Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a day that everyone should take to remember those who have given the ultimate sacrifice to put their lives on the line for our daily freedom. What would we do, had they not done what they did? Honestly, I think people need to think about these service men and woman more than just one day a year. When is the last time you said "thank you" and/or shook a hand of a man or woman you saw in uniform? Memorial Day is not all about the sales the stores may have, the drinks one may enjoy or a hamburger one may grill, but about thanking and remembering those men and women.   Retired.Active.Reserves.Young.Old.Dead.Alive.

My family doesn't have a huge history of military, but they are definitely present. Both of my grandfathers were military(USAF and Navy), as well as one of my grandmothers(Army and USAF..she was actually featured on a "Women in Military" stamp, which can be seen in the museum in VA). My uncle is a retired Navy SEAL. My husband is Active USAF. I could not be more proud to call them my family. And I get such a sense of pride seeing them(and any other service member) in uniform. They truly make me smile and remind me we have the freedoms we have, because of people like them.

So, on this Memorial Day...I say to you: Support our Troops. Tell them "Thank You!". If you can't stand behind them...You are more than welcome to stand IN FRONT of them!!

And to all Veterans who read this blog: THANK.YOU!!!! America would not be what She is today, if it weren't for YOU!

Week Two..

After spending 5 days in FL frying ourselves, we made our way back to Ohio. (This is when I vowed to not get on an airplane again for a long time! 5 different flights in a week...bleh!) That Saturday night, Tim McGraw was in town. If ya'll know me...you know he's my favorite country artist! We've been to a few of his shows and unfortunately, this was not his best show...but we still had a great time! Minus having to walk to/from the car in the rain...no bueno!

 Have I mentioned how much it has rained here!? When will it EVER go away!!!! Just last week, it started to clear up and we had temps in the 90s with sunshine...this week...its been raining all week and in the 50s. BUT I did see a glimpse of sunshine when leaving Target tonight!! woo hooo!!

Anyhow...I took it pretty easy throughout the week.  Caught up with some friends and family (Chipotle!! yumm!!), shopped a little, and then on Thursday made my way to Louisville.  I only stayed for the weekend, but next time I will def. be staying longer!! I have missed my other family (they know who they are) WAY too much!!!!!!!!!!!!! You really don't realise what you miss until you don't have it.  We went to a movie, went bowling, played some pool and just enjoyed each other. It was wonderful!

OH! How could I forget to mention that I got a haircut and my hair colored!!!!! I've been waiting for this for a very long time...I'd say about 9 months (ya know, since I left the States!).  It is slowly but surely going back to blonde...I'm over the dark hair...for now. LOL. Nothing like having the girls you are used to, fixing you up...and being able to speak to someone who understands what you want. What I love about these girls is I don't even need to say what I want, they already know! :) MAJOR thanks to Bree and Amy!


Before I went blonde..



The transformation :)

 While I am having a great time being back in the States, I sure am missing the heck out of my better half! Hurry up and get here, J-Twice!  The poor guy kept asking me where I was going for dinner and I always felt bad telling him where I was because I know he wants to be there too...soon enough, my love, soon enough! America can't wait to have you home for a while.

Stay tuned, and I'll attempt to do a better job at keeping this blog updated! :)

The Good 'Ol US of A....

Wow..it has really been a month since my last post! Now, I know TONS of stuff has happened in that last month...apparently so much that I've neglected this blog! Where do I even begin!?

Okay, so we got back from our cruise and I had 2 weeks until I packed up to come home to the States for a little while. In that 2 weeks, I was very busy!! Who would think one could be so busy when they don't work,but it happened. L, one of my (very) pregnant friends, is due in the very near future and I wanted to be sure that she got a baby shower before I left.  So, that took up a lot of our time...planning, making favors, and putting it all together. It turned out beautiful and she got lots of goodies! Unfortunately, I was making sure the shower was running smoothly, so I didn't get a chance to get any pics. So no showing that off!
The next day was Easter. Back home every year, mom always cooks. Well..this year...momma wasn't there to cook for me! :) So, I took it upon myself to cook our own meal. Had about 9 friends over and had a wonderful time together. I had never made a ham before (I know, it's not complicated..but still..) and it turned out delicious! We also had hash brown casserole, macaroni salad, deviled eggs, green bean casserole and a cake for dessert. Yummy!!! Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. Needless to say, we were all ready for a nap afterwards.
That Thursday is when I was scheduled to come home to the States.  My roll call was at 1150am and I "patiently" waited for them to call my name, so I could get on the flight. Soon enough, I was on my way. That trip was SO much better than the trip out to Turkey. It wasn't a full flight so I had an entire row to myself all the way to Germany. After a few hour layover in Germany, we got back on the plane to another fairly empty flight. ( I was SO thankful!) I only had one other person in my row, so the middle seat remained open and I was able to stretch out the entire flight. Mind you, the flight TO Turkey...we were packed in like sardines...it was miserable!!! We arrived in Baltimore, made it through Customs, retrieved my bags and made my way to the USO Lounge.  It was only 2230....my next flight wasn't until 920 the next morning. So, I sat. I think I slept 4 hours out of the entire trip (which was about 12 hrs of flying) and never went to sleep while I sat in the airport. I'm pretty sure I can thank my mind for thinking it was 530 instead of 2230. I watched a movie on my laptop, read my book, caught up on FB and Twitter, watched the Royal Wedding, walked around the airport and it was finally time to catch my flight to Columbus. I couldn't have been happier!!
Mom picked me up from the airport and we made our way to Abuelo's for lunch! It was delicious!!!! Not only was I eating in America, but I was having Mexican food..what more could I ask for!? :) I came home to shower, made a trip to Target (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and just spent some time with mom and sis! I never went to sleep..I basically exhausted myself so that I could sleep that night...needless to say..2100 came around and I was ready.for.bed!!
I did good with jet lag on Saturday but Sunday, I was a zombie!! I couldn't think straight and just needed to go to bed! But wait..I hadn't had enough of flying in the past two days I thought I would get on another plane and make my way to the beaches of Florida! And then I collapsed.  I spent the next 5 days frying my skin in the sun, wiggling my toes in the sand, and having a good 'ol time. 

Sunset at Treasure Island, FL

That was just the first week of being back in the good 'ol U.S. of A. And I'm loving every minute of it!

Mykonos, Greece

Another of my favorites: Mykonos, Greece. This island was beautiful and had lots of "beach areas". The only downfall to this island was that is was extremely windy!! We didn't reach this island until 6pm so being that the sun was setting, it didn't warm it up at all. Still didn't stop us from exploring the village and enjoying ourselves.  This village was full of beautiful shops, restaurants, churches, windmills,and houses. The buildings here are also whitewashed twice a year.

They have an area known as "Little Venice" because of its high-arcaded Venetian houses built right up to the water's edge. It was a nice little area to relax and enjoy the sunset and dinner.

We watched the most beautiful sunset while on this island. I have never seen one so amazing.

 Because I was being so adventurous (or that it was so good) I ordered another pizza for dinner. Not to mention,that when the other 3 people tried to order something off the menu, they said they didn't have it. So I was safe with pizza! It was delicious!

After we were done with dinner, the servers decided we needed "a shot, on the house". hmmm...okay, sure. Yeah, it tasted like Cherry syrup. But it was a memory. 

We still had a few hours before we had to be back to the ship, so we ventured around the stores, got some souvenirs again, and hung out. This island was probably my second favorite island. If only it were during the day, in the summer and I got to experience a beach day!


All in all, we had a fabulous time on our cruise, bought lots of souvenirs, made tons of memories and are most definitely glad we took the experience. Can not wait for our next excursion!

Piraeus, Greece

The following day we had another very early morning.  We disembarked again at about 715am. J-Twice decided to stay behind and sleep in this morning. I almost wish I would have stayed with him! ha ha  After much debate, we finally got in a cab and went exploring.  We headed towards the Acropolis of Athens and of course, after 4 pictures, my camera decided to die. Go figure. Thankfully I had 3 other people with me that take fantastic photos and don't mind me "stealing" their pictures! We saw the Parthenon, Temple of Zeus, Philopappos Monument, and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, to name a few!

After we visited these places, we headed toward the Parliament (or "home of 300 thieves" as our taxi driver called it! ha ha nice to see that is common all over the world and not just in America!)  and watched the changing of the guards at their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Quite the experience in such a short time! We only had 2 hours to see all of this, and could have used much more. The architecture around there was just astounding! That is one thing I love about visitng all of these places.  I wish we could have had more time to explore more of the city life and not just the history, but at least we saw something. This def. wasn't one of my favorite places, but it still was better than Crete, in my opinion!

Santorini, Greece

After about 5 hours of sailing, we arrived at my most favorite island of them all, Santorini.  This island was ah-may-zing!! I loved it! Beautiful white buildings (which we found out they paint every year and that is why they are so white! ha,tricksters!), cobblestone paths, magnificent views, and lots of shops to roam! We arrived at this island by tender boat and had 3 ways to reach the top of the cliff.  Your options were: cable car, donkey ride, or a strenuous walk up 588 steps (which, by the way, is the same path the donkeys take...so watch where you step!).  I, of course being the adventurer that I am, chose to ride the donkey. Hello, haven't you ever seen Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants when Lena goes to visit her grandparents and rides the donkey to their home?! I wanted to experience that myself! After we returned home, I watched the movie and saw exactly where that scene took place. It was so cool! And was also cool to see "Oia Village in Santorini, Greece" listed at the end of the movie!

Kerisa, her husband and I were the only brave ones to attempt the donkey ride. All the others took the easy way out and rode the cable car up the cliff. It was awesome!! My donkey couldn't decide if he wanted to take it slow and easy or beat the herd (he went back and forth..fast then slow). They walk in a zig zag, stop for a snack when they want to (unless it was like mine and had a muzzle on his mouth), and run into each other which meant me having a donkey's rear in my knee at one point or being able to hug the person on the other donkey. ha ha It was definitely a lifetime experience, something I will never, ever forget.  Once they took us to our stopping point, we still had about 50 steps we needed to climb to reach the center of the Village. 

 We stopped at a couple shops and bought some hand painted pictures of the Village and then roamed around trying to find the rest of the crew. The 3 of us roamed around for at least an hour trying to find the others who left us behind. We eventually ran into them and realised we were in complete opposite directions of each other, but we got to see some things they didn't and vice versa. 

Once we finally found each other, we decided it was time for dinner.  Once again, we chose to take part in the Island's cuisine.  We found a restaurant that had a beautiful view of the Mediterranean Sea and we were able to watch the sunset. It was beautiful. 

Now, because I am chicken and don't exactly like to try to venture out and try new things when it comes to food, I stuck with Pasta.  This wasn't exactly what I expected but it was only spaghetti noodles drowned in garlic. ha ha No kidding, I was tasting garlic for hours, even after brushing my teeth multiple times! James ordered a Gyro (since you know, we're in Greece and all) He thoroughly enjoyed it! One of the other couples got an appetizer which had mussels on it (GROSS!!!!) and James had one of those...bleh.

It was a very enjoyable dinner had by all. Oh, how could I forget to mention the most amazing bread and the delicious olive oil to dip it in!! mmmhmmmm..yummmy!!!

Once we finished our dinner, it was about time to head back to the ship, so we chose to take the cable car down the cliff (it was not recommended to take the donkey's down the cliff, it gets a little crazy!).  The cable car almost felt like a roller coaster, but not as fast. Still glad I chose the experience of riding the donkey up the cliff. Took the tender boat back to the ship, and pretty much called it a night. (Karaoke wasn't exactly exciting that night). 
I will never forget this opportunity and the views it offered. It was an awesome experience!

Heraklion, Crete

The next morning we arrived in Crete, which is Greece's largest island. We got off to a late start so we didn't have a whole lot of time to explore around.  (7am is when we were able to disembark the ship, there was no sleeping in on this cruise!) Once again, we took cabs to the main attraction. On this island, it was The Palace of Knossos.  This cab ride was the complete opposite of our cab ride in Patmos! Patmos it was "how fast can you go?" Crete was "how slow can you go?". Either way, we got there...had a view hours to venture around the Minoan site and search the souvenior shops, then head back to the ship.

This palace was first built in 2000 BC and after 300 years, was destroyed by an earthquake.  The second palace was immediately rebuilt but destroyed again in 1500 BC.  The excavated site revealed ruins of the two palaces, as well as Europe's first amphitheatre, evidence of the earliest drainage system known, and the first flush toilet in history. Crazy, huh?! This palace was more like a maze and had many different areas such as workrooms, living spaces, and storage rooms. They stored such things as wine, cereals, and olive oil in large clay vases.

While this was our least favorite of our adventures, it was still cool to walk through the area, reading the history.  Had we had more time to explore the island, we would have chosen to tour the vineyard instead! Next time!
After we were done exploring the Palace, we roamed around the souvenior shops and headed back to the ship.  We only had about two hours to do all of this, including transportation! Ahh...maybe we shouldn't have stayed up so late the night before! ;)
On to the next island!