Jubilee TONY Awards Party

I love Broadway.  The Tony Awards is the biggest night for Broadway, so how could I not throw a party in celebration!?  Nate and I knew that it would be the perfect theme for the first party at our apartment.  So, the Friday after the Tony Awards we had our party.  We had Broadway themed food, a Best Dressed Competition and watched the Tony Awards Show that we had missed the weekend before.  Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves. They talked about how much fun they had for almost a week after the party! I'm so glad that we were able to throw a fun party and I look forward to our next one.

The Table Layout

Your Hosts!

Guest Picture

Bow Tie Boys: R.J., Stephen, Nate, Matt and Mocha

Jessica and Carmen

Thank you all for a wonderful party!

Titanic Costumes

This Friday, Nate and I are throwing a TONY Awards party for our Jubilee! friends.  We have a lot of decorations to put up, food to prepare and outfits to choose.  I will be sure to take lots of pictures and post them here!

Until then, I thought I would show you some more costumes.  These are the two costumes that I wear in the Titanic section of the show.  The first is my ensemble costume and the second is my Captain's Lady costume.  I have only had the opportunity to do the Captain's Lady track twice, but I am hopeful that in the next 4 months I will get to perform it a few more times!

Titanic ensemble costume

Titanic Captain's Lady costume

News from the Celebrity Constellation

Here is a little update from Maarten!  He seems to be doing really well.  I miss him every day and think about him way too often, but I know that this time apart is making us stronger and prepared for anything!  Now, here's Maarten:

Finally, I get the time to send this mail! Things are going good here on board. It's a smaller ship than the Solstice. That means less stress and more fun! I am having a blast working on the ship although there is no second of the day that I don't think about Jessica! Traveling to all these amazing ports is great but its different if you can't share it with someone! I have been very busy getting used to the new job and it will take another couple of cruises to get used to it but I sure I'll be just fine! This cruise we had some amazing ports: Amsterdam (where my sister and my grandmother came to visit with Bailey the other day) Berlin, Stockholm, Helsinki,St. Petersburg, Tallinn and Copenhagen. My favorite's are Copenhagen and Tallinn. The weather has been a bit weird lately but its starting to get better now. What is really funny about this run in that the sun does not set until 11:45 pm so its light all day . Sunrise is about 3 am, so that's pretty cool. Next cruise we are going to the Artic Circle. I am looking very forward to that!

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Celebrity Constellation

St. Petersburg, Russia

Stockholm, Sweden

Copenhagen, Denmark

New Haircut!

The Castle of Treasure, Copenhagen

The Famous Mermaid, Copenhagen

Living the Vegas Life

A lot of time has passed since my last blog post. I decided that it would be best to post some pictures of things that I have done over the past few weeks, so that you all can get a taste of life in Vegas! Here goes!

Nate and I LOVE Sonic.  They have the best Happy Hour in town, 50% off all their slushies and drinks from 2-5pm.  Our favorite is the cranberry limeade.  Yum! In honor of the last day of school they had 50 cent corn dogs.  It was great!

 

The girls of Jubilee were able to have dinner at TAO, one of the best restaurants in town, after the show one Thursday and only had to tip our wait staff. It was a great meal with wonderful company.

 

 

One of the girls in Jubilee! flew home to England this week for her wedding.  I had the pleasure of attending her bachelorette party a couple weeks ago.  We rented pontoon boats and went out on Lake Mead.  It is about a 45 minute drive and such a nice escape from the Las Vegas heat.  We all had a wonderful time and luckily no one got sunburned!

 

 

Over the next couple months, a lot of friends and family are going to be coming to Vegas.  It seems to be a vacation destination, although it never was one of my dream spots.  Two weeks ago, one of my friends from the Celebrity Solstice, the hula-hoop aerialist Leilisha, came through Vegas and was able to see my show.  Afterwards we caught up and went to Hakkasan, the hip club inside MGM.  It was so lovely to see her again!

 

 

 Without Maarten here, Nate and I have had to find other things to keep us busy.  Most recently, we found out that it is $5 Tuesdays at the local movie theater.  So far we have seen "Iron Man 3" and "Now You See Me".  We also decided to get back into ballet class. With all this Vegas heat we sweat like pigs!  But taking class again is so good for us!

 

We have also found the enjoyment of a lazy day at the pool.  My friend Lee DJs at the Caesar's Pool, so we went there and had a wonderful time sitting in the pool and getting some sun.  We also were invited to a friends 1/2 Birthday Costume Bash at the Wet Republic Pool at MGM.  The pools are so busy and boy is it hot, but it is a fun way to spend an afternoon!

 

 

 

I'll try to be quicker about uploading new posts in the future!  Hope you got a little sample of my life in Vegas.  If you want to come for a visit, let me know!

Greetings from a Flemish Dog

I am so happy! I just received a message from Maarten's sister, Dagmar, with pictures of Bailey! After having Bailey with Maarten in Belgium, it was decided that Grandma, Grandpa and sister had fallen in love with the pup and that she would stay with them in Belgium. Thankfully the feeling was mutual for Bailey dog. Apparently, Bailey will sit right with Maarten's grandmother and sleep...she just shoos Bailey away when she starts licking her face! I don't blame her! I'm so thankful that Bailey looks happy and seems to be doing okay without us.

Special thanks to Dagmar for the wonderful pictures!

Pup in the Sky

I am happy to report that both Maarten and Bailey made it safely to Frankfurt, Germany and then on to Belgium.  Maarten said that Bailey did really well on the 12 hour flight to Germany.  He was even able to take her out of her cage to walk around a bit.  Now that they are home, they are both adjusting to the jet lag, Bailey is meeting the family (and hopefully learning some Felmish!), and Maarten is getting ready to board the Celebrity Constellation on Monday.  It was a sad good-bye at the airport, but I'm so glad to know that they are safe and adjusting well to our time apart. 

Last Trip to the Dog Park before becoming a trans-Atlantic pup

Saying good-bye

Sad faces at the airport

 

"See you later, Alligator", I miss you so much already

Skype Session with Maarten and Bailey. 

She can hear my voice, her ears perk up, but she can't seem to find me!  This time at least she looked at the screen and maybe 'saw' me.

A Magical Surprise

I love surprises.  I love being surprised and surprising people.  Maarten, on the other hand, does not enjoy surprises.  If you send a Christmas present and it arrives December 10th, the package will be opened on the 10th.  If he even has the smallest idea that you may have a surprise or present for him, he will bug you non-stop until you tell him what it is.  Now, since he was leaving to board the cruise ship before his birthday on June 25th, I had to figure out what to do.  While at the show one day, genius struck!  Ever since we had gotten together we had talked about going to Disney World together.  Since we are on the West coast and not the East coast, Disneyland in California was the next best thing.  But since we had less than 2 weeks left until he flew to Belgium and a puppy at home to take care of, it just didn't seem like a realistic plan.  Luckily, I have vacation days and a puppy-loving roommate!  So I decided that a Disneyland trip was going to happen.  I took Thursday off from work, talked to my friend, Jamie, who lives in LA, she opened her house to us Thursday night, and came to the park with us, and found a friend who I did a show with in Maine who works at Disneyland and had two free ParkHopper passes that we could use.  The plan was set.  Now I just had to keep it a secret and figure out how to tell Maarten.  It is a 4 hours drive to LA and the park opened at 10am, so I had to get Maarten into the car by 5:30am. 

Now, because of my work schedule we have the habit of going to bed late and waking up late.  However this could not happen for my trip to work out!  So I made up a little white lie as to why we had to wake up early on Thursday morning and we were off to bed earlier than planned.  But then Maarten woke up again and said he wasn't tired.  He wanted to get a drink, play on his iPad, play with Bailey, take a shower. Anything but sleep.  I couldn't believe it.  I almost told him right then about my plan.  I was too excited to sleep anyway!  But finally he gave up and we went to bed. 

Fast forward to 5:00am.  My alarm goes off and I tell Maarten that his iPad has been making noise and he needs to look at it.  He reluctantly picks it up and finds this picture:

He didn't believe his eyes.  He said, "For real?  Are we going to Disneyland? Is this just jokes?" I said, "Yes, sweetie.  Wake up.  We are going to Disneyland today.  Surprise!" I have never seen him get out of bed and ready for the day as fast as that morning.  He had many questions, most importantly "Are we going to be late?" He wanted to be there when the park opened! So we got in the car, which I had packed with a change of clothes and snacks for the ride and off we were.  We made good time, picked up our free Disneyland passes, parked and met Jamie in the park.  It was the most magical day with my very own Prince Charming.  I think Maarten likes surprises a little more now.

Soaking wet after the River Raft Ride

 

Jessica and Maarten with Walt Disney

 

Jessica and Jamie on Main Street in Disneyland 

 

Maarten and Jessica with the Steamboat 

 

We're in Toontown! 

 

Riding in Mickey's car

 

Jamie and Jessica in front of the castle 

 

California Adventure and Disneyland!

 

We won the race in Cars Land!

 

Maarten's trophy :) 

 

Jamie, Maarten and Jessica on the Flying Tire Ride 

 

Maarten and Jamie in front of Tower or Terror 

 

 Same pose at sunset in California Adventure

 

Maarten and Jessica riding Tower of Terror (our favorite ride of the day!)

The World of Color water show

 

 Panoramic California Adventure at night

 

A wonderful day at Disneyland!

I am so glad that we got to spend one last amazing day together in "The Happiest Place on Earth".  It was a perfect day.  I love you, Maarten.  Happy (early) Birthday!