Mid-Day Post

This is an abnormal time for me to be posting, but after this morning, I decided that I will no longer be turning the computer on until all the kids are at school. We had the type of morning where I was running late for everything and forgot half of what we were supposed to do. I blame it on an iron deficiency because I have absolutely no other excuse.

I had an hour or so to kill between dropping Evie off at school and Timmy's scheduled H1N1 vaccine. I decided it was high time I finish the Advent calendar, considering Advent starts ridiculously soon. As in, next week. Yikes! All of the squares are sewn, but I have to sew on the ribbons, and I have to do all the finishing on the calendar. I have decided to finish it into a wall hanging, though where I'm going to actually hang it is yet to be determined. I'm assuming it's going to take me a few days to get done, but I'm hoping to have at least the calendar and a few of the squares completely finished before Advent starts. I can always sew the ribbons on the rest of the squares as we go along if I have a few to start with.

As for the vaccination, it went fine and we have no adverse reaction so far. Our doctor's office had a very limited supply and prioritized who they thought should be vaccinated. Timmy was one of the ones chosen. He cried for a minute, but then calmed down and was smiling again by the time we got back in the car.

Evie made an adorable pilgrim hat at school today. School ended over an hour ago and she's still wearing it.

Bon Bon Day

I decided while laying in bed last night that I was going to take today off.Meaning of course that I'm not going to work on budgets, bills, laundry or house work for once, except for the dishes. I can't leave dishes in the sink for long, it irks me. And no errands.

Anyway, Evie has her long day at school today, so I will have several hours to play with Timmy, watch TV and maybe get some stitching done. I'm very happy with how quickly the stocking is coming along. I do not want to spend a lot of time on the internet today (it does become such a time suck!) so I'm trying to get all my online stuff done now.

Not much is going on. I can't believe that Thanksgiving is a week from tomorrow!

Look! I Stitch!

I think I mentioned here that I started Timmy's stocking last week. If I didn't mention it here, I mentioned it on Facebook, and since at least half of you reading are my Facebook friends, you knew it even if I didn't mention it here. It's coming along surprisingly fast, which is lovely considering how ridiculously long it took me to stitch the rest of the stockings. It's looking a little girly now, but it will be balanced out enough for a boy by the end, don't worry.



Rob came home early from work today and scared the bejeezus out of me. He's not feeling well. I had a feeling that would happen, he felt warm to me. Since he's home, I asked if he would mind if I took Eve to see Where the Wild Things Are, and he said go ahead. I took Josh to see Toy Story in 3D a few weeks ago as a treat for doing so well with his behavior. I wanted to take him to see Where the Wild Things Are, to which he responded "That looks stupid." Seven year old boys are stupid. Okay, I don't mean that, but come on! Rob was even offended by that comment. Evie immediately chimed in that she would like to see it, but I was only taking Josh that night. Evie mentioned wanted to see it again the other day, but I couldn't think when I'd have time to take her. This works out perfectly, though I do feel bad that I'm leaving Rob home sick with the kids. Go ahead and laugh at me, I know you want to.

Kids in the leaves

Back to Normal. (Well, as normal as we get around here, anyway)

Hello, November 13th! Where the heck did you come from? And how precisely did we get to the point that there is less than 2 weeks until Thanksgiving?!

I was looking forward to the cruise for six whole months, so I must say, it's a bit of a let down now to be home. Good thing I have big plans to look forward to for next summer. As for what's going on around here now, things are pretty quiet. I had a conference with Joshua's teacher last week to get his first report card. Academically, he's doing really, really well. His teacher said that Joshua is a leader in his classroom and is one of her best listeners, which as you know is a gigantic improvement. He is still calling out and tends to dig his heels in if he disagrees with something they're learning (stubborn? My kid? Say it ain't so!). Overall, she's pleased with his work and behavior which is a huge burden off my shoulders. Even his bus driver complimented his behavior last week. This is him with his artwork at the art show his school recently held.




Evie is enjoying pre-k. She has made friends with several kids, although there's always one, isn't there? And isn't that one always the one whose mother you know? Apparently one boy in particular has been picking on Evie, or at least not being nice to her. He's related to my neighbor. Go figure. She loves dance class and was practicing tap dancing yesterday in our kitchen after dinner. This is how she asked to wear her hair last week because she wanted to "look different."



Timmy has recovered from the flu and his personality is back and better than ever. It seems like he learns a new word or communicates better every day. We've been having a lot of fun with him. He seems to be glad that Rob and I are home and just a bit more clingy with me than he was before we left. We didn't get the big reaction from him when we came home that I was expecting because he was just so sick. One day last week when he was feeling better, I was changing him. He was standing on the changing table and I started to sing one of his favorite songs. He reached his little hand out and started stroking my cheek. That for me was a better welcome home than anything else! What you should understand is that Timmy is a boy in every sense of the word and if he's putting his hand out to you, you should duck 'cause he's about to smack you. For him to be so gentle was amazing.



I have way more pictures to share of the kids in the leaves. We made a pile for them to have fun in earlier this week. I even have video.

As for me, I've recovered as well. I came down with strep (not flu) and am very grateful for antibiotics. I started Timmy's Christmas stocking because I wanted to stitch something Christmas-y and was too cheap to go out and buy fabric to start anything else. It's going surprisingly fast despite the navy blue fabric. I will post a progress picture soon.

Every weekend from now until Christmas is sucked up with busy-ness. It will be fun, but crazy. You have to love the holidays!

Days 7 and 8 because it's just too depressing to write day 8 by itself

As I start to write this, I have the same bitter sweet feeling I had when I woke up that Saturday morning. I knew it was our last day and was sad, but at the same time wanted to soak up as much time onboard as I could. Rob slept in that day, but I got up and took my book out to our balcony. The sun was shining when I first got out there, but there were some clouds in the distance that looked gloomy. They didn't last long.



I was reading my book and happened to glance up to find a rainbow! It was right in front of our balcony, and it was a full rainbow over the ocean. It was amazing that I looked up in time to see it, because I really was engrossed in my book and totally could have missed it. I tried to wake Rob to see it, and he gave a half-hearted "Oh wow," then went back to bed. Whatever. For me, it was like magic.





We had decided the night before that we would have breakfast in the main dining room one more time, so after the morning show, we headed down. While breakfast is a much different experience in the main dining room, the food isn't really much different from the buffet. We had a nice breakfast being waited on, then headed back to our cabin for a while. We sat out on the balcony watching the ocean. That day, we spotted little rainbows in the wake. The light was just right that little mini rainbows would pop up, it was so cool.

They were having a disembarkation talk that afternoon, so Rob and I headed to the Taj Mahal. They showed a film with highlights from our cruise, set to Green Day's Good Riddance (The Time of Your Life). I cried. If you know me, you're not surprised. Kirk kept the presentation entertaining, informative and short. Matt (Hi, Matt!) got the gifts he had earned by jumping with flair all week long. Several members of the staff cam out on stage to be recognized and got a standing ovation. We had a fabulous crew who really made the whole trip seamless, at least for us. There was one ornery man who came up to Kirk after the presentation and cursed him out, I'm not sure why. That was the only yucky spot in an otherwise perfect week. After the presentation, Kirk invited anyone with questions or who wanted to have a picture taken to come up to the front. We took advantage of getting a photo with all our buddies. We were met with choruses of "Jon and Kate!" and Jamie told me how different I looked with my real hair.








After the talk we went and had lunch at the buffet. One thing I haven't mentioned about the buffet is that for lunch each day a different ethnic food is featured in addition to all the regular food they have. That day, there was American food, but the day before had been French food, which was delicious. I know they also had Greek one day and I think there was English food another day. It was good.

Rob had *ahem* outdone himself the night before and wasn't feeling so hot that day. He decided to go back to the cabin and take a nap, but I wasn't going to miss one minute of my last day onboard. I decided to go look for a gift for Paula, who was awesome enough to keep our kids and make sure they got to school and activities all week long. There was also a Q & A session with Kirk and Jamie answering questions anyone had about life on the cruise ship. I will say, if I was single, I would totally do that job. How much fun would that be?!

After the Q & A, I went back to the cabin and started packing up what I could as quietly as I could. It was depressing. Rob was still sleeping, so I read for a little while on the balcony. What happened next was my worst nightmare come true. Rob came to the balcony door and said, "Your Dad's on the line." The kids were at my parents' house that day because of some things Paula had to do, and hearing that someone was calling me on the ship only made me think that someone must be dead. As most of you know by now, he was calling because Timmy had a very high fever and they were told by our doctor to go ahead and take him to the hospital. They needed our insurance info, which I will NEVER leave my children without ever again. Why it didn't occur to me to leave it in the first place, I'll never know. My sister Christy and Michelle took him to the hospital and texted me updates throughout the night. Timmy's fever got up to 106 at one point. To say I was worried and sad would be the understatement of the century. However, it did make it much easier to cope with it being our last night on ship. At that point, I just wanted to get home.

I wasn't doing Timmy any good by sitting around the cabin worrying. We went up to Lido to get a snack to try to settle Rob's stomach and I needed a cup of tea. After that, we watched the early sunset.









After that, it was time for the captain's celebration. They had free drinks there and dancing. We saw Kirk, Jamie and Justin on our way in. Kirk asked how we were doing, and I told him I'd been better. He asked what was wrong and I told him about Timmy. He was wonderful and really sympathetic, which frankly, he did not have to do. He actually said, "but the best friend is taking care of it, right?" Rob and I were amazed at how with a couple thousand people on the ship, Kirk and Jamie were able to recall small details about people. At the Q & A earlier, he had called several audience members by name. Amazing. Rob wasn't drinking that night, but he grabbed a drink anyway when the waitress went by so I could have extra. We got up and danced a while. I think they need to re-think the venue for the party, because they had the dancing up on stage. A lot of people are not comfortable getting up to dance on a stage. Even Rob didn't want to do it at first, so I went up alone. Eventually he joined me.

After the celebration, we headed back to the cabin to finish up the packing and get ready for dinner. At dinner that night, I had a delicious crab cake for an appetizer, cornish game hen for dinner and the warm chocolate melting cake for dessert. After dinner, we dropped in our room to grab some things and found our last towel animal. I think it's a seal or a walrus.




After that, we headed for our last night in the piano bar. By then, we had found out that Timmy had flu and that he was doing a little better. It was still a much quieter night than it had been earlier in the week. Here's us with Doug, who humored me all week with song requests and singing along.



After that, it was time for a little relaxing on the balcony and then time for bed. We could see the lights on the shore and knew we were getting closer to home. We had to be up in just a few short hours to get off the ship.

The next morning, we woke up to a still ship. It was rainy, cold and gray and we knew we were definitely home. It was much easier to get off the ship knowing that our sick baby was waiting for us, but it was still hard to know our trip was over.

We packed up our last minute things and cleared out of our cabin. Sadly I left my cell phone charger behind. Oh well. We went up to Lido to have some breakfast before they called us to get off the ship. We did self-assist, so we were actually some of the first people off the ship. We said goodbye to Justin and Jamie, and Justin told us we should come back for New Year's. We wish we could. We went back down into the terminal and through customs with no problems.



I have to say, I never expected to enjoy myself so much on this cruise. Rob and I are already planning another one in a couple years, this time with the kids. Same ship, same itinerary, and we'll take the kids on the Magic Kingdom excursion in Florida. Rob and I have continued to talk about the trip, the crew, the cabin, the food...everything. We've both been having dreams about being on the ship every night. It was beyond words. We miss it every day, though we love our life and our kids. I think we both sort of wish we could just live on the cruise ship!

With that, my cruise posts are officially over. I did not post all the pictures I took, I have many, many more. I will get back to regular posting about the kids, stitching, and life in general tomorrow. I'm as sad to stop writing today as I was to get off the ship!

Day 6-Freeport

When I woke up, I took note that the ship was still and that it was dark outside.



We had gotten up early because of the short time we had in Freeport, and the fact that we had to be ready for our excursion at 8:00. We watched the morning show, then went to breakfast. We watched the sunrise during breakfast and took note that they played very different music over the PA system that early in the morning! It sounded like Sunday morning at my Grandmom's house. After breakfast, we headed straight to deck A to disembark. We rode a bus to the UNEXCO store. We went and signed in, got our complimentary t-shirts, and were sent outside to get our flippers and wait for the rest of our excursion party. Our boat captain/guide whose name was Ian came over and introduced himself to us and told us we were just waiting on one more group. I had seen some other people milling around with the same color wristbands as us, and pointed them out. Ian went to grab them and we all headed to the boat that would take us to the dolphin enclosure.

This particular place has three different dolphin experiences. There's the Encounter, where you just sort of stand around the edge of an enclosure, the dolphins swim over to you and you can touch them and make them do tricks, and they'll jump and that sort of thing. There's the swim, where you get to be in the water with the dolphins in an enclosure and swim with them. Then there's the open ocean swim, which is what we were signed up for, and is somewhat self-explanatory. However, on that particular day, the dolphins decided they didn't want to come play in the ocean. The owner offered to either refund our money and send us back to the ship or allow us to have a sort of extended dolphin swim in the enclosure. Of course we opted for the swim in the enclosure. I was disappointed at first, but afterwords decided that the enclosure was probably better. We were introduced to our dolphin friends for the day, Salvatore and Briland. They checked us out as much as we checked them out.





We were instructed briefly on some safety tips (biggest point, don't get in the dolphins' face), then allowed to hop in the water. They had the dolphins swim over to each of us and told us hand signals to make them do a trick, had us swim along beside them and then took some posed pictures of us with the dolphins. After that, we were allowed to just sort of free swim, and the dolphins swam where they wanted to go. Bronin seemed to like me a lot and we swam together for a few minutes. He made me nervous, though because he kept cutting in front of me, and I was trying to stay out of his face. One of the other people on the excursion got popped in the head by Salvatore's flipper because the guy got in his face. Can't say I blame him.



Me getting friendly with my buddy Briland.













Our guide Ian was originally from England and was very informative about life on the island. Freeport is, as advertised, very industrial. There was hardly anything to look at on the drive out to the excursion. We rode on the bow of the boat on the way to and from the dolphin encounter, though, and that was a nice ride. It was sunny on the way out, but clouds were rolling in as we were in the encounter. It ended up raining on our bus ride back to the ship, which made it a little easier getting back onboard, even knowing it would be our last port.

It had been announced the night before and that morning that Halloween would be celebrated onboard that night even though Saturday was technically Halloween. When we got back on the ship it was to find decorations and bowls of candy on the promenade deck. The candy went really fast, but we were able to score a few pieces.











After showering and changing, we headed for lunch, then took a walk around and then headed back to hang out on our balcony. That night was also to be our last cruise elegant night, so while Rob took a nap, I took myself to one of the laundry rooms located on the ship and ironed my dress for that night. It was incredibly hot and humid in there! We watched the sunset from our balcony then got ready for dinner.





There were some people already in costume when we went downstairs, and this by far was the best one I saw all night. He was a blind referee! So clever.



For dinner that night I had a pasta dish for an appetizer (any of the entree pasta dishes can be eaten as a starter, just so you know), chateaubriand for an entree and the chocolate walnut cake for dessert. The desserts were special tonight in recognition of the Halloween fun. The ghostie dessert was a cheesecake that on of my tablemates ordered. So cute!





We posed with our tablemates and got a shot of our great servers, Dip and Glenn.





After dinner was over, we scooted back up to our cabin to do a quick change into our costumes. Rob and I went as Jon and Kate. There were tons of people in costume, all gathered in the atrium. It got a little crazy because there were so many people. Jamie (aka Robin below) was handing out tickets to 25 of the best costumes who would then go in for the costume contest in the Taj Mahal. We didn't get a ticket, but we didn't mind. We made our way up to the piano bar instead.













We saw Jamie, Kirk, Joey and William (all members of the entertainment staff) in the bar that night. I took the opportunity to thank Jamie and Kirk for being such a huge part of the experience for us, and Kirk thanked us and offered to buy us a drink. We accepted and they asked us to sit for a while. Jamie and the other staffers had to leave to host the costume parade, but Kirk sat with us a while longer chatting. We repaid him by buying them a round the next night and they referred to us as Jon and Kate for the rest of the cruise. Good times.

We shut down the piano bar again, then made our way with our piano bar buddies down to Beauties. Beauties was somewhat dead, so we decided to go up to the aft lido deck, which was even deader. We made it fun though. It was heading toward closing time there, sothen Rob and I headed back to Beauties, which was saying it was last dance, last song, so we had no choice but to go to bed. We went back to our room to find our next towel animal...a stingray. Not my favorite. Even though the rest of the world was still on daylight savings, we reset our clocks on the ship that night. The moon was almost full that night.





We knew the next day was our last and were sad already.