My weeks have been going by so fast that I constantly forget things that go on so I started taking notes during the week for my blog, so this blog is fairly long but at least I'm not forgetting anything...

WEEK17- Saturday after I finished up at Starbucks I went to work in the terminal with Charmaine, I hadn't had a shift in the terminal for about two months and well I didn't miss being there. Later that day I was standing at my window in the salon and got to watch the Queen Elizabeth ship sail away, they were in port in Honolulu right next to our ship and that ship was huge! It actually reminded me of Disneyland because Everyone on the ship was out on the deck waving Goodbye to our ship for some reason people just want to wave to people traveling on something cool, like a trolley or in our case a ship…

Sunday Charmaine had the day off so I worked all day and one of my guests just so happened to be the mother of a Canadian professional badminton player in the Olympics, apparently he had competed in the Olympics quite a few times. After work Amber and I got off the ship to eat Thai food where later Lauren and Alana met up with us. Alana surprised me with these cute red anchor earrings for Valentine's day that she "accidentally" got at Forever 21. I say "accidentally" because she said she dropped the belt she was buying in a bin and when she picked it up she picked up the anchor earrings at the same time so she was destined to buy it for me.

Monday was just work… lots of Canadians on the ship this cruise and people from Ohio

Tuesday we had our weekly fire drill and my first Bomb threat drill where we had to look in the spa for a "bomb" apparently they actually hide an item that says Bomb that the crew members are supposed to find, I felt like I was on an easter egg hunt. It was a fairly slow day so I ended up repainting my nails for valentine's day with all these ideas I collected from Pinterest. After I finished, Gina and I met up with Amber, Alana and Lauren at East Meets West for sushi then Alana and Gina and myself went out to the deck around 10pm to get a quick look at the Lava that we sail by every Tuesday night, which I still think is so awesome to see. Then we wanted to watch dancing with the american stars but sadly they switched nights and the comedian on board, Bud Anderson, had his gig going on which none of us had heard before so we stayed and watched a bit of it and turns out he's pretty funny. When I got back to my cabin Amber was watching Back to the Future!! They had it playing on the ship, so of course I had to stay up and finish watching it, I love that movie.

Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, I really wanted to find a Catholic church near the ship in Kona to get ashes on my lunch break but I ended up going to the oldest Christian Church on the island which wasn't far from the ship at all. There wasn't anything going on there, just a tourist place to look about but I thought it was nice to visit and read all about how christians arrived on the island back in the 1800s.

Thursday, Valentine's Day! Amber and I had the entire day off and my incredibly awesome excursion friend, Aaron, was able to get us tickets to go Ziplining! The tickets are usually about $175 so I'm completely thankful to have the opportunity to go for free, I told Aaron in exchange I'll give him photos and video of the tour considering he has never been on it before and let him know what its all about so he can sell it to his guests.

Our guide for the day was a guy named Cole and his co-guide was Kevin. Cole met our group of 8 in the terminal at the ship at 9:50am and we hopped in the van then made a stop at a nice look out of a man made lake on our way to Kipu Ranch, once we arrived at the Ranch we met Kevin and he drove us in a "wagon" which was a very bumpy and uncomfortable ride but the scenery made up for it. Kevin took all of us to the zip lines. There were about six different zip lines, and honestly I thought I would be nervous to get on but I wasn't at all, I went backwards and up side down, Kevin jokingly said I was a Pro. I brought my GoPro and took some great video! During the middle of our tour it started to rain so we zip lined in the rain! We took a quick lunch break and they fed us sandwiches, pasta salad and brownies. Then we headed to the last two big zip lines.

During the tour Cole was very informative telling us all about the plants and the movies that had been filmed on the Ranch and the history of the island. I took a few notes so I could remember to tell my friend Aaron all about it. There were little purple flowers that you could eat that tasted like mushrooms, there was shy grass that is pretty awesome (if you've never seen shy grass I suggest you look up a video of it) the grass closes when you touch it. He told us about Hawaii's state tree and the Kukui nut. The Noni tree is known as the tree of life because of it's health benefits the leaves can heal bug bites or arthritis, it's juice has been proven to cure some forms of cancer and there's a hospital on the island that will put you on Noni juice before even trying chemo treatments the only bad thing about it is it's very potent and smells 20 times worse that the worst cheese you have ever smelled. Cole found a passion fruit, which is his favorite fruit and we all had a taste of it. We passed by a tree that grew coffee beans but the beans don't have caffeine in it and you can eat the outer part of the bean, it tasted a little like bell peppers. A few of the movies he talked about were King Kong, Jurassic Park, George of the Jungle, Hook and Pirates of the Caribbean 4.

After we went down all the Ziplines we got ready to head to the Royal Pool, It was a place where only Royalty could swim back in the day and if you were found there you would be killed. At the pool there were three ways to jump into the pool, one was the high jump, the next was the low jump and the third was a zip line that you would let go of and drop into the water. Personally I don't like jumping into the water from up high but I at least wanted to try the Zip line into the water just to say I had done it before. So I only went on the zip line once because the water was freezing cold!

After the pool we took our little nature hike to the "fountain of youth"… the fountain of youth from Pirates 4!! At the little fountain there was a rope you could swing from into the water, of course I had to swing in… Johnny Depp had been in that water! haha. I asked Amber to take a picture/ video of me on my phone and apparently she wasn't able to do it, I ended up jumping in four times because she couldn't get it right, I guess that just means I'll be young forever :P The water was cold as well but not as cold as the first pool.

On the wagon ride back they had cookies on the benches for us to snack on and Cole told us about the islands Sleeping Giant, its a mountain that looks like a giant sleeping on his back and you can see the out line of his belly and his head, he went on to tell us the tale of the sleeping giant.

We finished with our tour and went to the ship to change, we called Anjulia and met up with her to eat sushi at the Marriott for our Valentine's dinner.

After dinner Amber and I went to the Hot tubs at the Marriott and ended up in a hot tub with these kids that reminded me of the Big Bang theory. There were three guys and one was Indian and then one girl who sounded just like Sheldon's girlfriend from the show, they were there for some science conference and started talking in this nerd language that Amber and I could not understand at all. I couldn't be there and not laugh so I got out of the Hot Tub and did a lap around the pool.

I floated looking up at the stars and the crescent moon enjoying the quietness and the sound of myself swimming in the water, It's so crazy to be able to see the same moon and stars miles and miles away but be under the same night sky as my family and friends back home.

I jumped into a different hot tub after a while and a man joined Amber and myself who just so happened to be from Los angeles annnd Seattle so that was ironic. He was on vacation spending Valentine's by himself and his wife and children were flying in the next day.

We finished up at the Marriott Amber and I went to Dukes to have Hula pie, they were serving Strawberry Hula pie just for Valentines day and I had been looking forward to it all week! Duke's was packed so we ordered Hula pie to go and ate it at a bar called the Tavern just a few shops away. The Tavern was having an "anti-valentine's party" and we spent the rest of the evening there even though I'm not really anti-valentines day, it's a cute holiday to celebrate. I gave up drinking for lent which I don't really drink a lot in the first place but it was interesting being in that place on valentine's day watching everyone, I also gave up taking the elevator on the ship so walking up the stairs from where I live on deck two up to the spa on deck twelve is quite a walk. They had a live band playing but it just sounded like a bunch of noise, A lot of people from the ship came and later we ran into Cole there and he said the Tavern is his "cheers" everyone knows his name.

Friday was oddly slow, we had been on silver service for the past two weeks and that night we were finally able to eat at the Aloha Cafe again, I never thought I would miss eating there but I was getting tired of spending so much money on food. I ran into Bryan, one of the tech guys who I've cut his hair a few times, he has the darkest curly hair and brightest blue eyes, I jokingly tell the girls in the spa I have the biggest crush on his eyes. haha. Bryan is really into movies, he's actually worked on set for a few movies and has worked on Pirates of the Caribbean he says he should been working for the next pirates movie, but anyway last time I cut his hair he mentioned he had a bunch of movies so I asked if I could borrow a few so he lent me a couple last night.

Yesterday Amber said she had a ton of bug bites from the hike and asked if I had any and I laughed and said no, then that evening I was itching and looked at my legs and I have like 50 bug bites! And my arms are so sore from zip lining, still. Next time I need to remember bug spray.

35 days till dry dock, 38 days till I'm home for ten days! Can't wait to be home for Easter!!

I have a couple exciting adventures planned for next week that I can't wait to blog about! Hope all is well, Love you & Miss you & Happy Late Valentine's Day! XoXo!<3

"Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." -Corinthians 7:5