would be outside since we enjoy the outdoors so much."

      He took that comment into consideration and make it ten times better! When we booked the cruise I expressed to him how excited I was to go to St. Thomas because it was were my parents honeymooned at and they always talked about how beautiful the island was. I never in a million years though that he would think to propose there.

His Proposal:
    We got into St. Thomas late due to a crew member emergency our ship had to port at the port that is further away from the main town in St. Thomas. Since we had to port so far away our excursion had the option of canceling it, but we were really looking forward to our excursion so we chose to keep our excursion and get a taxi over to the main part of the island. The excursion we were looking forward to is the Skyride. The Skyride is a sky lift that takes its passenger up to paradise point, which is the highest point in St. Thomas. We got on the ride, which since I have a slight (major) fear of heights so I may or may not have had a bit of a panic attack riding up there. Although I was fearing I would die the whole way up the view on the ride up was breathtaking. When we got off the ride, there were stairs up to an outlook to where we could see the whole island, the cruise ships in port, the neighboring islands, and the beautiful downtown area. When we got up to the top it was pretty crowded so I wandered around and snapped a few photos of the gorgeous views, and then I was ready to head down to the shops and bar that was right below the look out. (I am not a huge fan of big crowds and I don't like feeling like I am in the way) I kept asking Cole if he was ready, and saying "Okay, Lets go down there!" and trying to convince Cole to go to the bottom and walk around. He kept saying, we will in a few, we need to wait on Sam and Deidre, and lets stay up here for a few more...(Clearly at the time I didn't know the plan, and I didn't know I was making it ten times harder for him to ask me.) Cole finally was like lets walk over here real quick, and I was all like Okay as long as we can go down there soon... (I know I'm obnoxious!). Then I noticed Cole was walking with his hand in his pocket...which he never does, and of course, being even more obnoxious I asked Cole why his hand was in his pocket. Literally two seconds later Cole turns to me gets down on his knee and asks me, "Will you marry me!" I literally freaked out, I was in disbelief at first (for a split second, and responded nuh-uhh, really?! really?!), I honestly barely let him get the full question out before I grabbed the ring, hugged him and cried like a baby all at the same time. Cole did an amazing job, he surprisingly kept it a secret from me, caught me completely off guard, and blew me away with how romantic and adorable his proposal was! I am a very happy, very proud and very excited fiance!

Cole and I at the highest point in St. Thomas

Part of the Amazing View Where Cole Proposed

My Boo Proposing

Look at that Cute Smile :)


After I said Yes! 

                               
He was Obviously Happy I said Yes 
Showing off the New Bling with my Fiance! 

Friday, March 29, 2013

Cruising the Seven Seas....well the Caribbean.

    Sorry I have been on a bit of a hiatus from the blog. I have had a whole bunch going on, mostly exciting things! Cole and I took a week off of work a few weeks ago and went on a cruise with my best friend and her boyfriend (also Cole's Friend). We took a seven day Carnival cruise, and we all had an absolute blast! The ports we went to were Nassau, Bahamas; St. Thomas and San Juan, Puerto Rico. We were supposed to go the Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos as well but do to some health concerns we were unable to port there the day we were supposed to.  The following are photos from the amazing trip! I am excited to see what other trips are in our futures together. 
Aren't they adorable!
Sam and Deidre ready to start vacay
   
Cole and I, enjoying our first day of Vacation! 

The view of Miami from our ship leaving

All of us cute excited besties on the first day! 

 The Bahamas: 
    Originally we all had planned to do a clear kayaking trip in the Bahamas. Unfortunately the first few days of our trip the water was very choppy so when we ported in the Bahamas the recommended that we cancel our trip and we would receive a free refund. To quote the gentleman we talked to we could do the excursion  but " you'll all be very very sore the rest of the week, after you fight the choppy current." So we decided to get our refund and just explore the island. We all enjoyed the port but if I were making recommendations or I were to personally go back to that specific port I would definitely make sure to do an excursion...the island is not exactly the nicest, and there really isn't a whole lot of tourist options in town other than bars and shopping. We ended up wandering around through the town for a while, and ended our time in port hanging out in the good ole Senor Frogs. For those that don't know Senor Frogs is a bar/restaurant franchise that has all of its locations at well known tourist beach locations. (There is one in Myrtle Beach, SC too).

Deidre and Me at Senor Frogs


Sam and Deidre :) 

Besties!

My boo! Love him! 

One of our FEW group shots! 

Starfish! 
Day at Sea:
    We ended up having three days at Sea while we are on the cruise due to our last port being canceled. The majority of our time was spent at the hot tube or enjoying some drinks in the sun at the adults only deck during our days at sea. Also during the days at sea there were several shows and such for entertainment. Cole and I chose to pay more to enjoy a nice dinner at the Steakhouse on the cruise. I must say when we originally planned to pay extra money to eat at a nice restaurant on a cruise where we already had paid for all of our meals seemed kind of strange and silly to do but we figured we might as well see if it was worth the money and enjoy a nice dinner together. The extra money spent was definitely worth it, the meal was amazing! Surprisingly the meal was also very very large. I was so stuffed by the end of dessert I was miserable, but I really enjoyed the dinner with my boy!

Me and Cole after dinner

Don't we clean up well? 

St.Thomas:
     I was looking forward to St. Thomas the most out of all the ports we were supposed to stop at, and it definitely did not disappoint. When we got into port we had to get a taxi across the island to do our excursion. Our excursion we chose to do was a ride on the Skyride. The skyride is basically what it sounds like, its a sky lift up to the highest point in St. Thomas called Paradise Point.  The views were breathtaking. When we got done taking in the views we went to the bar there and enjoyed the islands specialty drink, it was called a bushwaker. It was delicious, it tasted like a mudslide but better. After we wandered around the island some on our own and made a stop at a tiki bar we tried to get a cab ride back to the ship. Well our cab ride turned into a cab tour through the whole island and our cab drivers buddy gave us a full on tour and took us to several beautiful overlooks on the island.
all of us at one of the outlooks. 
San Juan, Puerto Rico:
     Our last port of call we were able to go to was San Juan. We decided to go to the Bicardi distillery as our excursion. The actual tour of the distillery was pretty cool, and it just added to the tour that at the end we all got to try two drinks for free at the bar at the distillery.  When we got done with the tour we found a little hole in the wall restaurant in the downtown area and man was it good! Trying little local restaurants is probably one of my favorite things to do in new places.
Me and my boy at Bicardi
 All in all the trip was really fun!