pass the sunscreen. and another mojito.

 I knew I liked you people. I mean, that's why I invited you all to join me on an amazing blog-friends non-conference vacation, after all. And then you all (well, 55 of you. That's legit in my book.) played nice and voted in my survey? AND THEN YOU ALL PRETTY MUCH VOTED FOR THE SAME THING??! I knew we were BFF for a reason.

 Apparently we can all agree that being lazy, tan, and responsibility-free in the sun is the best way to spend a vacation, judging by the vast majority of you choosing either the all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean or (and) the cruise in the Bahamas. A few of you ambitiously selected a few other places as well (or just picked ALL, which is also legit)...and for awhile, actually, the DUDE RANCH was in 2nd place to the resort!! That was cracking me up! Apparently you cowgirls get up and vote early, since you were ultimately surpassed by folks preferring cruising and museums tours. Which...you museum people? Yeah. Sorry, but that was the WRONG CHOICE. Unless you want to hear me whine and complain for endless hours, or watch me disappear into the coat room with my Kindle. Just send me a text when you're ready to leave and do something fun, like eat. Or watch paint dry. The only thing worse than going to a museum on vacation is going to tour a battleship. And I speak from personal experience. Many times. It's a miracle I survived my childhood, actually. No wonder I watch so much reality TV. I'm still trying to balance out all those educational vacations.

This drink is for YOU, boring Battleship Texas tour! May my feet never cross your threshold again!

I drink this in remembrance of the Museum of Boring-ass Space or whatever it's called. Washington DC, you stand for everything boring in this world. Boring museums and politics. Mark my words: I will never waste another second of my life within your zip code!!!

Anyways. Sorry for the digression. You should be glad you're not Matt: I regularly decide to vent all of my pent-up museum and walking-tour and battleship aggression on him. Poor guy. I wonder if there is group therapy for this sort of thing? Never mind. We can discuss while we're laying next to the pool in the Dominican Republic or something. Free therapy! (Except, not free...but whatever)

Other folks made some great alternative suggestions which I will take into account for our next blogger getaway:

1) Yes, my house IS basically a resort. You've seen my pool, and you know I make a mean cobbler and strawberry-coconut soda. What else could you hope for?

2) This is a fabulous suggestion. I totally didn't even consider this, but I've seen gorgeous pictures of such places (in what, like Arizona or something? California? Some other place I've definitely never been?) and would be all for hitting up such a place!

3) ONE HUNDRED PERCENT YES. Whoever wrote this, I love you and how you are keeping my best interest in mind. 

4) Ummm...I'm going to have to go Google a map to see where the heck Ottawa even is, but since all of my Canadian blog friends ARE totally awesome, I'd say this is a possibility! Is there a hockey game we can go to while we're there? How about a battleship? HAHA DON'T ANSWER THAT.

So anyway, I'm glad that at least most of us can agree that resorting in the Caribbean is the way to go. I think that those of you who voted for the cruise can be easily convinced: the all-inclusive is exactly like a cruise except that you don't get seasick, the booze is free, and you can't possibly get stranded in the middle of the ocean for a week with no electricity, pooping in a bag. Sooooo....yeah. That should be all the convincing you need. Plus your dinner can look like this every night:

 

So thank ye kindly for voting. If you were hoping to discourage me from obnoxiously creating surveys and begging you to vote, you have basically accomplished the opposite by being such good little voters. I'm already scheming what my next riveting survey topic will be. Get excited. Or offer suggestions. Also good.

 A couple of weeks ago, after my friend Kristin scored some amazing deals at Old Navy and then I went to ON to try to get the same things but the SALE WAS OVER and it was too late and I chastised her for not telling me about the sale BEFORE the sale (or at least on the same day) and she said 'don't you get their emails?' and I said 'probably, yeah, but they either go to my spam box or I ignore them cause don't nobody have time to actually LOOK AT all the store emails they get' and she probably rolled her eyes and I said 'next time just TELL ME when there's a good sale' and she said 'okay'...WHEW, take a breath. Sorry, I didn't want to make a semi-unimportant story longer by including punctuation...SO, now Kristin dutifully (and by 'dutifully' I mean...she is totally an awesome friend and this is above and beyond the normal call of friendship duty) forwards me any PARTICULARLY GOOD Old Navy sale emails WITH her own notes at the top of the email about which items she thinks I might be especially interested in. I KNOW. Don't you wish you had a friend like that, to personally curate sale ads for you? (Jealousy is appropriate here) So that is how I knew that on Saturday, I needed to be hitting up the $5 swimsuit sale at Old Navy! I am a huge fan of ON bathing suits, and what with my *ahem* all-inclusive resort vacation quickly approaching (my real one, not the distant-future one I'm planning for blog friends!), I have been needing to add a few more bathing suits to the collection. I didn't have time to actually go to the store, but I own enough of their suits that I'm confident shopping online...and THEN I discovered that online ONLY yesterday, you got 25% off your whole order!! So basically what I'm saying is...I cleaned up at Old Navy (dot com) yesterday. Two bathing suits, two shirts (one chambray button down...FINALLY, maybe I'm the last person on earth to get one?, one fancy tank top), and a pair of khaki shorts...I am about to have a happy mail day sometime soon!

Alright. That was a boring story. Sorry. I'm just really excited because VACATION CLOTHES mean vacation is SOON! Now that the Bathing Suit Situation is pretty much set, I'm moving on to finalizing my sunscreen selection. And I need help. I typically use a separate/different sunscreen for my face (usually advertised as a 'faces' sunscreen, or oil-free, or something)...but I'm not loving my current one. Anyone have a face sunscreen that they particularly love? Not an everyday moisturizer with SPF...a legit beach sunscreen. Do you use separate sunscreen for your face, or have I fallen prey to a marketing scheme? Also, bonus points if your sunscreen recommendations do not include oxybenzone, as I'm not especially interested in enhancing my endometriosis. That's like...the opposite of vacation. Something more on par with battleship touring. And now we all know how I feel about that. So! Recommendations! Go!  And Happy Monday!