Monday, April 23, 2012

Submarine Birthday Ball!!!

If you follow me on Twitter then you are well away of how excited I have been for the Sub ball! Also, how much of an ordeal my dress was. I did have a dress all lined up but it didn't end up working out. (See two posts back) Anyway, I got it all figured out. Though, i was literally sewing bits of it into place just hours before the ball.

HOTEL

This ball was way cooler than the last one. It was at the Sheraton in downtown Seattle. Pretty swanky place. There was a small dealio with our reservation which they fixed and we ended up getting upgraded to "the tower" in a deluxe room with two gigantic windows. :D 

HAIR

We arrived a day early so we could have a relaxing morning and not have to rush with all our stuff that morning to have time for hair and makeup and all that. We headed down for the omlette bar around 9:30 and chilled for a while before I had my hair appointment at 11:30. The salon was only 3 blocks away so we walked it. It was a pretty nice day. I found this salon by a recommendation of a friend. Let me tell you, I have never seen a salon this fancy before! I felt like I should have dressed up to be there! I was in updo mode, so I had no make up on and was wearing a button up flannel. All the hairdressers were immaculate. They looked like they were from some fashion TV show. The salon even had a bar in it! I will not tell you how much I spent on my hair. But it was worth every penny, because it stayed up the whole night through all of our dancing!!! That has never happened.

When I made the appointment I asked for the best person they had. I needed to be able to collaborate with them because no one has ever understood how much forced is put on a hairdo during a salsa spin. :) I was scheduled with Niko. After I gave him my rehearsed explanation of what I needed, he had the best possible response. "I used to be a ballroom dancer. I know exactly what you mean." Yea! He knew exactly what to do. I just showed him a few pictures of what I was more or less going for and he went to work. It was perfect, and it stayed all night. I did have one pin that was stabbing me in the back of the head the whole night, but it was a fair price to pay for not having to take the whole thing down mid Ball and put it in a ponytail like last time.
(There is a whole story about Monkey and his shopping trip which happened while I was getting my hair done that is fodder for another post)
I left the salon as he was coming back from clothes shopping and he ended up walking up right behind me. He said he noticed my hair and thought "That girl has pretty hair" before he realized it was me! I guess that means he liked my hair. 


MAKEUP

I bought all new makeup for this shindig. Monkey is not a fan of super glam makeup but, being a girl and being a ballroom dancer, I love it. So, I had to find a happy medium. So I went with shimmer over glam. A lighter look but very pretty. Also fake lashes, of course, but not super extreme. I have never put on makeup so meticulously before. It took an hour and a half for me to do my makeup! When I started I thought it was going to take 20 minutes, though I had budgeted over an hour for it. Guess the eyeliner and lashes took longer than I thought, even as I was doing it. 


BALL

First things first, we got in line to take pictures. I'm pretty disappointed by the photography at this one. The pictures are over exposed, blown out, and poorly framed. We ordered 5x7's for the parents but we're wishing they turned out better.


Next was the line for alcohol.  They didn't have a great selection of spirits, but I guess you're really supposed to drink beer and wine at these things anyway. I just don't like alcohol so I had them mix up whatever they had that was fruity with what ever vodka they had. :)

We had the MCPON as our keynote. That guy's a hoot! He is a very good speaker. It was really pretty entertaining. There is quite a bit of tradition, and speaking to sit through before the dancing. But I knew what to expect from the last Ball. One thing that was different though, was the "Tolling of the boats". The listed off all the Submarines that have ever been lost and what happened to them. It was a little bit emotional. Hard to watch as a spouse, all the boats that have sank and how they all went down. Completely unrelated to that, at nearly the end I started to feel faint and sick and had to walk out of the room. I felt like I was being disrespectful and was a little embarrassed, but it was that or faint/puke in front of everyone. When we returned, though, everyone was talking about the guy at the next table two had locked his knees and fainted face first into some chairs. So, I guess no one really cared about me walking out at that point. 




DANCING

Well the boys (Monkey and his friend) had a GOOD ol' time dancing. Hilarious. All good fun. Monkey and I got to dance a little. Mostly west coast swing. The dance floor was pretty small for how many people there were so there wasn't a big enough hole for us to take up. They also didn't play very many slow songs. I wasn't really impressed with the music selection from the DJ, but I guess if you're just bumpin and grindin like everyone else it was fine. But, like I said. The boys had fun with it. We stayed until the very end hoping the dance floor would open up and a good song would play. The dance floor did open but no more good songs played. We tried to get the guy to play a waltz for us after the last song, but he had already shut down his computer. Oh well. We tired. 



THE END

I think that just about covers it all. I didn't end up getting to meet up with any of my Bloggy or Twitter ladies. :/ Did any of you see me? :)



More posts coming. I'm getting caught up as I find the motivation to put semi-intelligent thought behind what we've been up to lately.

11 comments:

  1. You both look great..:) I am glad you had a good time.

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  2. Nope, didn't see you. Of course, we didn't dance and went directly to bed because Huzzy had just gotten in from his patrol at 11:30 Thursday night and they had been working non-stop (he only had six hours of sleep between Wednesday and the ball) until literally hours before the ball. He came home at 2:30 in the afternoon and we RUSHED to get on the ferry and get to the room to change/get ready and be down in time before dinner started.

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    1. Oh wow! That's tough. Hope you got to enjoy it a little bit at least.

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  3. Gorgeous pictures, looks like a fun time!

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  4. I saw a few sailors and their dates on the Bainbridge Ferry coming back from Seattle, but didn't go to the ball (ours was on base anyway). But it looked like a great time! Good call to get a room, too- we've never done that, but I think next time, I'll talk Hubby into it. :) Nice pics!

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    1. Having the room made everything so easy. We ended up spending way too much on room service and the honor bar though! :)

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  5. You look gorgeous! Love the dress and the hair!

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