Ventures in Self Photography

So, I read an awesome how-to on self photography on iheartfaces.com.  I follow a good number of fashion bloggers who do their own self photography, and it's just beautiful.  However, I'm still learning on getting the focus right... and I can hardly take myself serious in front of the camera.  That, and I'm the furthest thing from a model.  But, since I was feeling especially cute in my new sandals and skinny jeans tonight, I decided to give it a try.


My first attempt... you can tell I'm not quite feeling this.



Better focus, but cut out my feet, and awkward pose...


Model? Uh, no...


I deem this my most successful shot with the timer.


So I gave up and went to the mirror!
 



The shoes are a little large, but I don't think it's too obvious. They were the tiniest 5.5 I could find. I can rarely wear 5s, let alone 5.5s (normally, I'm an adult 3.5/4, children's 2/3)


And my "model" face.

Top Delia's, Jean Leggings Express, Sandals Target

 



























I'll have to try again with the self photography another day.

Rachel's Graduation Celebration

Saturday, June 2

Rachel Graduates Valedictorian!

Drive to Walt Disney World

Sunday, June 3

8:10 AM Breakfast at Chef Mickey's

Spend the day in Magic Kingdom

9:00 PM Tomorrowland Terrace Dessert Party

Drive to Port Canaveral, check-in at Marriott Residence Inn

Monday, June 4

11:00 AM Priority embarkation at Port Canaveral - board Monarch of the Seas

4:30 PM Sail away!

Tuesday, June 5

8:00 AM Arrive at CocoCay

5:00 PM Depart

Wednesday, June 6

7:00 AM Arrive in Nassau, Bahamas

1:00 PM Booze Cruise!

11:59 PM Depart

Thursday, June 7

Sea Day

Friday, June 8

Back in Port Canaveral, Disembarkation

Drive to Walt Disney World

Check-In at Disney's Beach Club Resort

Tentative reservation... 6:10 PM at Crystal Palace - thinking about changing to Boardwalk-area restaurant

Saturday, June 9

Walt Disney World

Tentative reservation... 6:55 PM at Coral Reef Restaurant

Sunday, June 10

10:40 AM Breakfast at Cape May Cafe

My Mickey Room

This is actually the works of my mother's creative genius.  She has an act for home decorating.


After years of collecting, might as well put them on display - They toy box was my mom's when she was a little girl. It's also been with my sister and me throughout our entire childhood. We have pictures of the two of us inside this toy box. Mom has made it fit with all of our rooms in the past by repainting and adding a new border. The black and white dottie print is the same wallpaper used to line the room. The bank is actually Rachel's. She collects piggy banks. This piece from our childhood room also shows off our collectables. When we were younger, we positioned our Ty Beanie Babies in here. I believe the intended purpose of the cubbies is for CDs.
We played with this train set when we were little kids. I believe it came from my grandparents' house. As the youngest of seven grandkids, I don't think we were the first to use it.
 The artwork above the bed is DIY, as well. The pants, shoe, glove, and ears are actually plates which Mother mounted on fabric canvases which she framed. She's so creative!
 For a 16th birthday present, I dined with an Imagineer.
Mother made the curtains for the bookcases.
 
 As well as the clock and the artwork. Mickey is my favorite Disney character - would you have guessed?
The stamp collection was a gift from my employer. He had it framed and everything (and it's glass on both sides so you can read the back of the stamps) - How sweet!
 
 My mother snagged this artwork from the high school several years ago. It was decoration for the Miss Landmark "Heroes" theme, in which I dressed as Mickey Mouse and talked about how Walt Disney was my hero.
  Love this room.

Group Trips: Dealing with Control Freaks

I must admit, I freaked out a little when I checked my page stats and realized that my Aggravation of Planning Group Trips post was the most-read and that the majority of viewers found it through Facebook.  Oh, goodness - are people reading about themselves?  Will they get upset?

Now I don't care.

The first thing about this entire cruise that pissed us off was that it was always Rachel's idea.  Rachel took her first cruise at five years old.  Well - one of the moms swears that it was her idea - that she'd been planning this since her daughter's 5th grade graduation.  You've been planning your daughter's high school graduation trip since she graduated elementary school? (Yeah, right) Get a life, sister!  She didn't want this to be a mother/daughter cruise - she wanted it to be a family cruise because her husband and son couldn't deal with being left behind.  Of course, with the cruise we had picked out originally (7-night Freedom of the Seas), she complained that it left the day after graduation and her husband didn't want to drive through the night.  There are two solutions to that problem - drive halfway down the night before, spend the night in a hotel, then drive the remaining distance... or just drive down in the morning.  You don't have to be onboard until 3:00 PM, and we live 8 hours from Port Canaveral.  Totally doable!

We think that the real opposition to the 7-night is that it was expensive.  It would've cost over $1000 a person, and it's understandable that it could be out of budget, especially for the girls not going with a parent.  We knew that it was expensive, but everyone knew the price and acted okay with it when we booked.  One thing that I've learned over the years and have gotten better at, but I suppose some people will never learn - IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM, SPEAK UP!  In most cases, people want to make you happy and are willing to work with you IF YOU JUST TELL THEM!  Don't act fine with it, then go home and bitch to your friends and family.  But the thing is - nobody is going to know that you're not happy unless you tell them!

Now we get to the control freak part.

Out of everyone going on this trip, we have taken by far the most cruises.  This will be our tenth cruise and makes us Emerald Crown and Anchor Members (Royal Caribbean's loyalty program).  Having cruised regularly for the past twelve years, you'd think that people would go to us for advice... trust our advice... or maybe just decide to include us in their plans.

But no.

The person running the show is going on her third cruise, first through Royal Caribbean, and using a travel agent.  She's used a travel agent for all of her cruises and doesn't know how to do anything herself.

Not dissing travel agents, here - TAs are good to use, sometimes even if you do know how to book your own cruise because they can get you onboard credit and [should] be very knowledgeable about your vacation.  I just have a problem because this person hasn't told anyone that she used a travel agent.  She's pretending like she's doing this herself, but when people ask her questions, she can't answer.  The reason I know she used a TA?  Because I got her reservation number and found out through Royal Caribbean Online - My Cruises.  I bet she doesn't know how to do that.

Now, this lady is a crazy control freak.  And perhaps because she knows that we are more knowledgeable about cruises than her... she excludes us from everything!

I was trying to line up an excursion for the seven graduates because I figured it would be a safe way to give them freedom.  I researched excursions, read all about them, took the input from girls - decided on a highly-rated Segway excursion which was a good price because I'd be booking it directly through the tour company, rather than through the cruiseline.  We had four girls onboard, two declined, and control freak's daughter?  MIA.  Well, today we learned that two of the girls who were originally interested bailed.  Why?  Because control freak had set up a family excursion to Blue Lagoon (I'd read about it and rolled my eyes - would've been great when we were kids, probably, but not something I'd spend my money on as an adult)... which she invited everyone to go on with her... but us.

How immature and childish is that?  I mean, no, we wouldn't have wanted to go on this excursion - but to invite everyone but us?  How rude!

It's becoming hard to look forward to this cruise because we don't even like the people we're going with.  Which is the only reason we agreed to go on this cruise, anyway - so Rachel could hang out with her friends who are now ditching her.  We feel like we are wasting money on a ship and an itinerary that we have absolutely no interest in and would've never picked out on our own.

But, there are a few things to look forward to:

1. My father, mother, and I are staying in a grand suite.
2. My sister gets to share an adjoining outside stateroom with her friends.
3. We are going to get crazy drunk and party like there's no tomorrow.

Wave Your Flag

Having parents from two different alma maters (Dad graduated with Bachelor's from Oklahoma State, Master's from Georgia Tech, Mother graduated from Mississippi State) which we lived nowhere near (well, Georgia Tech, but everyone knows that your loyalty lies in the first four years), my sister and I didn't grow up fans of anything.  We were essentially fans of whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted - no real blood tying us down (though my parents always root for their respective alma maters).  Growing up in South Carolina, we were caught in the middle of the Clemson/University of South Carolina war - neither of which I felt a huge tie to as a child.

That is until now.  As of 2010, I am, and always will be, a Clemson Tiger.  And I'm happy to have my sister, Rachel, joining me at Clemson University this spring!

While Rachel and I sat in the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, we started discussing our upcoming cruise and how we would decorate (we always decorate for Christmas - even on a cruise ship!).  Either Clemson or Disney.  So that's when we made the deal - if Clemson won the ACC Championship, we would decorate our door obnoxiously in orange and purple.

Our room was very easy to find.

And we always bring a little tree with us on our Christmas cruises.

So wear your colors.

 

Be loud.  Be proud.

 

And take your towel with you wherever you go.

 

Wave your flag.

Want to see more from our Christmas Cruise?  Read my trip report on CruiseCritic.com!

The Aggravation of Planning Group Trips

Rachel's Graduation Celebration is the trip currently in the works.

And this trip has been in the works since... well, since I graduated from high school.

Rachel loves to vacation, especially cruise.  And she has a group of steady girlfriends.  So, her image of the ideal graduation celebration was to go on a cruise with her five best friends.

The original idea was a mother/daughter cruise.  They had been talking about this for over a year, I'd say.  They even had a meeting near the beginning of the school year with a few of the moms, picked out the cruise with her best friend, then everyone agreed on the cruise.  It was a 7-night eastern Caribbean cruise on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas.  We knew we needed to book it soon.  So, while we were on the Adventure over winter break, my parents decided to go ahead and book onboard to get the extra cruise credits.

We came back and told them we booked it... and I guess that's when sticker shock set in (they had already seen the prices and hadn't blinked).  Or maybe just conflicting ideas on what this graduation cruise should be.  Whatever the objection, it would've been great to hear this before we went ahead and booked the cruise.

One girl found a compromise - a 4-night Bahamian cruise on the Monarch of the Seas.  This way, everyone's entire family could go (apparently mother/daughter didn't fly with some dads) because it was less expensive.  Then the objecting family suggested that we spend the day we get off the ship at one of the Disney parks.

Now, if you haven't picked up on it already, my family knows Disney.  We are one of those families that vacations there at least once a year.  That never grows tired of the magic.  And I, in particular, am very knowledgeable about Walt Disney World.

So we rolled our eyes at this, and Rachel wants so bad to point out that the price of everyone going on this cruise and to Walt Disney World is going to be about the same as the original 7-night cruise on the Freedom.  Just on a smaller ship, going to less exciting ports, for a shorter period of time.  PARTY!!!!

No, really, party - a short 3/4-night cruise to the Bahamas on Royal Caribbean, Carnival, or Norwegian is essentially a party cruise.

After the initial chaos and frustration, we've actually grown more excited for the cruise.  It will be an experience, for sure.  And it looks like everyone is just going to be doing their own thing (which kind of makes you wonder why we even bothered to plan a big group trip - if it weren't for the children).  Which is good because clearly everyone has a different picture of the ideal vacation.  But the thing that really annoys me is that it seems like we've all forgotten the reason we're cruising - to celebrate our daughters' (err... my sister's) graduation.

Victoria Returns

This blog is something that I somewhat forgot about.  I still documented all of my trips to Walt Disney World, and even documented my last Christmas cruise online.  However, instead of updating the blog, I published them only through online forums.

Why?

More traffic and easier to publish in only one format.  The code for publishing photos online is different than publishing in forums, and it was getting confusing and time-consuming having to go back and forth between the two of them.  I got more traffic on my trip reports on forums, and once people stumble across it on a forum, there really is no need to go to the blog.  Sure, I could post a link to the blog and only post the entire report here, but that's two clicks - people are more likely to ignore you if they have to click twice to read your stuff.

A lot has happened over the years.  I just finished up my second year of architecture at Clemson University.  In that time...

1. We sailed on the Serenade of the Seas out of Puerto Rico for spring break
2. Went back to Walt Disney World to celebrate my high school graduation at the Polynesian
3. Returned to our annual summer vacation spot in Destin, Florida - stayed at Jade East
4. 9-Night Christmas cruise on the Carnival Dream
5. 4th of July at Walt Disney World, Grand Floridian Resort
6. Destin, again - Sterling Sands
7. I went on an architecture field trip to Washington, DC and Philadelphia
8. 8-Night Christmas cruise on Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas out of Puerto Rico
9. Followed by a week at the Marriott Stellaris in San Juan
10. Then I went to the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida (do NOT bring up the Orange Bowl!)
11. Spring break at Walt Disney World - Polynesian
12. I went to the AIAS (architecture students) South Quad convention in Charlotte, NC

Listing it out really helps me put it in perspective - that's a lot of travel for two years!

I've decided that it's still important for me to keep a blog because I will be living in Genoa, Italy next spring!  Not to mention, we have an upcoming graduation celebration for my little sister which combines her favorite things - cruises, Disney, and friends.

My goal for this blog is to not make it just a string of trip reports when I come back from vacation.  I actually participate a lot in the vacation planning process.  Heck, I practically planned and booked every aspect of Rachel's upcoming graduation trip.  So I have a lot to contribute there, and I've learned a good bit throughout the years on packing and traveling... and I'm always learning new things when I travel.

Not to mention, the term "vacation" could be used loosely - perhaps it doesn't mean just visiting different places, but taking a vacation from school/work/life.  I suppose I'll continue to define vacation as I continue this blog.