5 Days Until Our 1st Cruise!

I keep telling myself, "I will not run around with a chicken with its head cut off," but this weekend I came close to breaking my vow!

With 5 days to go until we cruise for the first time and a to-do list that's too long, I'm taking lots of deep breaths. I keep reminding myself that despite my long nights soon I will be sleeping in on a lovely cruise ship sailing in the Caribbean . . .

Can't.Come.Soon.Enough.

We still managed to have a fun President's Day Weekend - unlike last year I knew well in advanced that Mr. Love Bird had the day off so we planned accordingly, but as usual things don't always go according to plan. 

First, I have to share this commercial that cracked me up; I usually find minor holiday commercials promoting various sales very annoying but this was pretty funny:

OK on to the madness weekend recap . . .

Friday

I saw (and loved!) "Silver Linings Playbook" with a friend thanks to Parents' Night Out at my church

Nia the Lion had fun with Miss Christel, director of Children's Ministry, while I was out

Later that night Mr. Love Bird came home after being away on business for a week . . . 

Saturday

When Mr. Love Bird comes back we go to our local diner

We stopped at Michael's to get supplies for my scrapbooking classes onboard the cruise (learn more about Cruise and Crop in the button on the sidebar!)

A story to go with the pic above . . .

We were scheduled to see "The Newlyweds" as our postponed Valentine's Day date night since Mr. Love Bird had been out of town, but we arrived only to find out the show was cancelled - this after trekking into the city, dropping Nia with my sister, paying for cabs etc. It was a mess, but thankfully HowAboutWe for Couples came to the rescue with a BOGO Fandango code so we saw "Warm Bodies" instead (it was different but funny). I can't believe even after re-confirming our tickets a few days before the representative didn't let me know the show was cancelled - we had been offered free tickets via my blog. I even called from the venue and left a message about the situation and as of this writing have yet to receive an email or phone call explanation. 

Sunday

After church we raced back so Lil Love Bird could go to her friend's birthday party at Imagine That! (I posted about our first time going here, and Nia was so excited to go back.)

She was in heaven in a tutu AND tap shoes!

Mean muggin'

I made these ATK snickerdoodles to get me through the season finale of Downton Abbey - is anyone as depressed as I am?

Monday 

We woke up bright and early to join our moms' meet-up group at the Staten Island Children's Museum (hooray for free admission on Monday holidays!)

She was patient while we got our taxes done so this was her reward!*

*Speaking of taxes Mr. Love Bird and I got SO annoyed when the tax preparer kept telling us to take less deductions so we get more of a refund at the end of the year. The point is NOT to get a big refund or to break even - why would we want to loan the government $ interest free just to get it back at the year? People don't get this! In most cases a refund is the government giving you money back you loaned them interest free. ::steps off soap box::

Finally . . .

I couldn't resist picking this up for the cruise! {Image Credit}

After we had his and hers mani/pedis. It was nice to relax, but they took waaaay too long (over 2 hours!), and then I had a waxing appointment scheduled after, but my car service was a no show so had to reschedule for later this week. Boo...

And here's what I'm working on blog-wise (I had planned to get some of this done over the long weekend but see above!):

• Toy Fair 2013 recap (it was AMAZING!)
• Optimum's ALMA product launch at AIRE recap with RHOA's Cynthia Bailey and Johnny Wright, Michelle Obama's stylist
• Young House Love's book signing recap (and prize I won from the event!)
• My office makeover and tour
• An exciting announcement/new partnership (I hinted about it here)
• SheSpeaks  review of L'Oreal's BB Cream (love it!) and a couple Bzz Agent reviews (Glad Expressions and Post Sesame Street cereal - Nia's obsessed!)
• A giveaway (if I can eek it out to post while we're gone)
• A post about Harlem developments in the one year since we've gone - it flew by SO fast and Harlem is changing rapidly

How was your President's Day Weekend? Any tips from our readers who are veteran cruisers before we leave (we got some great advice from a few of you here - thank you!)? 
 
   

P.S. Nia is not going on this cruise - this is our first cruise experience and I'm very excited to go sans Nia! Oh and about that Carnival incident, as I posted on Facebook: