A Catch-Up Post on Christmas, Vacation and More

I haven't blogged anything from Christmas, our vacation, or Allyson's birthday. For the sake of keeping memories, here it is! Christmas was like all our past Christmases, full of family, food, gift opening, and more food. Our life is blessed by wonderful family!




So about our cruise... Steve and I felt that this was probably our best vacation yet. We did what we wanted, when we wanted, and just enjoyed our time together. We flew out of Sacramento with our Kindle and Galaxy in hand. It was so nice to chat a little, read a little, then chat some more, it made our long day of flying go by quickly.

We got to our hotel in Orlando early in the evening and found there were several good restaurants just across the street so we had dinner at Tony Roma's, and then a leisurely breakfast at Cracker Barrel before we caught the shuttle back to the airport to hook up with our transportation to the Disney Cruise Terminal. I think we only spent about 20 minutes at the terminal before we boarded the ship, heard our name announced as we boarded and realized we were "there" as Steve puts it. One of the reasons he loves cruising is once you board the ship, you don't worry about where you're staying, what you'll eat, or having to travel to get somewhere.

Goodbye Florida, Bahamas here we come!

So of course the first thing we did was eat, then we strolled around the ship while waiting for our room to open up. Once our room opened up, we realized we'd been upgraded from our inside room to a larger room with a porthole, and that our travel agent had sent us a bowl of fruit (thanks Ron!), and Disney had sent us some second-time cruiser gifts (thanks Disney!). What a nice surprise!

Our first night was spent getting to know our table mates. We had two couples our age at our table, one from South Carolina, Ann and Frank, and one from Arkansas, Cindy and John. They were great people, easygoing and fun to eat with. (We saw them here and there and hung out a little with Ann and Frank during the cruise.) Then we headed to our showtime. Disney puts on Broadway quality shows, there was lots of Disney themed entertainment that you would love at any age. Then (thanks to still feeling the California time change) we headed to the Rockin' D for some fun where we participated in a scavenger hunt and then watched The Marriage Game with 3 funny couples. We loved the couple who had been married for 52 years, they were great! The scavenger hunt was surprisingly fun, each team had a number and the host yelled out, "Bring your team number up to me with (fill in the blank). She yelled out things like "a man wearing women's shoes," or "a sock with a hole in it." At one point, Steve was up there with our number wearing lipstick, a purse and a woman's bra. (Not mine! Our teammate, in her 60's, fumbled under her sweater and there it was! I wasn't going there! Haha!) Don't worry, nothing risque happened, this is a Disney ship after all! ;)

At dinner one night:


The second day was all about snorkeling on Castaway Cay. The weather and water was perfect and we had a wonderful time. We swam about 5 feet over a manta ray, we had a small school of fish following our feet during a lot of the snorkel time, and swam through a large, impressive school of fish. That was eerie and amazing all at the same time as there were at least hundreds (if not a thousand), fish all around us.




The third day was at Nassau. We were going to take a taxi to check out the Atlantis, but after a pretty hairy experience with the taxi driver who was strong-arming people to get into his taxi, we bailed out of his cab and went to Senor Frog's instead. What a fun place, it involved a congo line, balloon hats, dancing on chairs, etc. It overlooked where our ship was docked and I really enjoyed watching another RCL ship coming in, it's amazing how they can turn those ships in such small spaces!

The ships at port from our table at Senor Frogs, ours is the middle ship:






The fourth day was our second day on Castaway Cay. It was a windy, cloudy day and we had to leave a little early to outrun a thunderstorm, which we didn't manage to outrun all the way. (We got a really nice "lightening show" late at night just as we were going to sleep, it was actually beautiful to watch the light show bounce off the water out of our porthole.) The snorkeling wasn't good that day so (darn) we had to go to Serenity Bay, the adult area where we did some hammock time with our "books," and enjoyed the BBQ. Apparently at the adult beach, you get steak and a few other things you don't get at the family beach BBQ. Then we headed back to the ship and went to the movies. We saw "Tron" and "Tangled" in 3D while we were cruising.

Our last day was a day at sea where our ship basically sailed in a rectangular pattern out in the ocean, not too far off some islands. That day we used the spa, read on lounge chairs, ate (of course), and watched our last Disney show. We also booked our next cruise since you get 10% off if you book while you cruise, plus $100-$200 shipboard credits. You can't lose since you can cancel anytime, change the date/location/ship at any time, and keep moving your date until you want to book for sure, so we booked a cruise with a "fake date" for now in hopes that in about 2 years we can do a family/friends cruise for anyone that wants to go. (Yes - that means YOU if you're reading this!) We said goodbye to our dinner mates, packed, and then sadly, it was over.

Our first day back home we celebrated Allyson's 5th birthday at Leatherby's with some ice cream (Allyson is not a fan of cake). It was low-key and fun, perfect for two jet-lagged people!


Allyson and Bella have a true friendship, they just love each other!


Then last the first week-end we were home, Josh ran his first marathon, we were really proud of him! I can't imagine coming even close to doing something like that!

After the marathon:



So there you have our latest life events written down for all posterity! Thanks for hanging in there (for those still reading this)!