What happened to May?

Ok, can someone please tell me what happened to May and how is it almost July?? Somewhere in there, I lost track of time. In a big way. Lets back track a little bit.
May was a crazy month, to say the least. I was only able to do one of the 4 weddings for the month and then things just got even more insane. The 12th was Stephen's graduation from NCSU. We enjoyed celebrating with him and congratulating him on all of his accomplishments, however I think that all of us could have done without the big production at the beginning and the long ceremony. We ate lunch at McCormick and Schmicks, which was delicious. We headed back to campus to attend the college graduation, which was significantly smaller. Since Stephen graduated in a small college, the ceremony was very informal and much quicker. After the ceremony, Nathan, Anna, MomMom, Pam and I all headed home.

May 12, 2012 | NC State University

Stephen's car was having trouble so Rick stayed behind to help figure out what was wrong with it. Several hours later we get a call that their vehicle had been involved in a hit and run! Someone (a teenager--ahem) ran into their car that was PARKED ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD! Evidently he wasn't paying attention, hit their car and then drove off. Ironically enough, one of Stephen's roommates recognized the car and drove off after it!!! Come to find out, it was a kid that the roommate knew and eventually convinced the driver to turn around and go back. The police came and filed the report. An insurance claim and 750.00 and they're back in business. Crazy day.

The next weekend was the 19th. We had been waiting for May 18th since the fall! :) We had friends that wanted to go on a cruise and had booked it as part of a birthday present and asked us if we would like to go with them. Well, who in their right mind is going to say no!?!? Not us! We booked our cruise and then booked the plane tickets since we were leaving out of Ft. Lauderdale. When I left the bank, I gave up a lot of vacation time so I had to plan my days carefully. I ended up working extra that week so that I could leave at 12. Our flight left Raleigh at 7pm but we had to wait until everyone could meet up at about 230. Let me tell you what.... that little Mazda of ours was packed to the gills. Some plans to have transportation to the airport fell through twice so we were on our own and its a wonder everything fit! Nathan and I have gotten our packing almost down to a science. Even on our honeymoon (to Hawaii for 8 days!!) we packed all of our stuff in 1 bag and each had a carry on. We did the same thing for this cruise and hopefully next time we travel we'll be able to pack even less and in smaller luggage. We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale at around 10pm ish. Grabbed the hotel shuttle and headed off to get some sleep. We were able to all sleep late because the cruise didn't leave port until around 5pm. The port was only about 10 minutes from the hotel so we weren't in a rush. Even though we were not in any kind of hurry, the shuttle to the cruise let us get on almost an hour early, so we made it to the port wayyy ahead of time. I will say that those port authorities and the Carnival employees had the security lines running pretty fast for the number of people that had to be cleared and given room keys etc. The longest time we spent in line was waiting to get on the boat. Security was a breeze and everything went smoothly.

Royal Caribbean: Oasis | This boat was massive -- 6000 people massive

Right after we got on the boat

One unfortunate thing happened right as we got on the boat. Somehow we missed the weather report that a tropical storm was headed toward Florida and it rained and rained and rained. This was more than just the normal Florida every day rain. This was hurricane rain. People, it rained so hard, we couldn't see the other side of the port-- which wasn't very far away at all. In fact, the Royal Caribbean Oasis ship was docked next to us in the port and we couldn't see it at all when the bottom fell out. There was about 2 inches of rain on the deck of the ship when we got on. Also, Carnival had our luggage out in the parking lot and unfortunately for a bunch of people, they didn't get the luggage covered before it rained. You know what that means....yep, sopping wet luggage. I heard numerous reports of ruined clothing from people milling about the boat. Thankfully, none of our stuff was wet.

The top deck of our shop: The Carnival Freedom

If you've ever been on a cruise, you know that as soon as you get on, they feed you and hand out drinks left and right etc. Although, I remember thinking that this cruise wasn't so "giving" with the drinks as the last one was. We couldn't get to our room until 1:30 so we headed up to get some lunch.

These crazy blue chairs actually ROCKED- as in "rocking chair"

So that's the first day. Tune in later for more about the 2nd-8th days! :)