Archives for 2016

Friday Favorites!

Friday, June 24, 2016

Fridays in the summer are bittersweet for a teacher….love Fridays but it also means I’m one more week closer to school starting back!

I’m linking up with Andrea and Erika to share a few of my favorite things!

ONE

Summers off means that I can enjoy lunch with my sister during her lunch hour! We met up at Panera Bread (one of my favorite places) to eat and hang out. Wednesdays are the only days she can for sure take lunch at noon, so this summer I’ve had lunch with her almost every Wednesday that I’ve been in town!

TWO

Another #wheredustinsleeps

This mini nap allowed me to watch a few Kim and Kourtney Take New York reruns!

THREE

Anthro tag sale started yesterday! I picked up a dress before the cruise and almost tried this one on, but it wasn’t the look I was going for. Now that it’s on sale, that might be even more reason for me to go back to get it! #perfectdresstoteachin

FOUR

Remember when I blogged about wanting a new hair style? I’ve been a little obsessed over the idea of it and have been scouring the internet (meaning Pinterest ha) for styles that convey what I want. Well y’all, I went ahead and made my appointment! Actually, I had scheduled a hair cut with my color touch up the day before school starts, but since I can’t get this out of my mind, I called to move my appointment up to….next week. Eek!

And ever since then, I see short hair everywhere…

Bethenny’s short hair is killing it on RHONY and Snapchat (Me: sarahshaneyfelt). Side Note: Bethenny randomly starts singing sometimes on her snaps and it’s the worst thing ever! Like I want to tell her just to lip sync if she’s going to do it. We’re not all singers, honey.

Then I snapped this horrible picture of Dylan Dryer’s hair while watching The Today Show this week. I’m telling you, short hair is everywhere and it’s making me itch to cut mine! It’s like when you buy a new car and suddenly you see so many people driving your same exact car.

FIVE

Fashion inspiration at the moment…

I know, I know, some of you are going to hate on the fact that I think Kim is a fashion inspiration. But you have to admit (and even Anna Wintour loves her) that her fashion game is on top.

SIX

I’ve been burning this candle constantly this summer. It’s a smell that Dustin likes, too, so that’s a bonus! Sometimes he hates the candles I burn and he just has to deal with it 🙂

Advice for a First-Time Cruise

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Happy Thursday, y’all!

I just returned from a cruise to the Bahamas on Saturday and I recapped Part 1 and Part 2 earlier this week. I had some requests for tips and advice for cruising, and I am happy to oblige! I loved the little tidbits of advice I received about cruising from a few readers, and I wanted to create a list of my own. Hopefully, these tips will help you for your first cruise or your fifth cruise!

PACKING
-Bring a jacket or a sweatshirt in case you get cold while on the ship.
-The only items of clothing that you need are dinner outfits, bathing suits, pajamas, and 1-2 lounge outfits.
-Don’t pack a beach towel because the ships provide them!
-Bring way more sunscreen than you think you’ll need. You do not want to have to buy anything on the ship…..SO expensive!

SCHEDULING
-If you can, do the early dinner time. This leaves time to see more shows after dinner!
-Excursions are so much cheaper at the port! We saved $100 by buying our Atlantis pass at the actual resort instead of pre-buying on the ship. (Not all excursions are offered at the port.)

PORTS
-Carry some cash with you at each port and make sure you have one and five dollar bills
-Be prepared to be bombarded by locals at each port of call wanting you to get in their taxi or pay for their tour

TIPS
-Take the stairs all the time! It’ll help you feel better about eating so much 🙂
-Deck chairs go fast so don’t wait too long before going to lay out on your days at sea
-Get to know your room steward. They are some of the nicest people on the ship and will help you out if you ever need it.
-If at all possible, try not to check your luggage when you disembark. It takes so much longer to leave the ship and you’re one of the last groups called.

What would I have done differently?
-I would have packed a small blanket because I did get a little cold each night while sleeping.
-I would have packed a few snacks for when I was hungry between meals. The only food items available on my ship 24 hours was pizza and ice cream. After eating more fattening foods for my meals, I did not want anything fattening for a snack.
-Check with your ship about bringing canned cokes on board. If you’re a coke drinker but don’t want to order the drinking package, you may be able to bring a case of your own for your room. Carnival allows it! I’m a water drinker, but cruise ship water has a weird taste to it. If I would have checked, I could have brought a case of Coke Zero.

Dustin’s advice:
-Pack a few extra outfits in case you need them since there aren’t any clothing stores on board (that you want to shop at) (Total opposite of what I said!)
-Pack an insulated water bottle (like Nalgene or Swell)–you will need this when you get off the boat and at the pool
-Dustin also says to bring cash in lower increment bills (He wanted me to reiterate this point ha)
-Take some sort of motion sickness medicine (or prescription patch from the doctor) with you in case the ocean gets rough
-Bring a carry on to the ship that has an extra outfit in case your luggage takes hours to get to your room like us
-Bring a backpack/bag to take with you off the boat
-Have sinus meds/Tylenol/cough drops in case you get sick (Dustin had sinus drainage so we had to pay $7 for a small box of cough drops)
-Relax and enjoy it all!

Linking up with Annie today

Cruise to the Bahamas: Part 2

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Today I’m sharing the rest of our cruise with you: our stop at the cruise line’s private island, a stop at Nassau, the last day at sea, and the day we left. If you missed part 1 yesterday, click here.

I was SO excited for our first stop on the ship. I had researched the private island, Half Moon Cay, and we had decided not to do any excursions but to enjoy the island as if it were a resort–laying out and swimming in the ocean. We ended up staying in the ocean the entire time minus eating lunch because it was the most beautiful water ever!

For those of you who have never cruised before, be prepared to take 184,973,827 pictures. Seriously, there are photographers roaming constantly wanting to take your picture, so we had to get a picture as soon as we got off the tender boat onto the island. (These pictures are so expensive to buy so we took a few pictures of the good ones.)

This stop required a tender in which means instead of walking straight out of the boat onto the island, we had to board a 2 story boat and ride over to the island.

Can you see how gorgeous the water is? It was the clearest water I’ve ever been in and you could still see straight through to the bottom even when we were 5 feet out. You can see why we ditched laying out and played in the ocean the whole time instead.

Riding on the tender boat back to the ship.

For dinner that night, I wore this romper and it’s back in stock!!!! I bought it around Easter and it flew off the shelves and online within a week, so I’m so glad Anthropologie brought it back. Remember, if you’re long waisted like me, this romper will work for you!

For our dinner each night on the ship, we ate at our assigned table with the same people. I was hesitant about this at first because I was afraid we would be sitting with people that we couldn’t carry on a conversation with, but we lucked out and had great people! All of them were young married couples like us.

We became friends with the couple sitting next to Dustin on the right–Joy and Justin from Tennessee. They were on their honeymoon!

The next day we docked in Nassau–home of Atlantis. We were really excited about this port until the cruise director came over the intercom right before got off the boat with a warning from the US Embassy–don’t wear jewelry off the ship and stay in highly populated areas since there was a high security threat. Great, right?! Way to make us feel safe!

Our view of Atlantis that morning from the ship.

Obligatory picture of the ship 🙂

Tomorrow I’m going to be sharing some tips and advice for first time cruisers, and so I’ll share about what it’s like when you get off on an island and the amount of locals who bombard you wanting you to get in their taxi or do their tour. I bet there were 50 people we had to say “No, thank you” to while making our way to downtown. And they are persistent people, too.

Basic white girl when…

You get off the ship and see a Starbuck and you demand go in so you can order a frap and use their free wifi haha! Notice how they spelled Sarah?

We walked around downtown for a while before deciding to go back to the area where all of the taxis were. We decided not to do an excursion on this island either since they are outrageously priced, but we decided to hop in a taxi and let them take us to Atlantis for the rest of the day.

We LOVED Atlantis!

Visitors are allowed to walk around in most of the hotel, but you must purchase a wristband to go to the pools, beaches, and aquariums which is the back of the property. We decided that the package was worthy of buying because we would be spending the majority of the day there–and plus, we’re just a couple of big kids who wanted to play in their famous pools 🙂

Everyone must get a picture in this chair! Thanks to the sweet lady who took it for us!

The grounds on Atlantis are GORGEOUS! The property is huge and we were constantly looking at a map trying to find our way around.

This is the lagoon that they have on property. People were snorkeling here, paddle boarding, and swimming.

We then walked all through the aquariums…

And this is what this guy did the entire time–taking pictures of wildlife. Once a wildlife science guy, always a wildlife science guy 🙂

We got to see the sharks!! This aquarium was one that a slide went through. I’m not sure if you can really tell, but there’s a tube at the bottom of this picture and one of the drop down slides at Atlantis ends through this aquarium where riders ride through on an inner tube to the pool outside. I kept waiting on a shark to try attacking that tube haha! Oh, and there were also people scuba diving in this aquarium, too, and I’m pretty sure that was about $200 a person.

This was the Atlantis version of a lazy river. It was a rapids river and so much fun! This was my favorite thing to do while we were here. It wasn’t too violent except for one time when a rapid came and pushed a guy’s inner tube into mine which shoved me into the wall and I almost flipped. Other than that, the rapids were lots of fun!

Atlantis has lots of pools so we would spend some time in one pool and then rotate to another–we wanted to take advantage of it all!

The casino inside–it was massive and this is just a small portion.

They had a shopping area in Atlantis–David Yurman, Fendi, Versace, and Gucci just to name a few 🙂

This was one of the beaches on their property. We didn’t stay here long because it wasn’t as pretty as Half Moon Cay, and there were also a lot of people trying to sell us stuff and they were pretty aggressive.

Toward the end of our time at Atlantis, it started storming so we decided to go ahead and leave and take a taxi back to the ship. It was pretty scary–especially since we had received that warning from the cruise director before getting off the ship. The driver kept putting people in this taxi that literally sounded like it was going to fall apart at every turn. The girl in the backpack in front of us mentioned that this wasn’t the same route we took from the ship to Atlantis and that this was taking much longer to get back–she was right. Our driver took us through the hood and we got to see what real Nassau looked like–and it wasn’t pretty. If we weren’t in a van with a bunch of people, I would have been terrified.

This picture doesn’t do it justice, but we were packed in this tiny van.

Dinner that night

And remember how I told you we made friends with a couple from our dinner table? We hung out with them some and we decided to take a picture together to be funny since the poses the photographer puts you in are ridiculous.