Middle Name

I thought of something funny this morning, what if I were to marry someone with the middle name Matthew? That means we have very similar names because when I get married Mathews will become my middle name and we would have the same last name...oh the random direction that my brain goes :)

We Built This City On Hills

First day destination was Catalina Island, CA...isn't it gorgeous? Because the port was small and not very deep they had to anchor the ship still out in the water and we would take little boats into the island. I have a strange dislike of small boats--not that I don't know how to swim (the opposite actually- I love water and swimming) but I hate little boats because I feel like I have no control over what is going on and that the boat is going to tip. It was a fun day, Sonia and I went shopping! while everyone else went geocaching and exploring. Sonia bought a beautiful ring and I found a flower hairclip that matches the color and style perfectly of a shirt that I purchased a couple of months ago. I also bought another souvenir but it has been used and is gone. Because of naps everyone else headed back to the ship but Mom and I spent a little more time shopping, she bought one of those floppy hats in a purple color-love, I can't wait until this summer when she can wear it while doing her gardening :) 

Meeting back up after we had done some shopping and they had done geocaching.

Gorgeous!

They had these awesome looking "caramel" apples, I hope this fall to copy some of their ideas (and hopefully not pay as much as they were charging for them).

Dinner for Tuesday night was fancy night, it was fun to get a little more dressed up than normal. We figured out that we should all have a meeting spot to gather before dinner so that we could go in together and be sure to sit with each other. We picked the library as our gathering spot. Some of us got there a little early so they picked up the board games and played a little until everyone was there.

Uncle Kyle taught Jacob how to play chess while we were waiting and he loved it, he even asked Kyle to go back and play with him after dinner.

Look at that beautiful girl-- she is getting so big (will be 11 next month!)

It cracks me up, they were sitting in the exact same pose.

So serious and concentrated on what he is doing.

Our family took the dressing-up serious, unlike this girl behind Jacob that is dressed with a lace shirt and you can see her bra underneath.

Such a silly Claire, she was showing her belly button.

Yeah our first towel animal! I was more than a little excited/happy when I came back to our room after dinner and found this on my bed.

Oops these are in the wrong spot but I'm too lazy to move them--getting ready!

I straightened my hair and then Libbey did it for me...I'm wearing the flower that I bought in Catalina.

What a Boat!

(I'm not sure why but this has taken me forever to want to get this written and posted--I guess that I just didn't have the energy to want to add the words that go with the pictures. I'm not sure that I'm even done, but it's better to get it posted now before I forget all)

Well the time has come and gone and we have returned from our whirlwind trip to California and our cruise. It was so much fun, with plenty of positives and some things that we could have done without. Despite having just seen everyone for Christmas barely two weeks ago it felt like it had been forever since we had seen each other. 

We saw the boat (ha boat--ship) a couple of blocks before we even got there and it looked beautiful and very really! I dropped everyone off but Kyle at the sidewalk with their luggage and went to park the car in the parking garage (we were awesome and parked at 3G--I don't think that it went up to 4G). We walked in and met up with Mom in line, it was much like going through security at the airport; you first had someone look at all of you paper work and ID, then went through a scanner, and finally you stood in a long line (where you showed them your ID and then received your room key). We went upstairs where they took a picture to keep in the file with our card (so when you got off and on they had a picture to match the card with-- you know, no stowaways or anything) and then we finally got to walk on the ship!

We quickly found our rooms, dropped off our carry-on's and headed upstairs for a tour and lunch. With the excitement of being on the boat it was little hard to sit and eat (which was probably a good thing ;D).  When we were doing our walking tour of the boat Nathan and Sallee found us and continued with us. 

After the tour I went to my room and changed into my swimsuit to try and go swimming- I quickly discovered that the pool water was FREEZING! So I joined Nathan and Claire in the hottub, we got to be in there for about 10-15 minutes before it was time to go to a meeting about safety the boat. Basically it was discussing what would happen if we needed to evacuate the ship and where you would go, etc. (just a bit boring). 

By the time the "meeting" was over I was freezing so I hurried back to my room to change into warm/dry clothes, then it was back upstairs for dinner. The first night we didn't realize that we had to all be together when we went into dinner so Ben and Sonia's family were at a different table then the rest of us.

The Fruit Cocktail, this was a favorite for everyone-generally every night this was ordered 4-5 times (at least--Thursday night when I wasn't feeling well I just ordered 4 of these for my dinner).

We were on our way back to our room after dinner when in the main lobby these two guys started a dance performance- it was pretty cool and really fun. I loved that you could just be walking anywhere and get a free "show."

At one point they asked for volunteers, Jacob had really wanted to be involved so he made his way downstairs to the very edge of where they were dancing in hopes of getting picked.

After dinner and all good children were in bed Libbey, Erick, Ben, Sonia, Nathan, and I went to their welcome to the ship show. It had a couple of dancers, singers, and comedians. It was a pretty good show and had us a bit excited for the week.

We moved very quickly into our room (with 3 adults what can you expect). Though there wasn't tons of room I thought that the different ways they had the rooms arranged made them as comfortable and as useful as they could. Mom and I had been afraid that we were going to have to share beds the whole week and so we were greatly relieved when we got there and found that they had 3 separate beds for us.

When we weren't doing anything this was most likely the place that you could always find Kyle- with this huge honking book (I think that he read the whole thing in like 3 days).