ZOMG!!! 1 year of living in Sin

So yeah! Its been roughly a year since JP and I moved in together here in Silver Spring. Its been a crazy year, but one worth celebrating!! Here on Dysfunctionally Functional, we're going to do just that with a series I like to call "Vacationing With a Boy: Adventures In the Caribbean." It has a nice ring don't you think? I could TOTALLY make sequels with it!! Getting ahead of myself though...Enjoy!!!

Vacationing with a boy Day 1: Man Cheers in Miami

As anyone reading this blog knows, I feel that living with someone you're ostensibly going to spend the rest of your life with before actually getting married, is non-negotiable. I would also submit that going on vacation with that person is a pretty big part of the spouse try-out process. While JP and I have been on numerous vacations together, we had never been on a trip totally alone, just the two of us. Keeping this in mind, we planned a cruise vacation to the Western Caribbean on the beautiful Carnival Liberty for early May of this year.

I've done a few blog posts now in a segment I like to call "Man Gripes" and now for the first vacation blog, I'd like to introduce a new segment called "Man Cheers." As someone who generally travels alone (at least while in the airport), I am used to getting up at crazy hours in the morning to wait for Super Shuttles and lugging all my luggage EVERYWHERE with me so people don't steal/plant illicit substances in it. This time I had a boy with though and I made two awesome discoveries about how great having a travel partner is.

1.) Traveling with a boy (that owns a car) means we get to drive the Land-Barge to the airport on our own schedule instead of messing around with Supershuttle. Good old Supershuttle wanted to pick us up at like 4 AM so that we would have "ample time" (read unnecessary, RIDICULOUS amounts of time which usually results in JP eating a large gross McDonald's breakfast) to make our flight. Instead we left at 5 AM (first time we've ever left RIGHT on JP's schedule!!) and arrived at the gate maybe 30 minutes before boarding. Not enough time to gorge on a greasy fast food breakfast, but enough to grab a bagel and not feel rushed.

2.) Traveling with a boy means that I can use the restroom, throw away my garbage, or buy a magazine without lugging ALL my carry-on luggage with me. I had enough freedom in the Miami Airport bathroom stall to freaking WALTZ people...it was amazing. I also didn't have to worry about knocking over racks of magazines/books/candy/valuable breakables with my backpack. SERIOUSLY...YOU HAVE TO TRY THIS!

Otherwise, the rest of this day was fairly uneventful. The cruise ship stole JP's bottle of wine he packed (because it was in his checked bag, not carry-on). We found out that "Blackberry don't has Airplane Mode!" and that JP walks VERY quickly through airport terminals. Our cabin was great, the ship was lovely, our waitstaff at dinner was pretty awesome.

Stay tuned as I update throughout the week on the various fruity cocktails I enjoyed, fun happenings on our vacation, and general tips and tidbits about vacationing with a boy (there will be photos!)!!

Love,

Jill-ron!