day one of the booze cruise

first things first:  there were just 16 of you who were interested in adding alexa to your household.  here's the result of my random.org number draw:

kelly, it looks like you'll be asking alexa to help you plan your diaper shopping for baby declan!  look for an email from me today so i can get your amazon echo dot shipped out to you asap.  congrats!

also, a fun milestone - today marks my 3,000th blog post!  that's kind of crazy, but super cool.  i can't believe some of you have been reading my rambling for over a decade.  yay for us!

so, back to miami:  we woke up the next morning bright and early...california time.  heh.

actually, the hub had woken up a few hours before and managed to snap a shot of the gorgeous sunrise:

we decided to order some breakfast from room service and brought it out to the balcony to enjoy the view as we ate.

there were already a few people in the pool down below, and i kind of wished we had time to throw our suits on and have some playtime:

or maybe at the beach, where there were umbrellas and beach chairs all lined up and waiting to be used.

maybe next time, miami.  for now, we got ready, checked out and caught an uber that would take us to the port to catch our cruise.

we'd secured an early boarding time, so getting checked in was pretty easy.  it wasn't super crowded yet, and we followed the signs to the waiting area.

 not too long after that, we headed on down the gangplank and found ourselves on the ship.  yay!

i'd downloaded the cruise app, which was really helpful for finding out dining and activity information along with keeping track of any reservations we made during the trip.

when i booked our boarding time, i hadn't known that the staterooms wouldn't actually be ready for us for at least an hour after we arrived on the ship.  we'd chosen to take our luggage with us rather than check it in, so we were kind of stuck dragging it around as we wandered the ship.  it was a good time to go to the guest services desk to see about setting up wifi and shore excursions though, so while the hub took care of that i hung out near one of the bars and babysat the luggage.

while we'd been told that an announcement would be made when we could enter our staterooms, we decided to take a chance about half an hour early and made our way to deck 9.  we were in 9224, which we were happy to find wasn't too far away from the elevator.  our key worked, so we went on inside because we're rebels like that.

we had a balcony, which was really nice.

i decided to check in with the old lady and see how she was doing, and she had just taken molly for her doggy dialysis.

i'd made myself comfy on the bed and briefly considered taking a quick nap, and so the hub decided to head on out and see if he could find a nice quiet spot to grab a drink and enjoy a cigar.  of course, as soon as he left i realized i wasn't going to fall asleep after all and flipped through the channels on the tv.  not too long after that i figured it was a good time to explore the ship a little without luggage in tow, and headed out.  of course, not before the first selfie of the cruise:

i'd busted out that dress just the day before we left, and i was wearing a hat that i'd picked up on a last-minute trip to target with the old lady and her special friend.  i got so much shit for that hat from both of them, so my plan was to wear it as often as possible and send them pictures.  haha!

on my way to the coffee bar i walked through the casino, which wasn't open for business yet.  i spied one of my favorite slot machines tucked away in one corner and made a mental note to show it to the hub later:

did i happen to mention that this was an OPEN BAR cruise?  no?  oh yes...alcohol was part of the all-inclusive deal, and damn near everything was included in the cruise fare (if you wanted top shelf liquor, you just had to pay a minimal upgrade fee per drink).  i found the hub as i was enjoying my iced espresso drink (which, of course, wasn't part of the open bar package but was still reasonably priced), sitting at the bar having a drink and chatting with a fellow cruisegoer.  the smoking area was on the deck just above us, so after i finished my coffee i ordered my first drink:  a fabulously frozen pink concoction from the frosé machine.

when we got ourselves settled at a table under the giant umbrella, i sent this to the old lady to show her what we were doing:

and she sent us this.

being florida in july, it was pretty hot and humid.  my frosé didn't stay frozen for long.

we hung out there, relaxing in the shade and enjoying the ocean breeze until we were ushered down to deck 6 for the mandatory lifeboat drill.  when that was over, we went back to the stateroom to freshen up a little and figure out what we wanted to do for the rest of the evening.  neither of us was particularly hungry and so didn't end up having dinner in any of the restaurants that evening.  after taking a catnap, the hub headed back up to the smoking deck and i decided to stay in the room in my pajamas and watch a movie.  i ended up ordering some pizza and chocolate cake from room service, and passed out with the air conditioner on full blast.  i was more tired than i thought, because i didn't even hear the hub when he came back.

man, i am one crazy party animal.

alexa who?

happy 4th of july!

to celebrate, i've got something fun for you...a giveaway!  it's been awhile since i did one of these, and i'm not even going to make you do anything weird to enter.

i have an amazon echo dot device that's just sitting in my office, unopened and unused (photo swiped from the google, of course).

poor alexa.  she gets no love in the house of wan.  the hub and i talked about busting her out and adding her to the family, but to be honest...we don't really have much use for her.  we don't have a lot of things in the house that she could control for us.  the house of wan is pretty low-tech compared to most.  and the hub isn't about to rewire all the electrical in the house just to make her work for us.

and so that means you get a chance to snag her for your own house, if you want her!  just leave a comment on this post and tell me what your first command to alexa would be, plus an email address so i can reach you if you're the winner.  we'll leave this open for - oh, let's say a week.  one post per person, US readers only.  you're welcome to share a link to this post if you think you have friends who might need an alexa in their lives, and make sure you enter by next wednesday - july 11th at noon pacific time.

cool?  okay!  good luck, and i'll post the winner next thursday morning!

take a selfie, win a prize!

so on the way home from our fantastic road trip (which i'm still trying to finish recapping!), i heard from my friends at mcdonald's about a fun contest they're hosting with coke, shazam, and the late late show with james corden.  did you catch his drive around the white house doing carpool karaoke with our fabulous first lady?  it was so much fun to watch.

the grand prize is a VIP trip to the late late show with james corden - that includes airfare, hotel and transportation, plus credit with stub hub for 1 concert a month for a whole year.  they're also giving away weekly prizes of $250 stub hub credit.  not too shabby, eh?

there's a couple of ways to enter the contest, and they're both pretty easy.  you can hit up your local mcdonald's, grab a medium-sized coke in the specially marked cup that looks like this:

take a selfie of you singing into that "microphone," and post it on twitter or instagram using #SipShareWin AND #sweepstakes.  kind of like this:

if you don't want to share it, you can just upload the photo at the official website for the contest.  there's also more details plus official contest rules listed there, if you're so inclined.

the other way to enter is a little more fun, but i'm too chicken for it.  if you don't already have the shazam app on your phone, download it - it's free! - and then use the app to scan the microphone on your mcdonald's coke cup.  choose one of the songs on the list and record a quick video of yourself karaoke-ing the hell out of it and submit it.  you're done!  i'm not personally going this route because - well, if you've ever heard me sing you'll get it.

now, i'm a little late in the game because i was gone and didn't realize this was going on.  the contest started a little while ago and there isn't much time left to enter - you have till august 1st to post your photo or video online to win.  i, however, have some other fun prizes that mcdonald's was nice enough to send my way to give out to you guys.

see that t-shirt i'm wearing?  and the sunglasses?  i would love to send some of those out to you, and if you're in soCA, i'll toss in a couple of coupons for a free mcdonald's taste crafted burger or chicken sandwich.

if you want to win, post your photo entry on twitter or instagram and link back to this post along with the hashtags i listed above, then comment on this post with your twitter or instagram handle.  i'll send a t-shirt and sunglasses to the first 6 commenters, and then i have 3 more pairs of sunglasses.  and remember, if you're local to me in southern california, let me know and i'll send you those free sandwich coupons too.  i've actually got quite a few pairs of coupons to give out, so post and comment away!

and hey...if you happen to win that grand prize, i know someone who would LOVE to be your plus-one for the trip.  heh.

my epic fail = your gain?

fresh off of my success doing family t-shirts for pirate night on the disney cruise (but still bummed over not getting a single group photo while we were all wearing them), i decided i wanted to do matching shirts for the 4th of july.

i know, i know.  super cheese and good luck getting everyone to wear them at the same time, right?  yeah.  and when i presented the idea to the old lady, she helpfully suggested that i make 3 shirts and do a fun headband for her out of the same material.  hmph.

a trip to one of my favorite fabric sources yielded quite a plethora of fun material to work with:

as soon as i had everything pre-washed, i got down to the business of cutting it all out.  i stood at the dining table with my rotary cutter in hand, and sucked it up and cut out pattern pieces galore.  i'd done a lot of sewing for the bean in the last month or so, and i decided that it was my turn - so i turned out a handful of things that i'd been wanting to make for myself.  and because it's easier to assemble all of the pieces and save the hemming for last, i busted out a whole bunch of stuff in the span of a few hours.  two dresses for me:

the set of patriotic tops for the 4th:

and of course, i had to try on that headband for the old lady.  she loved it, by the way.

i've also been hoarding this amazingly obnoxious, most ridiculously printed knit fabric that i knew was meant only for a pair of crazy leggings.  i give you...cats in space:

i wanted to make the bean a few more bathing suits, but i suffered a huge failure with the top that i tried to wing using the bodice of one of my favorite dresses.  i was so annoyed i didn't even take a picture of the damn thing.  at least the bottom turned out okay:

and then i decided that maybe it was time to pull out some old pairs of jeans from the closet that i haven't worn in forever and hack 'em up into some cutoff shorts that i'd wear for the next few months.

too bad for me, though - they're all mostly skinny jeans, which aren't the greatest for the look i was going for.  i have one pair of cutoff shorts from the gap that i adore and have worn to death over the last two summers, and they're loose and comfy and fit just right.  and so the great jeans hacking project of 2016 came to an abrupt halt.  boo.

i finally decided to give an adult bathing suit a try.  i'd had some super cute fabric i'd been saving that the old lady had oohed and aahed over, so i printed out a pattern, got her measurements and went to work.  i ran into a few snags here and there and so the suit is far from perfect, but we both loved how the two prints ended up looking together.  this thing is fully lined, with a panty panel (hahahaha, i laugh every time i see/hear/say those words), plus a shelf bra.

too bad it doesn't fit either of us.  BAH.  my initial reaction was to toss it into the donation pile, but then i thought it might be fun to give it away here.  again, it's definitely not perfect, but i do love it and maybe one of you will too?  anyway, the sizing chart is here and this suit is a size 16.  check it out and see if it might be a fit for you.

if you're interested, leave a comment on this post and make sure you give me an email address or twitter handle or something so that i can get ahold of you.

playing the waiting game 2.0

geez, i was a total blogslacker over the last few days, wasn't i?  and it wasn't even due to lack of stuff to post about...i've really just been that insanely busy.  but i'm back!  and i come bearing prizes for two winners from my mcdonald's taste crafted post!  first up:

 and the first winner is...

our second winner:

and that is...

thanks for playing, everyone!  and you two winners, please email me with your contact information so that i can forward it on to my friends at mcdonald's.  congrats and enjoy the new menu!

in other news, do you remember last year when my co-leader and i auditioned for a game show?  well, i don't know what was wrong with those casting folks, because they didn't end up calling us back for that season.  but then while we were discussing cookies or meeting activities or some other kind of girl scout-related insanity, she told me that they called her again to see if we could go back for one more audition.  and because we're gluttons for punishment (not to mention still VERY willing to play for $20K), we said yes.

and this time, we dragged the old lady into the mix.  she was reluctant as she really hates any sort of attention, but i'm guessing she was curious enough about the process of trying out for a game show (and she had the morning off, so had nothing else to do).

i crack up every time i look at that picture.  also, that photobomber claims to be a legit broadway actor.  although a number of folks in that audition room claimed to be an actor of some sort, so who knows.  anyway, after we checked in and had a head shot taken, we were led into the building.

it was a much nicer venue than the last time we did this, and the process was mostly the same.  first, everyone saw a producer and did a quick 30-second intro.  i hate that stuff, because honestly, i don't have anything super exciting to say.  "hi, i'm a stay-at-home mom."  "i have two kids, a husband and a dog."  "i like to blog."  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.  but the co-leaders angle was interesting to the producers, because we managed to make it to the next round.  this consisted of playing a mock version of the game while showing an excessive amount of enthusiasm, not least of which involved a lot of jumping and cheering and spirit fingers and shit.  when you have two ex-cheerleaders, that's actually not very hard.

photo credit for that shot goes to the old lady, who opted out of moving forward because she couldn't bring herself to be that perky and cheerful.

we managed to make it to the next round, which brought us into a closed-off section of the room.  we could still hear what was going on, and were given a questionnaire to fill out.  i couldn't tell you what was on it, but i do remember listing mario lopez, ryan seacrest and neil patrick harris as my ideal celebrity teammates.  and when asked what i would do with my half of the prize, i wrote out "a bangin' red soled shoe wardrobe and a trip to hawaii."  what the hell is wrong with me?  i guess i don't do too well under pressure.

anyway, after we were done with that we were brought into a smaller room with a producer, a video camera, a laptop and a purple backdrop.  he had us introduce ourselves, play another round of the game, and then a quick interview.  we jumped around like crazy people, did a lot of arm flailing, grinned till our cheeks hurt, and basically made fools of ourselves trying to win over this producer who actually did seem like he was amused at our antics.  anyway, once we were done we were free to go, and with filming set to begin in march and running through the first part of may, now we get to play the waiting game.  not a game i enjoy, but it is what it is.

after doing a little juggling in regards to making sure our kids got picked up from school, we took advantage of where we were and stopped in at our favorite place - porto's.  we ordered pastries galore, and i threw in this horchata smoothie that was insanely delicious.

man, i hope we get called this time.  i just want to check "got to be a game show contestant" off of the ol' bucket list.  it's right up there with "meet ryan seacrest" and "visit tokyo disneyland."

what?

gimme all the maple bacon

disclaimer:  i received a gift card from mcdonald's to use for the purpose of this review/post.

so my friends over at mcdonald's contacted me awhile ago to see if i was interested in trying out their new taste crafted menu.  i love mickey d's, so it was a no-brainer.  i'd heard about it just from their PR blitz on the radio and in tv commercials, so i was somewhat familiar with the new concept.  basically, you can create your own sandwich from the various choices they're offering for buns, meat, and condiments:

what i didn't know was that they were also adding table service to their walk-in diners.  so you can walk in, place your order at the counter, and then go have a seat and wait for one of their employees to bring it to you.  i'm not entirely sure if this adds tipping to the mcdonald's dynamic, but i guess tips are always appropriate whenever service is particularly good.

with cookie season in full swing, it gets hard to make time to do dinner at home.  i mean, sure, i've got that nifty new instant pot (which i'm using all the time, by the way), but some nights i'm just done and the last thing i want to do is stand in the kitchen and make food.  we had one of those evenings last week when it was just me and the bean, and so it was the perfect time for us to visit our local mcdonald's and give it a try.  plus, it helps that it has one of the nicer, cleaner play places and so we invited my co-leader and her two kids to join us for a quick dinner out.

i whipped out my arch card to place our order:

and noticed a different graphic for the taste crafted menu placed conveniently on the counter.

i totally forgot about the table service deal and waited at the counter for our food to be ready.  oops.  old habits die hard, you know.

the bean wasn't having any of that fancy stuff, though.  she opted for her tried-and-true (well, one of them, anyway) - the filet o'fish.

but i'd opted for the maple bacon dijon with grilled chicken on an artisan roll.  i'm not usually a dijon fan, but i decided to step outside of my comfort zone and give it a shot.

it looked pretty good - especially for what you typically expect to see from mcdonald's.  and i'm happy to report that it tasted as good as it looked.  the roll was chewy and delicious, the chicken was tender and perfectly cooked, the veggies were fresh, and that mild dijon sauce added some great flavor to the sandwich.  and, well, duh - maple-smoked bacon.  need i say more?  i mean...it's bacon.  mmmmm.

being mcdonald's, it wasn't super pricey, and after grabbing a snack-sized mcflurry for the bean's dessert i'd spent well under $20 on dinner.

so i'm not saying this just because we enjoyed free mcdonald's food, but really - the taste crafted menu is definitely worth a shot.  i want to go back and try that buffalo bacon with the grilled chicken on a soft potato roll next time.

what sort of concoction would you like to try from the new taste crafted menu?  comment below with your top pic and my friend random.com and i will pick a couple of folks to receive an arch card so you can go in and give it a whirl.

you can enter a couple of different ways - leave me a comment below (make sure you give me a way to reach you!).  or head over to twitter and tweet a link to this post, tagging me (@luvbabyb) in your tweet.  then come back and leave a second comment telling me you tweeted.  make sure you do it by monday (february 15th) at 5:00pm PST - i'll post the winners the next day.

oh - sorry, international friends...US only.  don't hate me.