I'm Ready to Laugh About It Now

So remember how last year I got lasik?  Well, it's been almost a year and I realized I never gave an update on how it's been.

In a word?  Wonderful.

How good is it you ask?

Let me tell you how good.  We went on a family camping trip on Easter weekend and Kate threw up in the tent the first night and had diarrhea the second night.

I still thought it was a great camping trip.

No seriously. Going camping without contacts or glasses for the first time was so liberating that I still thought this was one of our better camping trips, stomach bug and all.

We had a lot of fun.  The non-sick kids and I went on a short hike and tried fishing for the first time:

And because it was Easter weekend, we participated in a few Easter egg hunts.  Inks Lake State Park where we camped had one on Saturday morning and Kate was feeling well enough to go.  Some of the eggs had regular candy, but a few had tickets for prizes.  Kate made out like a bandit:

Kate's love language is gifts.  I think God knew my little girl was having a rough weekend and sent some extra love her way that day :)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

If anyone is wondering how my recovery from lasik went, here's a little run-down:

The two weeks of no contacts and lots of eye drops beforehand was a pain.  But the surgery itself was fast.  A little uncomfortable, but no pain and very short-lived. M got to watch through a window and I'm kind of jealous. Immediately after the procedure I could see very well.  I had fairly clear vision with a milky layer over it of haziness, especially when looking at bright lights.  The Valium they had given me made me very slow-moving.  M drove me home and we ate some lunch and then I went to sleep for most of the day.  The next morning I went to a follow-up appointment with my optometrist. I had something like 20/40 vision that first day with still a fair amount of haziness. But I could drive no problem.

I went to pick up my kids from my parents' house, but I was still a little sleepy.  I fell asleep sitting upright in a chair out by the pool.

For the next few days my eyes were pretty dry, my vision was still plagued by pretty bad haziness when looking at bright lights, and I had a wicked headache.  But I still don't know if the headache was from my vision, or from getting a really bad crick in my neck when I fell asleep in that chair.  I tend to get neckaches easily and they tend to manifest themselves as headaches.  But by the end of a week, the headaches were gone and my vision was great except in super high contrast situations (like looking at bright lights in the dark/at night).  My final post-op optometrist appointment put me at 20/15 in one eye and 20/20 in the other.

One of the first few nights, I complained to M, "How does anyone ever go to sleep when there's so much to look at?"  It took about a month before I stopped thinking I had forgotten to take my contacts out before bed.  This seriously happened EVERY NIGHT for about a month.

Now at almost a year out, I never even have to think about my eyes anymore.  They are never dry - better in fact than they were pre-lasik (because contacts made my eyes dry).  I can see great.  The only halo-ing/haziness I have is still tons better than what I experienced with contacts in.  And when I describe what I see to M (who has naturally good vision), it sounds like my vision (including a tiny bit of halo-ing) is no different than his.

In the end, it was worth every penny.  (And it was a lot of pennies. I am deeply grateful we could afford it and that M didn't balk at doing this for me.)  It totally falls into the categories of things in your life that it's very easy to take for granted unless you force yourself to stop and think about it.  But I'm pretty sure being able to forget you had it done is totally the sign of a successful lasik procedure!!!

Caribbean Cruise Day 6 and 7 (At sea)

If you missed any of the other installments, you can find them here:

Day 1 - Boarding in Galveston
The Diet Soda Debacle
Day 2 - At sea
Day 3 - Cozumel
Day 4 Part 1 - Grand Cayman
Day 4 Part 2 - Grand Cayman
Day 5 - Jamaica

---------------------------------------------------------

As our ship began the trip home, we had 2 full days at sea to relax and finish trying out all the activities on the boat.

We did more rock wall climbing, then we tried out the ice skating:

We played some table tennis and watched a movie in the on-board movie theater.  Then at night we used the shipboard credit we had gotten by booking our cruise via Costco to try out the special dining steakhouse on board.  I tried to order the New York strip because that is my favorite cut.  The waiter kept second guessing me telling me that the New York strip was the same cut that they would be serving in the main dining room the next night but that the filet mignon was their specialty.  I finally followed his advice and order the filet.  Turns out?  I still don't really like filet mignon.  It was flavorless and over-tenderized to the point of having a powdery texture.  I hate that.  So in my opinion?  The extra $30 to dine in the special restaurant was DEFINITELY not worth it.  Good thing we weren't actually paying for it out of pocket.

The first at sea night our stateroom attendant left us this monkey:

So the next morning we let the monkey take a shower:

We filled our time by doing a little shopping, playing in the arcade, doing more rock climbing, having Sudoku races (During which I slaughtered M.  Bad.  Every time.), watching some shows and a parade, watching a movie on the TV in our room, packing, and using the hot tubs.

  

The last night they gave us back our diet soda and we indulged heavily. Our stateroom attendant left these cute little critters.

We left them perched up on a high shelf in our room as we were leaving, but I didn't get a photo.

The last morning (Day 8), we woke up and ate some breakfast as we watched the dolphins jumping in the water.  As a last little treat before we got off the ship and drove home, we saw that we had a celebrity for an assistant waiter:

Overall, we had an absolutely wonderful time and I hope we get to do it again some day!!!

Caribbean Cruise - Day 5 (Jamaica)

If you missed any of the other installments, you can find them here:

Day 1 - Boarding in Galveston
The Diet Soda Debacle
Day 2 - At sea
Day 3 - Cozumel
Day 4 Part 1 - Grand Cayman
Day 4 Part 2 - Grand Cayman

---------------------------------------------------------

We woke up the next morning to Jamaica:

The weather that day was lovely.

Of course the one day that was finally gorgeous was the one day we didn't plan to spend at the beach!

We let ourselves have a leisurely start that morning.  As we headed ashore, we left the towel penguin with some reading material for the stateroom attendant to find:

Jamaica was... different than the other ports we had been to:

The port had a very pretty security fence:

Who knew spikes could be so pretty, right?

We had heard that Jamaica wasn't quite as safe to just wing it, so this was the one port where we just went ahead and booked an excursion through the cruise line.  Not cheap, but relaxing to have it all planned out for us.  We boarded a bus for the mountains:

We drove up a dirt road in the bus.

This was the smoother part of the mountain road!  We went part way up, then unloaded, got our equipment, used the bathrooms, put our stuff in lockers, etc.  Then we got on a more off-road-ish bus and climbed a much steeper rougher road up to the top, but I didn't have my camera.

The view from where we got our equipment was beautiful.

Our ultimate destination, you ask?

Zip-lining!

This is what the platforms looked like.  We zip-lined back and forth across a deep ravine on our way down the mountain, with a few rappels thrown in for good measure.  They don't let you bring your camera, so we bought a few of the photos they took of us.

Here was the view as you zip-lined across:

It was SO FUN!!!

We got back aboard the ship and did a little climbing on the rock wall:

The day finished with a beautiful sunset:

Caribbean Cruise - Day 4 Part 2 (Grand Cayman)

If you missed any of the other installments, you can find them here:

Day 1 - Boarding in Galveston
The Diet Soda Debacle
Day 2 - At sea
Day 3 - Cozumel
Day 4 Part 1 - Grand Cayman

---------------------------------------------------------

After our morning snorkeling, we caught a taxi.  For the second half of our day in Grand Cayman, we went to relax on 7 Mile Beach:

Confession:  It was still very cloudy and overcast.  You can see the cloudy skies in that photo.  It looks better in this photo than it did even in person for us.  Don't get me wrong, it was absolutely gorgeous, just a little less vivid looking because it was so overcast.

That photo was taken from these tables where we sat and had lunch on the beach:

Mostly, we sat on the beach and read and relaxed:

I spent some time watching this tiny crab chase down this tiny fish as the waves kept coming in and out:

Then we headed back to the ship.  It started to rain and the seas were kinda rough, so it was tricky getting off the tender back onto the ship and it took us awhile.  But as it started to get dark it was fun to see the ship all lit up:

When we got back aboard, we discovered that when M went for a quick swim at 7 Mile Beach, he had his wallet still in his pocket and all the cash was soaked:

Now we can say that we laundered some money in the Cayman Islands!  Luckily M carries a stainless steel wallet, so the cash was the only thing that suffered!

And speaking of money, I have to take a moment to talk about the safe in our room:

Just a little safe for your money and valuables.  Hardly big enough for a purse, let a lone a person!?!????

Or maybe they're worried you'll try to store your pet hamster in there?

I'm sure it's just a standard safe label used on bigger safes as well, but the idea of someone suffocating in that tiny safe had us laughing the whole week.

And last but not least, another towel animal from our stateroom attendant:

Caribbean Cruise - Day 4 Part 1 (Grand Cayman)

If you missed any of the other installments, you can find them here:

Day 1 - Boarding in Galveston
The Diet Soda Debacle
Day 2 - At sea
Day 3 - Cozumel

---------------------------------------------------------

Day 4 Part 1 (Grand Cayman)

Grand Cayman is a place where you have to ride smaller boats (tenders) from the cruise ship onto shore.  We waited in line kind of early so that we got tickets for the first tenders that morning.  The first thing we did once we got ashore in Grand Cayman was walk just a little ways to the south of the port to Eden Rock for some more snorkeling.  The shore was really rocky there and we climbed down a metal ladder into the water.  On the concrete edge there were a bunch of cute little crabs!  Can you see them in this photo?

There was much more to see snorkeling here than where we went in Cozumel.  Here there was a true reef and it was only about 50 yards or so off shore.  But the weather in Grand Cayman was even cloudier and grayer than it had been in Cozumel, so it was even harder to get any photos from the point-and-shoot camera inside a waterproof bag.  Sorry.

Note the actual reefiness.

Look, a blue... thing:

So yah, taking pictures didn't turn out so well.  In fact, it was drizzling a tiny bit while we snorkeled.  And the reef was fairly deep down so there just wasn't much of the gray overcast light getting down there.  This picture almost kind of turned out:

We saw a puffer fish and a flat fish. But no photos of those. This was a cool black trigger fish:

We saw TONS of different fish, but I don't know the names of most of them. And then, of course, there were lots of sergeant majors again:

They were getting super close to us again.  Here you can see how many were swimming between M and me:

But the most noteworthy thing was this:

Oooo, barracuda!

The fish were amazing, but after awhile it was like we just kept seeing the same super cool stuff again and again. So after a couple hours of not very warm salt water, we were done.

As we walked back toward the port in order to catch a taxi, we picked up coconut water from a street vendor to quench our thirst:

M was so excited, he wet himself:

M is probably gonna hate me for joking about that.  So yah, just to clarify:  Really it was just that our swim suits were still wet from snorkeling.  And of course, of course, any wetness anywhere on your body always seems to manifest itself in the general crotch region.  Why is that?  Probably to maximize embarrassment and keep us humble.

Day 4 To Be Continued...

Caribbean Cruise - Day 3 (Cozumel)

If you missed any of the other installments, you can find them here:

Day 1 - Boarding in Galveston
The Diet Soda Debacle
Day 2 - At sea

---------------------------------------------------------

Day 3 (Cozumel)

We decided to play a game with our room attendant.  He left us a towel dog watching cartoons, so the next morning we left the towel dog sleeping in the bed with a "Do Not Distub" sign:

Then we headed ashore in Cozumel, Mexico.  Outside the port we got in line for a taxi and got a ride to Chankanaab National Park.

First we watched the sea lion show:

We each got a kiss on the cheek from a sea lion too!  It was decidedly un-liability-paranoid-American the way they let us walk out across a slippery walkway to the stage and be right next to the animals like that.  But I don't have a photo because the only photo they allow is the one they took that they want you to pay an arm and a leg for.  I decided my memory of the event would just have to suffice.

We walked around some gardens and archaeological replicas, then went on a short tour of their dolphin encounter area.  Again, no photos allowed but here is a shot of one of the dolphins that I took before we went out on the tour:

The cutest part was the baby dolphin!  It was about 2 months old.  But mostly we got to watch other people (who I'm pretty sure must have had to leave their first born child as payment) get in the water and play with the dolphins.  It was actually pretty fun even to just watch.  Also on the tour were a couple of manatees.   Very cool.

After lunch on the beach, we rented some snorkel gear.

Warning:  From here on out, the photos are going to get even crappier.  Already we had only taken the point and shoot off the ship with us, but now the point and shoot is in a waterproof bag.

Here is a view from where we snorkeled of the cruise ships in the distance:

Here we are rockin' the snorkel gear:

This is me, G, in case you couldn't tell.

And this is M, in case you couldn't tell.

The snorkeling was gorgeous:

This was probably the clearest photo we got.  They just go downhill from here, sorry.  It was a partially overcast day, so most of the time there just wasn't enough light.

This is the other clear-ish shot.

Everywhere we went were a lot of these sergeant majors:

They were totally not afraid and would often swim along with us.  More than once they got so close we would end up bumping into them.

And there was totally a school of... something:

This photo is the best I could get. (If you saw the others, you'd think this one was pretty good.)

And then just when we felt like we'd pretty much seen everything and were going to head in, we saw an eagle ray:

It was a very fun day.

And in case we had so much fun that we lost track of the days, never fear!  The elevators back on the ship were always there to remind us of the day of the week:

The outside of the elevators were pretty cool too:

We finished the evening with some time in one of the hot tubs!