Carnival Cruise 6/06 Departed FTW 6/17 @ 10.30AM. intermittent showers. Miranda slept until lunch @ subway past Centerville @ 1.15PM. Saw the big Sam Houston statue & a deer! Miranda got the hiccups twice. Traffic in Houston only slowed a couple of times. Arrived @ Garden Inn @ 4.30PM. Brought the bags upstairs & hurt my back. M primped & I read. By then it was sunny hot & humid. Went to dinner @ Mediterranean Chef. Humus was good, steak kabobs were tough. Shopped a bit on the strand and m bought a shirt, a pin for her formal dress, & a spray painted picture made by a street artist. Forgot our camera so went back to get it & see Bishop's Palace. Forgot camera again. M liked it. Tired so went back to hotel to sleep. Read a bit while M blared IPOD. Woke up @ 3am. Read a bit more & fell asleep around 5am.

6/18 -- Got up & 8am & went down to breakfast. Enjoyed company of other guests esp Tracy & Lew. They were musicians who were playing @ the opera house on Post Office Street. M was quite. Barbie & Ken, the other guests and not their real names but very descriptive, were nice too. Ken worked @ HP. We discussed travel & I complained about my PC. We ate yogurt blended w/fruit, eggs w/sausage, cheese, & tomatoes, fried potatoes, & BB lemon ice box cake w/a snicker doodle cookie. I had 1% milk & M had cranberry juice. After breakfast M got the suitcases. We loaded up the car & went to the Bishop's palace. I was taking M's picture from across the street when my sister, Georgeann called. Bad timing. Got the pic then headed for the ship. Was surprised it was so big. Dropped off the bags & parked the car @ the railroad museum lot, then walked to the pier. 11:50AM: Got in security line. 12:10AM: got in check in line & spoke to a couple who were w/ their kids (24,18,15,11). the 24yr old dd was a school teacher 2nd grade & had a 2 yr old who was w/ his dad who just started a new job & couldn't make it. 1PM: Got in the required photo line to take a truly crappy photo. Finally got to the ship. I know intellectually that the decor is tacky, but it seems to work & I like it. Yes, just as the cruise director joked, we looked up in the lobby & did the Forest Gump thing, "It's a big boat!" We went straight to our cabin & met Imade, the cabin steward. While the room wasn't ready, he let us drop off the carry ons. M was hungry so we went to eat, starting w/Sur La Mer & then the buffet. I finally bought the foo-foo drink the waiters offered you everywhere & M got one too, but didn't like it. Small wonder, hers was very strong. I had to add punch to it to finish it, but finish it, I did. The desserts were delicious, but we lost the camera. M took a nap. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering fore & aft, starboard & port, & even up & down periodically checking for our luggage. At 5PM we started getting ready for dinner.

At 5:30PM, our luggage finally arrived. At dinner, we met Trudy & Allen & their son Christian. They are from Grapevine & Christian will be a sr. @ Grapevine hs. Both M & C love Comedy Central. I still was not hungry so I only ordered the lamb which was excellent. M ordered the chicken which was good but she couldn't finish it. We had the choc truffle cake for dessert & it was good. Read more