Hey, third entry this year! I'm off to a decent start. It will probably be another week before I get our cruise pictures online, but here are some thoughts on the experience.

Overall we had a great time and I'd give Princess a 4.5 star rating (out of 5) for this cruise. The itinterary was just plain awesome. It will be obvious from our pics which islands we were most excited about - the ones we hadn't been to. Actually, the visibility in the Virgin Islands was no good for snorkeling this time, so it forced a much different experience on us, even though we had been to those islands before. The only reason I wouldn't give the trip a 5 star rating is because we had such a blast on our Holland America trip. The crew just did all of the little things that gave them an edge - from chocolates on the pillows to towel animals to absolutely fantastic dining stewards. The staff on Princess was great too, very professional and even a touch of fun - but just not as fun as our HAL staff.

Much more to come when the pics and videos are up, but just to tease you a little, you'll get to see video of a live lobster on the ocean floor, a sea turtle, an octopus, and even a flounder - oh wait, that was just me after the rum punch snuck up on me. :-)

Don't forget to check out our annual newsletter if you haven't read it already.

http://www.kevinandmartha.com/TheCarrollNews2007.pdf

Wow, I can't believe it's been 2 years since I last blogged. As I was typing an update to a friend, I thought this might be a better place to do it. I'll give it another try anyway.

Martha has one of those illnesses that’s going around – sore throat and low fever, but not strep we think. She’s pretty miserable. I think my new diet and exercise regimen is keeping me healthy, knock on wood.

We bought a membership to our community center at the beginning of the year and we’ve been going 2-3 days every week. I think this may be the first time I’ve lifted regularly for more than 3 weeks. It feels good. My diet basically consists of a multi-grain English muffin and a shake (1/3 cup of egg whites blended with 2/3 cup of fruit juice and 1c of frozen fruit) in the morning, a mid-morning apple, a light lunch heavy on the vegetables (V8 usually), a piece of fruit for an afternoon snack, a light dinner, and a multi-grain snack (Frosted mini-wheats) before bed. I have lost about 15 pounds since Jan 1. Granted, I put on about 7 pounds over the holidays. Pretty good overall though. Our Spring Break cruise has been one of my main motivations. In January, I set a goal of losing 1 pound per week until the cruise with a stretch of 1.5 pounds per week. After a slight set-back, I was at my target for Friday mornings weigh-in.

We’re pretty excited about this cruise. We’ve (I’ve) been planning it since October or something like that. Let me know if this is something you might be interested in doing with us in the future.

Anyway, I’ve already started the web site where I’ll post our pictures ( http://www.KevinAndMartha.com/Cruise2008 ). I’m also using it to keep track of our excursion decisions and information about each of the islands we’ll be visiting. We’re flying down to San Juan a night early (just to be safe). The ship will go to Barbados, Antigua, St. Lucia, St. Thomas (USVI), and Tortola (BVI) before returning to San Juan.

Let’s see… what else is going on? Same old same old at work. My team has made a lot of operational changes since I’ve joined. It’s been exciting to see opportunities in this assignment rather than just do what’s expected. My last group did a much better job of this whole application development thing. So I’ve been able to reapply some of their practices. We’re also going to be going through some organizational changes soon. Hopefully my reporting structure won’t change much. I chose this group for the people as much as the work.

How fun is it to spend a holiday weekend in bed? Not much fun. Saturday night, Jan 14, was the first time in years that I have been sick enough to "lose my lunch". At first, I thought maybe the movie was to blame - Sideways was nominated for awards? Put it up for WORST movie of the year - and I'm not hard to please when it comes to movies.

Okay, but no movie could make me throw up 3 times in one night. No, I thought maybe it was the food I ate. Mexican on Friday night, 3 slices of bowling alley pepperoni and sausage pizza on Saturday afternoon along with a pack of Twizzlers, a York Peppermint Pattie, white chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and then a greasy burger for dinner on Saturday evening. Needless to say, my stomach was not happy by the end of the evening. By about midnight, it began returning its contents. :-) And again at 2am. And again at 4am. Yuck.

I was so tired on Sunday that I slept most of the day. By Monday, I was feeling better, but still exhausted and sore. My chest was tight from all the exercise. Needless to say I didn't get much work done on the Patio Roof.

Anyway, thank goodness I had a healthy weekend this past weekend. I was able to actually get some work done. I now have 2 of the 4 beam sections up. Call the overall project about 30% done maybe? I'll have to check my Microsoft Project plan. ;-) You think I'm joking, but I'm serious. :-)

On a lighter note...

Well, this interface is even easier to use than I realized. I have no excuse for not using it. Let's see if we can get 2006 started on a better note. Martha and I even got our New Year Newsletter out this year.

So let's start this out with a quick New Year's note. We had a New Year's Eve party at our last night. It was much smaller than in years past, but more intimate as well. Jason and Kelly brought Allie and since I wasn't feeling very well, I chose her as my primary company for the evening. Can you believe that baby was up past midnight?

Speaking of midnight, you have to hand it Dick Clark for hanging in there. He was a little quick on the countdown (unless our audio/video timing was off) and sounded like he had a lot of trouble speaking, but it was good to see that he's still kickin.

Martha and I started off the New Year with some cleaning, work, and updates (like this one). We also took a break to watch Batman Begins. Great story, in my opinion. Chalk one up for successful prequels. I hope I can define myself by my actions this year.

Have a happy New Year!