Moving Up in the World

Dear Friends, We've Arrived!!

 

The last two months have been extremely busy with a lot of movement across countries, across continents even, but I am excited to report, we've made it. Hong Kong. A new city. A new job. A new life. And we're loving it.

As with all life's choices, you're always hoping you've made the right one, right? So you look for signs confirming you are in the right place. I've decided to share with you a few of the small signs that let us know we are EXACTLY where we are supposed to be:

1. This is the place where D and I went on our very first date. It's where we hung out with our friends. It looked a little something like this:

2. We've upgraded from a one bedroom apartment to a three bedroom apartment. We feel like kings. What on earth are we going to do with all this space?

3. This is the view from our dining room/guest room/office side of the apartment:

I always knew I was meant to have sea views.

4. This is the view from the bedroom/balcony/kitchen side of the apartment:

Who doesn't love a little jungle view while whipping up some dinner?

5. This is the waterfall we love to check in with everyday from our bedroom window (especially after it rains):

Um, waterfall?! I thought they were strictly reserved for people living in paradise?

6. I think it is common knowledge that anyone with a lot of keys is an important person. Well, look how many keys we've got!

Derrald just about died and went to heaven when he read what one of the keys was labeled, look closely... can you see it?  Servant Rm!! Just the fact that we have a "Servant's Room" and a key labeled so, has D believing he was meant for a life of Lordship. As if it wasn't already hard enough convincing him otherwise. Bah.

7. We get to see our families! We've seen our families more in the first 3 weeks of living in Hong Kong than we saw of them in over 1 year in NC. My Dad has visited twice, my Mum once and D's Mom, Dad and his two sisters Taraz and Kamila stayed with us for 11 days. Sounds like a lot you say? Well, it was a little hectic considering we're still moving in... but our shipment doesn't arrive until August so what better way to fill your time (and our eagerly awaiting space) than to spend it with visitors, especially when they take you to Disneyland!

The Travel Continues I

We made it to Utah. Hooray! Since I last posted we have officially graduated, attended a hooding ceremony and successfully pulled off a surprise party for Derrald. We packed up our apartment, sold off most of our belongings, and have driven 2,160 miles across the country to deliver the red rocket (hyundai elantra) into the waiting arms of Ramona Stice.

The Red Rocket.

What a busy month is May. Sadly, I don't have any photos of the graduation because we're having camera issues but hopefully my brother will be sending some of the shots he got and I will be able to impress you all with photographic proof that Derrald graduated. For real. Cap. Gown. Cape (hood) and all. It was a gorgeous day and we surprised him the night before with the arrival of his Mom, Dad, Ryan and my brother, Brendan. What a little party we had!! Our wonderful friends all arrived for a picnic celebration on Saturday afternoon, the second surprise of the weekend!

It was a bittersweet moment as, while enjoying the company our good friends, we realised we'd now have to say goodbye and leave them all behind with our move to HONG KONG.

Our journey to Hong Kong begins... with a road trip!

Chapel Hill, NC to Provo, UT - 2,160miles

Our first stop, Athens, OH, Ohio University or "Harvard of the Hocking" to see our friends the Plickas.

Joe and Emily are both graduating this year as well. Emily is getting her Masters and Joe his Phd. We loved our stay with them. Inspired by their nutritarian ways, we ate copious amounts of vegetables and discovered a few culinary delights at Village Bakery and Cafe. Sticky Date Cake, yum!

Dr. Plicka and Dr. Stice

Next stop was Nauvoo, IL.

I spent 4 years attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and not once made it to Nauvoo. In fact, I don't think I even knew it existed. Nauvoo is where the early Latter-day Saints settled before being forced to relocate to Salt Lake City. During it's day, Nauvoo was said to have as many inhabitants as Chicago! We visited the gunsmith, the brick shop, the bakery, the blacksmith and the Temple. We also went on a carriage ride to Inspiration Point. We had a lovely time.

Carriage Ride

Inspiration Point

Embracing our inner pioneer.

D informed me on our drive out there that I had a very good chance of "winning" the horseshoe. A mini horse shoe that the blacksmith makes during his demonstration. Turns out Derrald had won that horse shoe once (when he was about 9) and the way he talks about it today, you'd think he won the lottery. You "win" the horseshoe by being the person with the closest birthday to the day you are at Nauvoo. I did not want to let him down. Pressure was on. There were only four of us for our demonstration and I was already debating whether or not I was going to need to fake my birthday... but all D's dreams came true when I beat out all other competitors with my very own date of birth. We now have a mini horseshoe, a mini brick, and two nail rings to carry around with us for the rest of our lives. So much for "de-cluttering"...

Stop number three, was in Highlands Ranch, CO, to see our friends the Linds.

We love Colorado and we love the Linds. Even though our day got rained out, we had a great time drinking diet sodas, eating popcorn and playing Settlers (my first time!). Then we went out for a "night on the town" woop woop! Sometimes we feel so old when our idea of a "good time" is a night in with a DVD, so it was super fun to go downtown Denver for some delicious creole food, hit "D Bar" for yummy desserts and then see a movie at the cinema for a change. I felt hip.

Very sadly, I don't have photographic evidence of our CO stay. Jeff and Mindy, it's up to you! Send pictures my way asap so everyone can see our smiling faces!

All Aboard with the Stices

Wining (read: eating) and Dining (read: eating) aboard the Norwegian Pearl. 

The day began with breakfast:

The green things are poached figs.

Somebody was loving the blueberries.

Then there was usually some activity, possible lazing around and even a little evening round of golf. Okay - we never really played the golf except for this one time. Pretty though isn't it?

I loved getting dressed for dinner every night. NCL do not require their passengers to dress formally for dinner so there was nothing too extravagant... but I had fun:

It was dinners like this:

 Lobster with Seafood and Linguine.

 The steak AND the lobster?!?!?

 Baked Shrimp.

 Yum!

That had us hitting up this place:

The gym! We ran three times while onboard. Way to make room for more food! Like the following:

Everything Chocolate.

Um, Chocoholics Buffet? YES!!! There is a little story I would like to tell regarding this enormous plate of chocolate monstrosity. I loaded and carried this plate back to our bedroom and as we were walking down the stairs Derrald overheard a man exclaim (in horror) "GOSH!!!" and his wife calmly said to him "I don't think that's all for her"... I wish I had turned around and said "it IS!" haha. But I would have been lying. It was not all for me. I shared. And it was still too much. 

Sadly, I don't have any pictures from the night Derrald wore his suit, but you've all seen him in full get up before (see here). This is the only "formal" photo we have together. Enjoy it. 

Who's with us for the next one? Start the sign up now. Alaska? Mediterranean? Panama Canal? Yes! Yes! Yes!

Cruisin'

We just got back from our first (and certainly not the last) cruise! It was brilliant. We left from Miami and made stops in Roatan, Belize City, Costa Maya and Key West. UH-mazing ports. I spent 6 months doing volunteer work in Belize back in 2001 and could not have been happier to be returning for the first time, 10 years later, even if only for a day.

We sailed on a Sunday with Norwegian Cruise Lines. I don't have any pictures of inside the ship or our cabin, mostly because one member of our party was so over-excited he couldn't wait for my incredibly slow self to a) get the camera out  and b) stop for photos as he hauled me around the ship looking at all the different rooms and "fun spots"... okay, we mostly just went straight to the BUFFET!!!

Damage Report Time.

Number of Pounds Gained (as a result of overindulging our horrible tendency towards gluttony):

Derrald: 9lbs

Hayley: 2lbs

Skin Burnt or Peeling (as a result of intense sun exposure and mismanaged application of sunscreen):

Derrald: 1 day of tender back and possible back peeling to come

Hayley:  2 days of tender entire body (excluding face) and possible peeling to come

Belly Aches (as a result of "sea sickness"... or more likely, hitting the buffet too hard!):

Derrald: two

Hayley: zero

Number of Awkward Latin Dances endured:

Three! (Derrald is now on his way to mastering the Merengue AND the Salsa... introducing the Cha Cha pushed him over the edge and lead to a nervous breakdown. Note to self: baby steps!!)

Picture Time!

Our first stop, Roatan was wonderful. Derrald did the research on this one and saved us a small fortune by putting us on the local bus (#2) and haggling with the driver to get us some very reasonable fares - $1.50 per person each way. Taxi's were charging $20 per person each way. The happiness in my husband's heart at finding this saving almost outshone the actual sunshine we had on the beach that day.

 The beach.

 Smug.

A shout out to Brendonius for getting us these hilarious matching caps. Go thrashers! (are they Trasher hats?)

Our next stop was Belize City. 

Unbelizable Belize :)

Reflecting on my memories with views of the city from the bus.

You better belize it!

Butt's Up!?!

In Belize we decided to do a shore excursion and go cave tubing. I had never done this before and we thought it would be a good way of getting to see a little more of the countryside (the bus ride is an hour) and I have never been to these caves so this was a new side of Belize even for me! We would end up passing thru some fairly shallow areas of water and were warned that if we did not heed the tubing company's motto "Butt's Up!!" we would have some very sorry encounters with the likes of the "nut cracker" (and some other choice names that I no longer remember). 

On to port number three. Costa Maya!

This was my port to research... so, no plans here folks. 

We got a wonderful, colorful welcome. Turns out Costa Maya was more fun than we thought.

After consulting a nice lady (not seen above) for directions to the closest beach we set off on foot this time, although we could have hired golf carts, dune buggies or jeeps. I have no problem being the ONLY people walking from the cruise ship down a two mile stretch of road in 80+ degree heat and humidity ...

... to join the rest of the tourists (who took taxis) on their beach front lounge chairs drinking pina coladas. Okay, obviously there was plenty of beach for everyone and you can't even see the other tourists in these pictures, but trust me, they were there.

In fact, the walk back totally paid off when we saw an iguana. Both delicious and endangered. 

We completely failed to catch it... so we returned to the cruise ship to find our dinner... oh sure, we found it!

Our final port of call was Key West. We didn't get a lot of time here and this is the only photo I managed to snap before the camera died:

For Brendan.

Well, that about sums it up folks. Our cruise was a smashing success. There will be another post to follow including more photos from our actual time on the ship - most of them will include food/eating cos that is what we seemed to do most of the time we were on the ship! What's not to love about that though?