Vintage Thurs: Orange Suede! And a giveaway.

You heard that right. I got into an orange suede mood after seeing an awesome orange suede coat.



This is also entry #500 at my blog here! Wow. I feel like that calls for something special, but I was not prepared! So what I am going to do, is for whoever comes around to read this post, you might have commented anyway, but your comment will enter you into a little improv drawing. Winner will receive something...of which I do not know yet. A surprise! Maybe something I made, something someone else made, or just random goodies. So comment, friends!

I am going to share more pictures from our cruise tomorrow, the Cozumel/Chankanaab part!

We're back from the cruise! Part 1

We got back into Tampa early yesterday morning. We got off the ship around 10 am before heading home. We had so much fun! I feel so exhausted today and still need to unpack more and do laundry. I'd love to share so much about the trip but I will have to do a little at a time so it's not a massively long post.

I wanted to say something else:

You can still travel with a child and also not spend tons of money!! We don't drink alcohol, so that in itself will save you possibly hundreds of dollars on a cruise. I don't understand the people who have a drink in their hands sun up to sun down and act drunk all day. How much are they spending?? TOO MUCH. And are annoying everyone else. But I heard other people say this and totally agree that I guess they make the cruises cheaper for the rest of us by buying overpriced drinks all day!(hah) Water, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, iced tea, lemonade, and juice are included in the cruise price so you don't have to pay extra for those while on the ship. I drank a lot of coffee! I thought it tasted good. The lemonade was good too.

Our son has been traveling since he was 2 months old on road trips and long plane rides(mostly for visiting family from Alabama all the way to India!). I know finances can be difficult for planning vacations but having children does not have to! Kavi did great on the cruise. And what we did in Cozumel was very economical and fun for all.

But I will just post some pictures of the first part of the cruise and will save Cozumel pictures for tomorrow or another day.

The view in Tampa of our cruise ship, Carnival Inspiration, from the parking garage. We got really excited walking over!
We got an oceanview room, which I think was well worth the little bit extra. We had gotten a really great deal on this cruise.

Our room had a queen size bed plus a twin that came down from the wall. The room service was excellent and they would come every evening while we were at dinner to set up our room and take the bed down from the wall for us.
While sailing away from Tampa, a cruise photographer took this picture of us all. We ended up buying it for 9.99 because we all liked it so much.
That's the only photo we purchased. But if you end up on a cruise, let them take your picture whenever they want to. They set up all the photos on one of the floors for you to look at and buy only if you want to. We loved going every day to find photos from the day before.

There was a huge water slide at the back of the ship, next to two small water slides. I went on them all.

When I went on that big curling slide, it was torture! I was wearing jean shorts over my bathing suit and I got stuck on it in several places. I just wasn't sliding, I was sticking! I had to push myself down so I had sore muscles the next day. It was insane (hahahaha). Same thing happened to other people too. These smaller slides were much less problematic!
Dress up night, finally wore my purple dress!

Here's our ship docked on Cozumel... more from there another day!

Wednesday!

It's packing day!

The weather for the cruise while in port at Cozumel is looking good!! So relieved. There is a storm system but it will have passed up by, supposedly, by the time we head for our cruise in Tampa. It's so nice to only have to drive an hour or so to get to the ship. I am used to having to drive 9 hours to visit my family or traveling over 24 hours to get to India lately, so driving only an hour to start a trip, is awesome!

I think this will be my last entry for a few days, will check in after the cruise! My sister and a good friend are going on the cruise too. They are driving down here today to join us! We are all so excited. Tomorrow is the day we sail.

Fashion Inspiration - and storm relief?

So Tropical Storm Matthew is no more, *whewww* that is a relief! I am still not completely at ease about storm situations yet since the news keeps mentioning a possible new formation around that same area again. But I do think everything will be fine! (thanks, Angela, for the tips in your last comment!)

This cruise has me excited. I hope I am not being annoying with cruise talk, but this is the week! It's coming! A few days away! My sister and our good friend are driving down from Alabama to go on the cruise with us. I know that will make it even more fun, for Kavi too! He will have his aunties along.



I have been wanting a black and white striped shirt since I wrote about it here: Fashion Inspiration: Stripey. I found one Saturday!! At Ross, for 8.99! I am ignoring the rules about horizontal stripes because I needed a striped shirt for my cruise! I just did. I wanted to have a stripey sailor shirt. I even have a ship necklace, how cliche huh? I also have a layered necklace that has ribbon in the back and ties on the side(shown to the left with my new shirt)



Here's more inspiration for my cruise...

A simple set I put together:

ready for cruise by ChristinaD featuring a print dress

A set I found on polyvore:

Ahoy there! by ❤seftalili❤ featuring a black shoulder bag

Watery Vacation Countdown

Next week at this time, I should hopefully be in Mexico and snorkeling at the location below! (after arriving there by cruise, sailing from Tampa!)

Chankanaab Park, Cozumel.

When we planned our cruise, I started looking for more affordable options of what to do when we arrived in Mexico. We didn't want to spend something like $50 or more each to do an excursion. I found lots of good reviews for this park and was happy to hear that my blog friend Angela had gone to the same location in Cozumel on a cruise she went on, and liked it! Compared to many other options, it seems the more affordable for what comes with it. With a coupon I printed out, it will be $17 each for me and my husband, and then I just realized children under 3 are free! Score!!! To snorkel it's free, but if you don't have snorkel equipment it can be rented there for I think $15. If I prepay for snorkel equipment online it would only be $13. I am hesitating pre-paying anything yet.

We will only be there during the day next Saturday...
as long as Tropical Storm Matthew doesn't interfere!!!!!!

I am a little worried about that. Right now tropical storm M is not hitting Mexico but south of there. It would appear that we wouldn't get any storm issues in the path of our cruise or Cozumel- except, I watched the Weather Channel and they are saying the storm could possibly turn and then it really would affect our cruise. It could mean we don't get to sail to Mexico. I have read that they sometimes can divert ships to a different port in tha Caribbean but if there isn't any space for ours, we could just end up sailing around the Gulf in safe areas. I just don't want this to be an issue, please please please!!
I put a red line from Tampa to Cozumel(our cruise route).

*sigh*

A glimpse of back yard fun

I am not a very good mom when it comes to going outside in the heat to play. And it's just been too hot anyway! But a few evenings ago, I went into the backyard with my husband and son. The weather was decent. It was still warm but not sweat-inducing. That was one of the rare, tolerable evenings these days! Very hard to come by.
I look forward to when the weather is less hot here and easier to be outside in. It might take awhile for that to happen in Florida. But when it finally does, it will be fun to spend a lot of time in the backyard again like we did until the summer heat had come along.

Vintage Thurs: Mid-Century Orange

I did a search on Etsy for "mid century orange" which came up with lots and lots of results. Here are the items I picked for putting on the blog today! A good color scheme for Fall! It's really Fall now, yay!

Etsy TheCozyNest