Cruise 2011

It's been a week and I figured it was time I blogged our cruise. Yes, it took me that long to recoupe, plus, with blogger I can only upload three pictures at a time and so it takes forever to put up a long post. But, the time has come since I woke up at 5 am this morning and couldn't go back to sleep, I decided to blog!! Your lucky day and be prepared, it is a long post...as it was a long, fun filled week!! We went on the cruise with renewed excitement this year because we were going with Talon and Tiffany. It would be their first cruise, so everyone had fun telling them what to expect and seeing them experience it for the first time. Talon was really afraid of open water and wasn't too excited about going, I snapped this picture of them boarding and he is looking scared! He just wanted to get on the ship and not look at the ocean again. But, by the end of the cruise, they both enjoyed it and said they would go again and Talon said he even ended up an top looking out into the ocean and liking it!! We get on board and then we have to go to a mandatory safety briefing where they tell us how to use the life jackets and board the life boats and so here we are at that.

The ship set sail at 5:30 and it was so cold and windy that we quickly took a picture and then promptly went to the dining room to eat.


We went to family karaoke the first night here in the queen mary lounge and Cynjyn sang "Don't Stop Believin". She went second and did great. I can't believe she was so brave. There were a lot of families in there and one bunch was three sisters, their husbands and kids from...UTAH...yes, they were mormons! So we kinda bonded with them.

We were so excited to go into Catalina Island. We love renting the golf carts, here we are riding the tenders into the island.

We had to rent two carts because they could only hold six people and we had seven, plus you had to be 25 or older to drive, so Garry and I each drove one around he island. We love stoppin on top here to take pictures.

It really is a beautiful island. On the very top right is the Wrigley mansion, they are the owners of the island, and the brown house on the top left is the Swanson mansion.

Cynjyn's big purchase was this chinese umbrella and a snow globe to add to her collection.

We spent a lot of time on board rather than doing excursions, so we went to a lot of the ships activities. One of them was watching this man do an ice carving. He went from this...

To this...

To this indian head. It was cool to watch, it was on display later that night for the midnight mexican buffet (sadly, only Garry, Talon, Tiffany and I were up for it and yes, we pigged out on the food at 11:15 when it actually started.)

Our waitress in the dining hall made these hats out of napkins for Taz and Cynjyn, Cynjyn decided to keep hers and so you will see various people wearing it throughout the next few pictures. Here, her dad stole it from her for the evening.

We went tot he little mercado in Ensanada and the best part was where they were trying to raise money to build and wildlife refuge and so you could donate $25.00 to the building fund and get your picture taken with these cute little lion cubs that they had. They had two and let you hold one for the pictures. (I guess they took turns so the babies wouldn't get too tired.) The kids LOVED this so much. Talon and Tiffany had already gone on their excursion to La Bufadora, so they weren't there plus they only let three people in the picture.

He really was so adorable.

We played a lot of cards during down times. We spent a lot of time in the library/game room, the had a shelf of games and we played the new version of Clue a couple of times. We also played a lot of the game 5 Crowns. Here they are playing 7-up as we wait to disembark on the last day.

Tanner, much to his "glee" got pulled on stage during one of the shows to dance with the showgirls. This time, we snapped a picture. Of course he looked like a pro up there doing the macarena.

Awe, the formal dining room. We had so much fun here. It is by far, our favorite part of cruising. The first night was kinda bad because we set sail at 5:30 and then go eat at 6:00. Talon and Tiffany were so sea sick that first night they could barely be at the table. So, during dinner they went and promptly took a scopace tablet. You could see when it kicked in half way through dinner, because Talon got his coloring back and they could both start eating. Here they are though on formal night, sea sickness cured by the pills and everyone having a good time.

My kids looked so good and cute and they all were having a blast!

We are the luckiest parents to have such great kids!

Now, I have to tell you about our dining companions. Here are Pete and Jessica. They are from Canada.

They are friends with Lois and Tony who are from LA. They are cruising together.

We hit it off with both of them right away. They were very talkative and we had nice conversations. Lois and Tony are in their late 50's an have a grown son. We aren't sure if Jessica and Pete are a couple. They acted like it, but Lois at one point said that Jessica lived with them. They are probably in their early 50's. Jessica has two grown sons. After our first meal together, they all commented on how "good" our family was and that they were so glad that they got seated with us. We said the same about them. L & T had been cruisin before and so had J. We all commented on how we could have got stuck with a family with babies, or toddlers and how that can sometimes be disatrous. We chalked their gratefulness up to that. So, every single night from them on during dinner all 4 of them always complimented us on our great family and how nice and well behaved our kids were and how glad they were that they were seated by us. They did this 3 or 4 times during each meal. They always came and talked to us when we passed one another at other times on the ship and they came to family karoke night to support Cynjyn, plus J and L were singers and they wanted to do it too (but they also had an adult karoke session they could have done.) Garry and I would often comment to one another that they seemed pretty obsessed with our little family. Now, I don't tell this story to brag, but to make a point. Finally on the last night, Garry was wearing his BYU t-shirt at dinner and Lois saw it and asked "are you guys mormon?" We said yes and that was about it, but it was like a lightbulb went off in her head and it looked like it kinda clicked, I'm assuming, as to why our family was the way it was. I have been thinking about this so much since the cruise. We really are a "peculiar people" and our lights do shine just by being ourselves. We can be an example for good in many ways and we don't have to do anything other than live the gospel. I don't know what her impression of mormons was, or what kind of previous contact she'd had with them, but hopefully, we left them with a good impression and maybe, just maybe, something good will come out of it for them at some point down the road. Anyway, we had a great time with them all week and at most of our dining experiences.Taz and Cynjyn went around the dining room with our waiters Russel and Lisa and did the conga line with them.

They loved their hats.
Taz danced with Lisa on formal night while our waiters sang "That's Amore" to all the couples.

We went to a towel folding class and learned to fold an elephant and a monkey.

Speaking of towels, the following are pictures of our towels. Two rooms and no one got the same towel any night. Swan.

Seal.

Our favorite, the alligator. Our towel teacher didn't believe us that we'd gotten an alligator, she said she's never heard of anyone getting that before.

A dog.

A heart.

Tanner with all theirs for the week, an iguana, frog, cobra and the swan.

We went to two different comedians the last night and they were so funny, especially the second one. We were all laughing soooo hard.

We went to two back to back "competitions" that they had periodically, one was cartoon trivia where they played a cartoon theme song and you had to guess the cartoon, and the other was a "say what you see" where they give you a picture and you guess the phrase it says. We won both of those and were awared this little golden cruise ship!!

I'd like to thank the academy, especially Garry Goon for being so dang smart!!

After we got off the ship, we went and toured the Queen Mary which is an old cruise ship that stays docked right next to where we got off. Talon and Tiffany had really wanted to go because they heard it was rumored to be haunted. So, we finally talked Garry into letting us go. We loved the paranormal room where they told of all the ghost sightings and storied from the ship. We even got to go on a little haunted tour where they take you to three areas of the ship where they've had paranormal activity. Here is Taz reading about some of the hauntings.

This is an area where you can see all the way down the ship and it was a cabins room. It sways in the middle and "sightings" have been reported there.

During I believe WWII, it was used as a battle ship, so on top it had some of the war guns still around.

It was at it's heyday in the 20's and 30's I believe, so they had pictures of a lot of old celebrities and royalty that had been regular visitors and it was very enjoyable to tour it.

It's anchor.

A room at the bottom of the ship. An intersting fact: It took a gallon of oil for every 13 miles it went!!!

There were old fashioned telephone booths out side the Queen Mary, so we took the opportunity to do some Superman poses!!

Such a fun week together!

Thanks for making it to the end of this long post;)