Steak with Jack

It’s always fun to find new ways to make steak, and it’s even more fun when it involved a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Whiskey.  I found this recipe (where else?) in the Pioneer Woman’s Cookbook.  Since she has to make food for cowboys, she tends to cook a lot of steak and potatoes.  This recipe is a new favorite, and I think if you try it, you’ll love it too.

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • 2 of your favorite cuts of steak
  • 5 tbsp of butter, divided
  • Half a large onion, or one small onion
  • 1/4 cup Jack Daniel’s Whiskey (you can also use your favorite brand of whiskey)
  • 1/4 cup beef stock or broth
  • 1/4 cup cream (I used half & half)
  • Salt and Pepper

Start by melting 2 tbsp of butter in a medium skillet over medium heat.

 

Finely chop your onion and add it to the skillet.

 

Cook on medium heat until your onions start to turn brown (caramelize).

 

Next comes the main ingredient, Jack Daniel’s Whiskey!  Made in Lynchburg, TN, which just so happens to be a dry county.  Isn’t that ironic?  Steve and I went with his parents last year to the Jack Daniel’s Distillery and took a tour of the grounds and the whiskey making process.  You definitely need a strong stomach to go on that tour, because there is a very strong odor when you’re walking through the distillery where they have huge vats of brewing whiskey.

 

When your onions have caramelized a bit, it’s time to add the whiskey.  If you have a gas stove, I would recommend turning off your burners while you’re pouring the whiskey.  You don’t want your kitchen to catch on fire.

 

You’re pretty much going to let all of the whiskey evaporate so that only the flavor of whiskey is left.  And yes, you can serve this dish to children.  All the alcohol is cooked out of the whiskey.

 

Next, add the chicken stock.

 

Season with salt and pepper.

 

Add another tablespoon of butter to the sauce and stir it around until it melts.  Everything is better with butter.  Just keep telling yourself that.

 

Next it’s time to add the cream.  It makes the sauce……er……creamy.  My other name is Captain Obvious in case you were wondering.

 

Bring the sauce to a bubble and then turn the heat down to low and let simmer while you prepare the steaks.  Give it a little stir occasionally.

 

Melt your last 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet over medium high heat.

 

Generously season your steaks with salt and pepper and add them to the hot skillet.  We like our steaks cooked medium, so I cooked them for about 4 minutes on each side.

 

Once your steaks are cooked how you like them, transfer to a plate and generously spoon the whiskey cream sauce over the steaks.

 

 

Doesn’t that look gorgeous?  And let me tell you, it’s really tasty too!  This would be wonderful with some mashed potatoes.  I was trying to add a little bit of healthiness to my dinner, so I cooked some zucchini (in butter) to go along with my steak.

 

This recipe makes 2 servings of sauce, unless you don’t spoon as much sauce on your steaks.  If that’s the case, you could probably stretch it into 4 servings.  I hope you enjoy!  I know we certainly did.

The Many Faces of Kaylee

Many of you know that we have 5 furbabies at our home that we love and adore, and they each have their own unique personalities.  From territorial and hyper Camelot, to laid back and cross-eyed Lazarus, each of our babies brings something different to our household.

The same can be said about our female St. Bernard, Kaylee.  Kaylee was the third animal that Steve and I adopted as a couple, and the first dog (our kitties Lacey and Fancy were our first “babies”).  We brought her home at 8 weeks of age, and she could not be cuter!

 

This is Kaylee’s “happy face”.  This is the face she makes when she’s happy or excited, or when she’s posing for a picture like this.  Normally I can’t get her to look at the camera, but today for some reason, she didn’t mind the photo shoot.  I think it’s because we let her come into the bonus room with us where she’s not normally allowed.

 

This is Kaylee’s “burping face”.  Oh yes, I took this picture while she was burping.  It was just luck that I happened to be pointing my camera at her when she let that loveliness out.  She makes this face every time she burps….and let me tell you, it happens a lot!  Such a lady!

 

Here’s Kaylee’s “yawning face”.  Or maybe she’s laughing…I can’t tell.  Ok, she’s yawning.  But I’m just going to pretend that she’s laughing at a really funny joke I just told.  What’s the joke, you ask?  Well, let me tell you!

How much does it cost for a pirate to get his ears pierced?   A Buccaneer!

Hahahaha…..ok.  That wasn’t that funny, I know.  I’m not a very good joke teller.  But Kaylee seems to think so, or at least that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself.

 

Here’s Kaylee’s “sniff the kitty” face.  This kitty happens to be Lacey, the one who was sick right before Steve and I left for our honeymoon.  Luckily she is now back to her normal, spunky self.

 

Here’s Kaylee’s happy face again…..she made a lot of these during this particular photo shoot as I was trying to make different noises and faces so that she’d react how she normally does when there isn’t a camera stuck in her face.

 

Steve was trying to help by making funny sounds too, and Kaylee was a little confused as to what was going on.

 

She seems a little unsure about giving her daddy a kiss.

 

“Your lips smell good, Daddy!  What did you just eat?  Oh, a wonderfully delicious dinner cooked by Mommy?  No wonder they smell so good!  Mommy is such a great chef!”

Why thank you, Kaylee!  You’re too kind.

Whenever you want Kaylee to give you a kiss, she more just sniffs your lips than kisses you.  I guess that’s a good thing, because Camelot will lick you right on the mouth with that huge St. Bernard tongue, and I don’t know how much of that I could handle.

 

Here’s the face I was looking for!!!!!  Kaylee makes this face whenever she’s confused about something.  She’ll be panting (because that’s what big, hairy dogs do in an environment that is not at winter temperatures), and then if we make a weird noise, or she sees something that is confusing, she’ll close her mouth but her tongue will still be sticking out.  It’s the most hilarious face that she makes and it cracks me up just looking at it!  I think I’m gonna need some lotion.

Get it?  Cracks me up.  Need lotion……..cricket…..cricket……..Is this thing on?

 

“I know I’m cute, Mom, but can you stop taking pictures of me now?”

 

“Squirrel!” 

If you’ve seen the movie Up you’ll get that reference.  If not, well then, I can’t help you.

 

Those are just a sampling of the many faces Kaylee makes on a daily basis.  She makes more facial expressions than any dog I’ve ever known.  She definitely has a special personality, and its fun to try to figure out what she’s thinking.  We love you Kaylee!  Our lives would not be complete without you in it.

Juice, Anyone?

We bought a juicer!  If you haven’t watched the movie Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, I highly recommend that you watch it.  It’s very fascinating!  Basically this Australian dude comes to America to do a 60-day fast, and drink nothing but fresh juice the entire time.  Along the way he meets a few people who also agree to do a juice fast, and the results were amazing!  One guy lost over 100 lbs!  Now, don’t for a second thing that Steve and I are going to eat drink nothing but juice.  That’s just not going to happen.  But we’re going to try to have at least one glass of fresh vegetable and fruit juice every day.  Think of all the vitamins and minerals we’ll be getting that we aren’t right now.  Tonight I made two different juices: one with some kale and 2 apples, and the other with 3 different kinds of fresh berries.  I’m pretty sure you don’t want to see the kale one, because, let’s face it, kale is not very tasty.  Luckily the apples added some sweetness to it, but the berry juice was much better! As we check Naturopress, juicing gets much better. And there were only 3 ingredients!  blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries.

Here’s our beautiful, brand new juicer!  Isn’t it pretty?  There must be a lot of people juicing nowadays because everywhere we looked, all the Breville juicers were out of stock.  We finally found this one, which was the more expensive model than the one we were looking at, on the actual Breville website. (This is not a paid advertisement by the way)

 

Normally I’m not a big blueberry fan, unless it’s in a muffin or bagel.  I don’t know what it is.  The texture? the taste?  Anyway, blueberries are fine by me as long as they’re not in their natural shape!  I think it’s that little open wrinkly part at the bottom that turns me off.  Weird, I know.

 

I recently discovered my love for raspberries this past year, when I also discovered my love for Greek Yogurt.  The two go together beautifully, and add some Splenda and you’ve got yourself a wonderful healthy snack!  The only thing I don’t like about these cute little berries, is that they go bad really fast, so I always have to use them up within about 2 days of bringing them home from the  grocery store.

 

No berry drink would be complete without my favorite type of berry, strawberries.  Yum!  I could eat this whole container EASILY in one sitting.  In fact, I probably have before.

 

I started by adding a cup of blueberries to the juicer.  Of course since I was pouring with one hand and taking this picture with the other, some of the blueberries jumped ship and had to be reinserted into the juicer.

 

This is what blueberry juice looks like! And yes, that whole cup of blueberries only made this much juice.

 

Next I added the raspberries….more jumping ship.

 

The strawberries I added by hand instead of pouring that cup in there.  I don’t think that would have been very coordinated, because strawberries don’t “pour” like blueberries and raspberries do.

 

And walla!!!  A beautiful, healthy, and tasty beverage that you don’t have to feel guilty about.

 

Unfortunately all that fruit only made one glass of juice, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. 🙂

Smokey House Rehab (Part 5)

I know it’s been a couple months since I posted an update on the Smokey House Rehab, but that’s mainly because there’s been nothing to update you about.  The rehab has been on the back burner because of all the wedding madness, and we’ve finally gotten back into it.  The last time we attempted to fix it up ourselves with no help from professionals, it was 100° outside with no working A/C, which made it about 110° inside the house.  We were trying to put up a very heavy light fixture in the house and it wasn’t cooperating, and that pretty much pushed us past our breaking point.  We decided that we wanted to hire some help instead of doing it all ourselves, because we were just getting too burnt out.

We had several contractors/handy men/painters come and take a look at the house to give us quotes, and then once they left, we never heard back from them.  What’s the deal?  People don’t want work?  Finally, we found an awesome painter that has been doing an amazing job so far.

So far he’s painted all the bedrooms, the hallway, the bonus room, and the stairway going up to the bonus room.

We chose Mushroom Bisque as the wall color, and we couldn’t be more happy.  It’s a good contrast with the white trim, and it’s a nice tan color without being too peachy, as some tans can be.

I spent Sunday afternoon cleaning the kitchen……again.  This kitchen is seriously my nemesis, but I think I finally conquered it!  Our painter is going to be painting the inside of the cabinets to try to get rid of the smell that is still lingering from the previous tenant who smoked heavily in the house and somehow got this kitchen dirtier than anything I have ever seen.  We’re going to be replacing those awful green counter tops and that dirty sink and faucet, as well as installing a pretty, modern, tile floor.  It’s gonna look like a brand new kitchen!

After I was satisfied with my cleaning job in the kitchen, I got started on the weeds in the front yard.  There were certain sections of grass around the walkway that had weeds that grew like they were on steroids.  The rest of the grass would be a normal length, and these weeds were 2 feet tall!  So I pulled them all out……in the rain.  We had a landscape company come out a few weeks ago and completely demo the entire backyard, which was previously covered with thick weeds and vineage (yes that’s a word, even though my spell check doesn’t think so).  They removed the tree stumps from those huge cedar trees and dug out all the weeds and about an inch of top soil to get rid of most of the roots.  Then they spread seed and covered it with hay so that the seeds would be able to germinate more successfully.  Now we have pretty little shoots of grass poking through, and in about a month it’ll be a pretty grassy backyard, instead of the forest it was when we started.

Steve spent the day pressure washing the outside of the house and the deck, and what a difference!

It’s amazing what some high-pressured water can do!  You can actually see the grain of the wood now instead of a thick layer of greenish black algae, or whatever that stuff is.  We’ll be sealing the deck once it’s completely clean so that it’ll last for several more years.

Next time we go to the house, I’ll be sure to take a picture of the backyard so you can see the difference from when I posted this picture:

Yellow Scrappy Table Runner

I’ve been learning how to quilt recently, as you saw in this post, so when my friend Jenni’s birthday came up, I decided it might be a cute idea to make her a quilted table runner as a gift.  I decided this the night before we were supposed to go to her birthday dinner, and I didn’t even have fabric yet.  So I ran over to Joann’s and bought some cute fabric (and of course I didn’t just buy fabric for this one project….because how often do I go to Joann’s and only get what I came for?  Umm….I think never.)  Anyway, I think it turned out really cute, so I thought I’d give a little tutorial on how I did it!

I selected the fabric I wanted to use, and got a larger piece of coordinating fabric for the back and binding.   I was already home before I realized that I probably should have gotten 2 different fabrics for the back and binding, but oh well.  You live and you learn.  It still turned out cute.

First, press all your fabric so that you don’t have to work around any unruly creases or folds.

Then measure and cut strips from your fabric.  I cut 4 strips from each piece of fabric in varying widths.  I had 6 different fabrics I was using for the front, so that totaled 24 strips in all, but you can add more fabric or more strips depending on how long you want your table runner to be.  Remember when you’re cutting that you’re going to need a 1/4 inch seam allowance on all the strips, so cut it 1/2 inch bigger than you want the final width to be.

Next, lay out your strips in the order that you want them, then when you have your desired length and width, cut out your backing piece so that it’s slightly bigger than the fabric strips.

One at a time, pin and sew the strips together, with the right sides facing each other.  Remember to use a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

There should be a marker on your sewing machine and/or sewing foot that shows you where 1/4 inch is.

Here’s what the strips will look like when they’re all sewn together.  It doesn’t matter if the edges are perfectly straight, because we’ll be trimming those later.

Cut out some quilt batting to match the size of your backing fabric.  Your backing fabric should be laying right side down when you lay the batting on top.

Lay your strips on top of the batting and smooth out so that there are no loose or wrinkled spots.

Then pin through all 3 layers of fabric and batting so that you make a quilt sandwich that won’t move around.  You’ll want to pin every 6 inches or so in every direction so that the fabric won’t move while you’re sewing it together.  You can also use quilting safety pins, or fusible fleece batting that you can actually iron onto your backing and front fabric so that it basically glues itself to the fabric so you don’t have to worry about pinning.

Now it’s time to quilt.  I just used the seams as a guideline and did straight lines across on either side of each seam, but you can do any quilting pattern that you want.  I don’t have a free motion foot for my sewing machine, so I can only sew in straight lines for now.  But hopefully I’ll get one soon so I can try out all those cool quilting patterns!

Once you get toward the end, you’ll want to roll up the other side of the table runner so that it’s not all bunched up when you’re trying to sew.  It makes life a lot easier!

Trim away any excess batting or uneven edges.

Now comes the binding, which can be pretty tricky.  Cut 4 strips of fabric that are 2 1/2 inches wide.  As for length, I kind of eyeballed it, and just did it as long as my original backing fabric was.  In the picture above, you can see that I folded my fabric in half twice so that I could better cut a straight line.  It was also a time saver to do it this way!

Sew the ends of the binding strips together (right sides together and 1/4 inch seam allowance) and press open the seams so they lay flat.

Then fold your fabric in half so that the right sides are facing out, and press.  This is so you have a nice thick, double binding.

Pin the binding all the way around your table runner with the rough edge facing out, and flush with the rough edge of the table runner.

It’ll look like this when you’re done pinning.

Sew around with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.  Your corners should look like this.  I don’t think I’ll be very good at explaining this, so you can watch this video on binding a quilt.  You’ll be folding the binding around to the back of the table runner and sewing that in place as well, so you’ll have a pretty border around your quilt that hides the rough edges.

Tada!  Here’s the finished table runner!  You can also wash and dry this table runner if you want it to have a more wrinkly and quilted appearance.

I think I might just have to make one of these for myself as well!  You could also do it in Christmas colors for a nice holiday decoration, or for any season really.  It’s a pretty and easy way to change the look of your kitchen throughout the year.  I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and that I explained everything without confusing you.  You can always leave a comment if you have any questions and I will try my best to answer them.

My First Quilt!

It’s true.  I made a quilt!  And I couldn’t be happier with the results.  I found a cute quilt kit at Joann’s that had all the fabric I needed, plus a quilt pattern with instructions, and after reading several quilting blogs, I decided that it was time to give it a try.

And here’s the finished product!!  The front patchwork actually came together pretty easily and quickly.  I did the entire front in about 2 hours or so (that includes cutting each piece as well).

The kit came with a large piece of flannel to use as the backing.  It was neat that the backing had pretty much all the colors in it as the front so it matched perfectly!

The pink border was a little tricky, and my bobbin kept getting messed up, so I had to take the stitches out twice before I was successful.

But it turned out really nice.  Here’s another view of the back.

I decided to crosshatch the quilt, since I don’t know how to free motion quilt yet.  Getting those lines straight and evenly spaced was a little tricky.  An easy way to do it would be to stretch blue painter’s tape across diagonally and stitch along side the edges, then move the tape over every row.  But of course we didn’t have any painter’s tape, so I had to measure it out and mark the lines with chalk.  A longer process, but I ended up with the same result.  I hope you all like my first quilt!  I think I’ll attempt a rag quilt next!  Those are so adorable, and very forgiving from what I’ve read.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

Oh yes! The post you’ve all been waiting for!  Well, those of you who are my friends on facebook anyway.  Yesterday I posted an iPhone picture of the Peanut Butter Pie that I made for my husband’s birthday, and let me tell you, it was scrumptious!  I think I gained about 5 lbs just looking at it!  And from the noises our friends were making when they were eating it, I would say it was a hit.

I made this pie for the first time right after I read this post about another food blogger’s husband’s sudden passing.  It touched my heart, and that recipe looked too good not to make.  Plus, we were having some friends over that night, so I figured I would test the recipe on them.  Unfortunately I didn’t have all the ingredients I needed, such as semi-sweet chocolate chips (or so I thought….I later found a huge bag of them in my pantry), and I completely ruined the whipped cream by whipping it so much that it almost turned into butter, so I had to resort to whipped cream from a can.  Luckily, the second try turned out so much better, and here is the recipe and tutorial, so that you can also gain 5 lbs in one bite!

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • 8 oz chocolate cookies (I used Oreos®)
  • 4 tbsp butter, melted (1/2 a stick)
  • 4 oz finely chopped chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1/4 cup chopped peanuts (unsalted)
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 8 oz cream cheese
  • 1 cup creamy-style peanut butter
  • 1 cup confectioner’s sugar
  • 1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp lemon juice

Start by putting your cookies into a food processor.  I have a rather small food processor, so I had to do this in about 3-4 batches.  The bag of Oreos I got was 16oz, so I just used half of them to equal 8oz.  Of course if you want your crust a little thicker, you can add more accordingly.

Pulse until finely chopped with no big chunks left.  Then pour the crumbs into a medium bowl.

Melt butter, and pour over crumbs.

Use a fork to combine the butter and crumbs so that it is thoroughly saturated.

Press into a 9 inch spring-form pan so that the bottom is completely covered and flat, and press up the sides about an inch.

Put chocolate chips into a heat proof bowl and microwave to melt.  You can also use the double boiler method, but microwaving was faster.

Spread melted chocolate onto the crust.  Mine came apart a little, but that’s ok.  It might help if you refrigerate your crust, or put it in the freezer while you’re melting your chocolate so it has some time to set.

Add peanuts to the food processor and pulse until finely chopped.

Sprinkle a generous amount over the chocolate, and reserve some for the topping.  Refrigerate crust while you prepare the rest of the pie.

Add cream cheese and peanut butter to a stand mixer.

Mix on medium speed until light and fluffy.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Add confectioner’s sugar and stir on low at first until it’s combined, then you can increase the speed.  If you start out too fast, you’ll end up with sugar all over your kitchen.  Of course that’s never happened to me!

Next, add the sweetened condensed milk.

Vanilla Extract.

And lemon juice, and stir on medium speed until well combined.  You can use fresh squeezed lemon juice, but this is what I had on hand.

Pour heavy cream into a medium bowl.

Beat it with a hand mixer until it looks like this.  Do NOT keep going thinking it could be a little stiffer.  I made that mistake, and let me tell you, it was not pretty.  It started to curdle and separate and before I knew it, chunks of butter were starting to form.  It should be light and fluffy and not at all liquidy or chunky.

Add about 1/3 of the whipped cream to the peanut butter mixture and stir on low.

Gently fold in remaining whipped cream with a rubber spatula.  Do not mix it in with the mixer.  You want to keep it as light and airy as possible.

Here’s what it should look like when it’s all combined.

Pour peanut butter  filling onto the cold crust.

Smooth it out so it’s nice and pretty.

Drizzle some melted chocolate onto the top.  If you need the chocolate to be a little more runny, add a tablespoon of vegetable shortening, and melt in with the chocolate.  You can also add chopped peanuts to the outer edge of the pie to give it that fresh from the bakery look.  Steve said that it looked like a pie from Marie Callendars! 🙂

Refrigerate pie for at least 3 hours, but preferably overnight for best results.

When ready to serve, lift the bottom out of the spring form pan.  Isn’t that gorgeous!?

Serve it up, and enjoy!!!!  You may want to eat this with a glass of milk nearby.  It’s super rich!

Twin Blankets for Twin Girls

One of my best friends gave birth to twin baby girls last week, and I couldn’t be more thrilled!  Evelyn Marie and Brooke Renee were born on August 15th at 5:52 and 5:54pm, and both were 5 lbs, 10 oz.

As some of you know, Renee was supposed to be in my wedding this past July, and even after she told me she was pregnant, everything was still a go for her to come out here to Nashville.  However, a few weeks after she ordered her bridesmaid dress, she gave me a call with the wonderful and unexpected news.  She was having TWINS!!   Unfortunately, she would not be able to fly after her 2nd trimester (and my wedding would be in her 7th month of pregnancy), so she wasn’t able to attend the wedding.  But she was with us in spirit!  And what a marvelous reason for not being able to come!

Of course, I had to make 2 baby blankets for her.  One pink and one purple for two beautiful baby girls.

I gave Renee several patterns to choose from, and she chose this pattern for both blankets, and I think it was an excellent choice.

Renee and I have literally been friends since birth (we even have pictures of us as babies together in the nursery at school where both our mom’s taught).  I can’t believe one of my friends actually has a set of twins!

And twin GIRLS to top it off!  I have a feeling that there are going to be a lot of ruffles and bows in these two little girls’ future.  Renee always does such a great job dressing up her older daughter, Bella, and I know these girls will be no different.

I’m so happy for you, Renee and Ahmet, and I can’t wait to meet the new little ones.  I hope they know that whenever they cuddle up with their blankets, that’s me giving them a hug.

Our Honeymoon: Bermuda

On our 9-day honeymoon cruise we stopped in 3 ports — Bermuda, St. Thomas, and Grand Turk.  We were also supposed to stop in San Juan, Puerto Rico, but due to a cyclone in the forecast, we had to skip that port.  I was pretty bummed since we were supposed to go zip lining there, but obviously I didn’t want to be stuck on a boat in the middle of a cyclone.

Our first stop was in Bermuda, where we had to meet on the dock at 7:45am to  go snorkeling.  Now, for the two of us who are used to waking up around 9:30 or 10:00am every morning, that was pretty darn early, but we were excited, so we managed to arrive on time…..early actually!

The boat just looks massive when you’re sitting on the dock right next to it.  You don’t realize just how far off the water you’re actually sitting.  Our room was on that top balcony, but when you look outside from your balcony, you feel like you’re only about 20 feet up from the water.

Our group took a 30 minute boat ride to another part of the island to go snorkeling.  It was less than thrilling since we only saw about 3 fish and a ton of sea grass.  But it was fun nonetheless.

They first drove us (can you use the word “drove” when referring to a boat?) past an old shipwreck.  It was actually sunk on purpose by some people (I can’t remember who….British, Spaniards…..someone) who wanted other ships, who were trying to take over the island, to crash into it and then sink themselves.  However, this plan failed when the boat stopped sinking a few feet above the surface of the water.  So of course, other boats avoided that spot like the plague.  I’m not sure what exactly happened, but I think Bermuda is owned by the British, so ultimately, I think they won.

They anchored the boat near this deserted resort.  Apparently each of these bungalows on the water rented for about $500 or more per night, but with the recession, the resort went out of business.  There are some more bungalows nearby that the resort allowed the staff to live in after they went under until they could get back on their feet.

Here’s Steve and I in our bathing suits ready to snorkel!  (My bathing suit is from Victoria’s Secret, in case you were wondering.  Steve’s is from Pac Sun, and his undies are by Hanes….as if that wasn’t obvious enough.)

We found this pretty little cove after exploring a little bit.

Of course Steve never passes up an opportunity to take a picture of his e-cig in cool places.  And of course, it has our website name on there, Puresmoker, so I’m doing a little free advertising.  If you haven’t checked it out, and you smoke, or know someone who does, head on over there and pick yourself up an electronic cigarette!  You’ll be glad you did!

Here’s Steve’s cool tattoo.  It’s Jesus, but instead of being on the cross, he’s being held by the hands of God.

The view from the boat looking at the beach.  That dark stuff in the water is sea grass.  It was everywhere!

Such pretty water!  And we even saw a few turtles on our way back.

The Dawn Princess joined us at the dock.  It was at the tail end of a World Cruise.  Those can be up to 3 months long!  I can’t imagine being on a cruise for that long.  Maybe one day when I’m retired and my kids (which I have yet to have) are out of the house.

It was some sort of holiday on Bermuda, so a parade of cars drove up and down the dock, escorted by police, with flags and tons of people packed in each car.  It was fun to watch, and I thought the water looked so cool in this picture.

It was a really fun day, a little disappointing in the fish department, but we had a great time overall.  Yay Bermuda!

Fun Fact:  Did you know that Bermuda is actually off the coast of the Carolinas?  I didn’t know that.  I always thought it was down in the Caribbean.  Learn something new every day!

Our Honeymoon: The Caribbean Princess

As many of you know, Steve and I went on a Caribbean cruise for our honeymoon a couple weeks ago.  It was wonderful, and I really enjoyed seeing a part of the world I had never seen before.  In this post, I’m basically going to show and tell you everything about the ship we were on, the Caribbean Princess.

This was my first cruise ever, so I didn’t really know what to expect.  I knew it was going to be a huge ship, but nothing can really prepare you for the massive size of a cruise ship.

This was our first view of the ship while driving through the parking lot.  I couldn’t even fit the whole thing in my view finder!

Here’s a full view of the ship from our excursion boat in Bermuda.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Excursions are coming in a later post.

We splurged and decided to go for a balcony room.  It was our honeymoon after all!  And I’m so glad we did!

Uh huh….I could get used to this!

Here’s our teeny weeny bathroom.  Steve said that it was actually pretty spacious for a cruise ship bathroom.  I don’t think it could have been much smaller.

And there’s me in the tiny shower taking a picture of the other side of the bathroom.  We went to two comedy shows on the cruise, and both comedians made jokes about the tiny showers.  Like, how if you dropped the soap, you wouldn’t have enough room to bend over and pick it up.  You would think it was funnier if you actually had to take a shower in one of those!

While we were docked in Brooklyn, the Statue of Liberty was about 1/2 a mile away from our balcony.  So of course I took several pictures.

Doesn’t this picture look like it was taken 100 years ago?  🙂  I just had to process it this way since that old ship was in the foreground.  It wouldn’t look right any other way.

Our stateroom was toward the back of the ship, so when we looked out our balcony, this is what we saw.

We ordered a room service breakfast almost every morning, and I always ordered the ham, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich, while Steve ordered plain ole cereal….and a banana.  We ate breakfast every morning on our balcony.

Isn’t this the tiniest glass you’ve ever seen?  It was pretty much the size of a double shot glass.  Two sips, and it was gone!

We had 2 formal nights on the cruise, so I took advantage of it, and did a little photo shoot with Steve on our balcony.  Hey, it’s not very often that I get him dressed up, so I have to seize the opportunity when it presents itself!

Isn’t he handsome?

Mr. GQ

Ok, I’ll stop now. 🙂

If you’ve never seen a hallway on a cruise ship, you have never seen a hallway!  This thing was so long that you couldn’t see the end!  Now I know why Rose had so much trouble finding Jack when he was handcuffed on the Titanic!

Here we are at the bow of the ship (that’s the front for those of you who are not sailors).

This was the pool area at the back of the ship that was supposed to be “adults only”, but I saw kids in there a lot, and it was really annoying when you were trying to lay out peacefully and then get splashed by a kid doing a cannon ball into the tiny pool.

Before we set sail, all the passengers had to do a safety drill where we learn how to put on our life jackets and where to meet.  We’re prepared for anything with these lovely orange ensembles!

Can’t get enough of our balcony!

Here we are on formal night #1.  Shortly after we sat down for dinner I had to go up to the room and take some Dramamine.  Yep, I was feeling sea sick!  I couldn’t believe it!  Luckily it was just a little nausea with no other visible side effects….if you know what I mean.

Formal night #2.  On each formal night they had photographers set up all around the ship with different back drops.  We ended up buying 5 photos.  I know!  It’s a little excessive, but I liked all 5 of them, and I couldn’t choose!

I can’t forget our couples massage!!!  We had a 50 minute full body massage, and liked it so much that we scheduled another one for the next day.  Except the second massage was 75 minutes and also included hot stones!  Mmmm….I could use a massage right now!

Steve pretty much spend each sea day in the casino.  In his defense, there really was nothing else to do on the boat, unless of course you wanted to attend an anti-wrinkle seminar, a teeth whitening seminar, or a “glee” choir rehearsal.  I’ll admit, I did do one activity on the boat: a photography walk around, where the head photographer on the ship took a group of people around the ship and gave pointers about photography.  The only problem was that 80% of the group (of about 50 people) had point and shoot cameras.  This activity is not for you, people!!!  It’s for those of us with nice, professional cameras….cameras where you have to actually look through the view finder instead of the large screen on the back of your little $200 camera.  So that was a little frustrating.  The instructor spent most of the time trying to show the P&S camera people where each setting was on their camera instead of actually teaching.  But, oh well.  You can’t win ’em all!

This had to be Steve’s craziest hand!  I mean look!  Five 4s!  How often does that happen?!

Here’s the main plaza.  I was actually expecting something a lot bigger.  It was only three stories tall, and from what I’ve seen, normally cruise ships have plazas that run the entire height of the ship.

This is from the top deck looking down at the pool.  I can honestly say that I did not set one foot in any of the pools on the ship.  They were just too crowded.  You’d have to wake up at like 6am to reserve a chair, and then people would lay their towels on the chairs (like you see toward the bottom of this picture) and just leave for the rest of the day, so you didn’t know if someone was sitting there, or if they just felt like leaving their towel behind.  It was very frustrating.

Steve and I own our own business, and our honeymoon was our first vacation in 4 years.  Naturally he was worried about the business while we were away, so he and I both did customer service emails on our honeymoon.  I know, romantic, right?  But sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

Every night at dinner, we sat with the same six people….all New Yorkers, and all complainers.  Whenever we’d try to say something positive about the service or something of that nature, they’d find a way to say something negative.  They were nice to us, but just never happy with anything.

On a side note, have you ever seen anyone as tan as that woman below me?  I mean, my goodness!!!  Someone has taken one too many trips to the tanning salon!  Enough is enough!

One thing is for sure, being on a ship in the middle of the ocean, you sure do see some gorgeous sunsets!  Isn’t God such a wonderful painter?

And of course, the typical honeymoon shot.  Happy couple in love, with a beautiful sunset in the background.

Next three posts will be about each port of call.  Hope you’ll come back!