The Trip We Almost Didn't Get To Go On

Ok, ok so I guess I've waited long enough to write this post. I have been dreading writing this post! Not sure why-could be because it's going to be long one and will take some time to write and I feel like I don't know where to start or could be because I don't want to relive the first part of our trip!

I've sat down several times to write but then just sit there with my blogger open and do nothing, and pretty soon I just close my computer and decide I'll do it another time.

So er go

Early Saturday morning, January 20th was the start of our trip. And for me it was even earlier than everyone else. But let's back up for just a second. Let's start on Friday. Or Thursday,- I went and got a facial, Freaking Amazing by the way! I wanted to get as pretty as possible for the cruise. Then Friday. Oh, Friday. This is the day before we leave, I start the morning off by putting a big ol' burn mark on my forehead from my straighter. Nice. Then I decided to go get my eyebrows cleaned up a little bit. I pluck my own eye brows and had them as thick and shaped as I like. But I decided I'd go have them slightly waxed to get that nice, clean, fresh waxed look.... But, I guess saying "just clean up the stragglers" isn't clear enough that "I don't want you to reshape my whole eyebrows and freaking wax the majority of them off"!! Let's just say next time I will be so specific they will think that I think they are dumb! If there is a next time! Wheph. End rant... that was just a little bit mean. But seriously my eyebrows haven't been this thin since high school 6 years ago. And it is going to SUCK to grow them back out! Ok. Moving on! So at least I have an Amazing lash lady *ughm* Tracy *ughm* that made my lashes look amazing! The only thing on my face that I had going for me! haha. I am a very all or nothing person, so if you're like that too you'll know what I mean when I say, I felt like my facial was totally ruined because of my burned forehead and eyebrow excursion. 

I just wanted to add this picture in here because it's cute :)

Tommy and I drove to Gooding Friday night so we could sleep in a little longer before having to be at the airport in Boise at 4:30 for our 6:30 flight. But like I said earlier, I got a jump start on the morning. We probably went to bed at about 10 and at 12:30 I was wide awake. And I could not go back to sleep for the life of me! It wasn't nerves or excitement (don't get me wrong, I was excited, but I love my sleep!) and I didn't feel the way you feel on Christmas morning as a kid. So I was awake from 12:30 to 3 when we all got up, which was very out of the ordinary for me. I can usually go back to sleep, especially that early and with only 2 hours of sleep. 

So moving on, we made it to the airport and got our tickets and bags checked and were making our way through security. Just a side note, I made Tommy carry my carry-on bag because it was heavier than his. Well going through security they pull "his" (my) bag to the side and ask "who's bag is this?", then pull us to the side and say "Don't touch or reach for anything!"..... Ok. I was thinking what in the world? I packed so carefully making sure all liquids, nail clippers, exc. were in the checked bags. As security started opening the side pockets of the bag, I said to Tommy, "I didn't even think to check all the pockets!" But seriously, what could it be... nothing too serious!..... HA! She pulls out a HANDFUL of 22 shells!! O.M.G! (palm to face!) And says to us, "this is ammunition, you are not allowed to have this", yes. yes, we know. Luckily we were just in Idaho, and small Boise airport! I sincerely apologized, told her to throw them away, and we were on our way.

This trip is off to a Real good start! 

Here's where it gets REAL good.

So there we are.... sitting on the plane, all boarded, all excited for our trip to finally start, getting ready to take off....

See there we are! All happy and excited!

Oop! Yup! There we are again-Close Up!
Just in case you didn't see us good enough the first time ;)

And Tommy decides to check the folder with our birth certificates in it. Bless his little heart! He then pulls out two documents and asks me, why is our marriage license in here?

........ And for a moment my heart stopped, then instantly dropped, and panic set in.

How could this be? Where was his birth certificate? Why was it not in that folder?! The birth certificate folder! That's where we keep them and we don't ever use/need/or take them out! WHY in the H (that's not what I said in real life!) was our marriage licence in there?! That's not where it belongs, that's not where I keep it, that's not where I put it! That folder is where our birth certificates belong! To this day, I do not know where his birth certificate is or how this happened. How it was not in the folder I always keep it in. We hadn't used it or touched it since our last cruise..... ??

So there we were.... sitting on the plane, all boarded, getting ready to take off, but no longer excited for our trip, because we may not be going on our trip.

In case you have never been on a cruise, if you don't have a passport, which we don't, you HAVE to have your birth certificate to board the ship. Believe me, we called, 4-5 times, and tried to see if there was any way Tommy could board without his certificate. So at this point we are getting ready to take off, so we quickly text both of my sisters and tell them and ask them to call Carnival to see what we could do. And then we lose service so we couldn't find out what Carnival said. I searched Carinval's website to see what I could find and with no luck in finding an answer I wanted, I started looking into ordering a new one-on a Saturday, and delivered-on a Sunday HA..... I was desperate! And Tommy started looking into same day flights back to Boise so he could go rummage the house and look for it. He was desperate! But I knew he wouldn't find it because if it wasn't in that folder, it wasn't anywhere. There was no other place it would be. And it wasn't. Thanks to our great friend Jake for rummaging through our house looking for it! But again, I knew he wasn't going to find it, because IT WASN'T THERE! I didn't know where it was, but it wasn't at our house, because if it would have been-it would have been in THAT FOLDER! But we had to try! We had to try everything we could to find it!

So you can imagine that 3 hour flight! We were helpless. 
I was a bawling mess the whole way, and was actually physically sick because of the anxiety and stress. I am not lying to you, that was the most stress I have ever experienced! Anxiety wise, it runs real close to one particular test in nursing school I remember having a little panic attack right before taking, but I was more stressed than I was taking my nursing boards! And that's pretty bad!! 

As soon as we landed in Minnesota we got in contact with my sisters who both had called carnival to see if there was any way Tommy could board, and there wasn't. We had to have his birth certificate or a copy of it. So as Jake was rummaging through our house trying to find his original, Janice thought she might have it at her house, but Tommy and I both knew she didn't. We knew that we had had it last. But again, we had to try everything we could to get our hot little hands on it! So we called another great friend in Gooding to go look at Tommy's parents house for it.

This picture was taken in Minnesota. Little can you tell that we were nervous wrecks! At least I was!

We flew from Minnesota to Michigan. Another solemn flight. with a few more tears shed. (by me). I'll have you know, Tommy was very calm through all of this! I was totally expecting him to flip, but he didn't! He did however, not talk to me much at all through this whole day! Haha but I don't blame him! And didn't expect him to! After all, if he wasn't able to board the cruise-it would have been MY fault!

It was bad enough that we had to fly that first flight from Boise to Minnesota and not be able to contact anyone or see what anyone had found out, but that flight didn't even get us to our destination! So now, we are again on a plane, unable to be in contact with our friends searching our homes frantically for us, flying to Michigan. 

When we got to Michigan I called Carnival myself, just hoping that if I got the right person on the phone they would have some solution for us. But was yet again reassured that a birth certificate or copy of, was required!

Tears...... Again. This is not how a trip is supposed to go. Tears are not supposed to accompany vacation.

At this point, I was just positive that we would be turning right around once we got to Texas and flying home, losing all that money we had spent, with the disappointment of not being able to go on the cruise with the rest of the family that we had planned and waited for! And ultimately, I was just sure Tommy was going to divorce me! I know that sounds silly-now! But he had been so excited for this trip!

We hadn't heard back from Bonnie yet, who was looking at Ted and Janice's for the birth certificate, but had heard back from Jake who was searching our house-with no luck-as expected.

Yet again, we boarded our last plane (FINALLY!), getting ready to take off from Detroit to Houston (FINALLY!), and Bonnie calls Janice who was sitting behind and kitty corner to us (by an off duty pilot, which is funny because we were supposed to have already turned our phones to airplane mode, but here we are talking on one. Whoops :/ But, I did not care!!). I hear Janice say "You found it?!" WHAT?!! NO FREAKING WAY!! 

Are you sure it's it??! Are you SURE?! Yes! Yes she was sure!

I was thinking, only a pure miracle by God's hand had she found this! And it was! I'll preach it! She hadn't found the original, but by a miracle, Janice had a copy!

So we are getting ready to take off so I'm kinda yelling/telling Janice to quickly tell Bonnie to send us a picture of the front and back (Carnival had emphasized that). Everyone around us is looking at us(me) and wondering what in the world is going on, and probably thinking I'm a crazy woman! If you can only imagine-I kind of was. 

The realization that we had a copy set in,.... Tears.

If you can imagine, this last flight was much more relaxing! And Tommy started talking to me again ;) I was still anxious to get on the ground so the picture could come through. I was still kind of nervous/doubtful until I could see the picture for myself. And even then, I wanted the document in my hand before I could feel completely at peace. But then I started having doubts about the document still not passing what we had to have and Tommy being turned down to board. So I decided I would be completely at ease when we were on the ship! 

"Houston We Have Landed"

We finally landed in Houston and I was so glad our day of flying was over! But our troubles weren't over yet.

We had decided to rent a car to drive from Houston to Galveston where we were staying that night and boarding the ship the next morning, and had pre-rented. We check out and go find our car and are exiting the garage when we have to stop to check out of the garage. Tommy hands the guy our paper work and he scans it and scans our car and something wasn't going through. So he scans our papers and scans the car again and still nothing. We sat there for probably a good 20-30 minutes with him trying to figure out what was going on and why our car wasn't lining up with our paperwork, and he finally told us we would have to go reprint our papers and get a new car. :( It wasn't too late but I was tired from emotionally flying all day, we had an hour and a half drive ahead of us, and the last thing I wanted to do was pull back around, wait around to reprint papers, unload and reload baggage in a new car and try this all again. But then he said "Your last name is XXX (whatever he said, some Hispanic name) right?" HA Nope! Apparently the lady that printed our papers off for us printed someone else's first and handed them to us, on top of ours! So then he gets to the second page (our real papers), scans them, scans the car, and TaDa!!

Finally on our way to Galveston

Compared to the rest of the day, that little glitch was nothin'! It just added to the day, which had been going like that.

We finally arrived in Galveston, which by the way is kinda ghetto! and at our hotel, which was also sketchy haha! And were finally able to get Tommy's birth certificate faxed to us! We finally had a copy IN OUR HANDS! (Thank You Bonnie!!! You were our saving grace!! I don't know how I will EVER repay you!!) 

I felt a lot better, now that it was tangible, but like I said earlier, still a little worried that for some reason it wouldn't make the cut-cuz hey, that's how our trip had been going so far!

When everyone else got to the hotel (we didn't travel together), we went to a restaurant next door for dinner and then to bed! It still wasn't that late, but we were exhausted! 


The next morning, even though I was so tired and had only slept like 2 hours the night before, I was awake at 6, and could hear the birds singing outside. Oh, it was glorious! When Tommy got up we went for a little walk (our hotel was on the coast) and took some pictures. 

That's the ocean behind us but it was too foggy to see. You could hear it though! It was loud!

We drove down to Walmart and got a couple things, ate breakfast and then Tommy had to drive 30 minutes to return the car. While he was gone the rest of us went to the beach.

In case you did't know, the whole reason we went on this cruise was to celebrate the 1st birthday of my baby nephew Cash, who was still born January 6th, 2017. That's what the "Cash Cruise" and "Cruising for Cash" is referring to :)

Kyla had to be my picture buddy while Tommy was gone

When Tommy got back we ubered to the port and boarded the ship! Yep! We got on! Got through security and everything! In fact they didn't look twice at his certificate! They just compared his name and date of birth against his drivers licence and that was that! Easy! (Ha! insert eye roll and sarcasm here)

You forget how big these ships are!

So just real quick, because I know this post is LONG. I just wanted to say first of all... We are getting passports!! And second of all, remember when I was awake that first night from 12:30-3AM when we were staying in Gooding? So about that night.... When I couldn't go back to sleep, that's what was actually on my mind was our birth certificates. I actually had the thought to go check for them (maybe even more than once too, I can't remember). But that was silly! I knew I had the birth certificate folder and there were two documents in there, so I knew I had them..... ya lesson learned. I'm pretty sure that this whole experience was for my sake! Because I am really bad at acting on promptings. Let's just say I'm working on that! And like I said at the beginning of this post, that was really odd for me to not be able to go back to sleep... and I'm convinced that that's why! I'm a hard learner.

Well, I hope you all enjoyed this post! Because writing it gave me slight anxiety all over again! ;) That's how bad it was! Haha ...just the recollection.... wheph! 

And now that the nitty gritty is done and over with, I'll start working on the actual cruise post! (It will be much funner!)

Stay tuned!!