The Cruise : Days at Sea

As soon as we moved to Houston, Cori and I began talking about going on a cruise. The cruise itself is a pretty affordable way to vacation. Usually the big cost comes in getting to and from the ship. It was irresistible being so close to Galveston. We were thrilled that Sandy, Ray, Cory and Brittany were able to join us.

Everyone met up at our house in Houston. We had to leave the Denali with my mom, and so all six of us packed into Cori’s 5-seater Toyota 4-Runner - along with our luggage - and made the 2 hour drive from Cypress to Galveston. The aggressive Houston drivers nearly proved fatal to poor Ray’s nerves. He pulled through like a champ though and the drive was uneventful. We navigated to the right parking area and made our way through the luggage and embarkation process. We got aboard and had a couple of hours to explore and make any last phone calls before setting sail. And then, just like that, we were on VACATION!

It didn’t feel like a tropical vacation at first. The weather in Galveston was windy, chilly and foggy. There was low visibility from the blustery decks. We attended an orientation in the gym and made the first of many stops at Guy Fieri’s burger joint. (Ray, the mushrooms! Delish!) Finally we began our journey out of the harbor. The fog horn bellowed every couple of minutes until we were clear of the port.

Once at sea, the days aboard were whatever we wanted them to be. Swimming, napping, eating, reading, playing, watching… there was always something to do, including the option of doing nothing at all. We hit the gym. We played shuffle board. We mini golfed. We learned part of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. We ate. A lot. There were friendly competitions throughout the ship where the prize was a coveted trophy of a golden ship. The treasure alluded our group, but we had a great time participating.

Cory and Cori vying for the trophy at the bean bag toss tournament.

Cori was able to catch the BYU Gonzaga basketball game at the sports bar. His smile says it all.

And then, the sun would dip into the horizon and a whole new range of entertainment became available. Nightlife on the ship had just as many options as the day. Our nights were late from the outset mostly due to our assigned dining time which was 8PM. Dinner was a main event. The large menu was different every night and featured a “did you ever…” selection - crazy exotic foods that you've heard of but probably never eaten. We tried frogs legs, ox tail, and escargot...  (I steered clear of some of the selections due to my delicate condition) The menu also featured local fare appropriate to the port we were parked in. We pretty much ended up ordering just about everything on the menu every night and passing plates around. A fabulous arrangement. And there was always at least one order of Molten Lava Cake to finish the meal.

We loved our waitstaff and looked forward to our evenings with them. The headwaiters were Dushan and Adrien. At the beginning of the week, Adrien told us about a ‘golden challenge’ his best friend had given him to get a girlfriend from every continent. At the end of the week, we gave Dushan and Adrien a new golden challenge in the form of a Book of Mormon. :)

Though I was just about through the first trimester of our pregnancy, I was still dealing with some morning sickness. We were a little worried how this would stack up with being at sea. I drank so much ginger ale! We also all took ginger supplements that Sandy had brought. It really helped. I still had plenty of times where I just needed to sit and be still for a spell.

We loved getting dressed up for the evening festivities. And, it would seem, we loved taking pictures of ourselves all dressed up as we went about the evening festivities!

Aside from our dining adventures, we had our pick of entertainment in the evenings and tried a little of everything. We went to the stage productions and a comedian performance. We hit the Karaoke theater. Cory favored the audience with some Vanilla Ice and was aided on stage by a couple of soul sister back-up dancers (“let’s help a white guy out!”). We took in a poolside movie, which was quite nice once we got away from the smokers! There was live music all over the ship at night to enjoy. 

Our favorite stop by far was the piano bar. Most of the nights at sea, Jeremy would spread around his classroom musical instruments, wigs, and boas and then take to the purple piano. We would sit around the bar and sing our hearts out with him. 

 Our last night aboard we snuck in for some pictures with the piano sans the crowd.

lights out!

The area we live in is still undergoing a lot of construction. There are new houses being completed in our neighborhood (they are almost done!) and a new expressway being built less than a mile away. We are no strangers to blackouts. Usually, they last just a little while and the biggest annoyance is having to reset all the digital clocks in the house. But we have had 2 that have stretched for hours.

The first time it happened was on a Saturday. We had been out running errands as a family and when we came home, we couldn't get the garage door opener to work. We waited the afternoon away and as the sun was setting we started contacting people to see what was going on. We learned that the power would be out until 9PM (a six hour blackout) and so took the kids out to dinner. By the time we got home, the lights were back on.

The second time it happened was while Cori was away on a trip. Everything flipped off late in the afternoon. After an hour or so, it started getting dark. I had a soup kit in the fridge that I cooked by candlelight and we all agreed that it was the best idea in the world to eat all the ice cream in the freezer. Just in case. Sadly, we only had a box of fudge pops to take care of. The kids tried to convince me that they ALL needed to sleep with me that night. "You realize that it is usually completely dark when you sleep anyways, right?" "...yeah, but... we usually get ready for bed with the lights on which helps us feel so much better!" And then, before we could finish our debate, everything hummed back to life.

funny little valentines

Grace, Grant, Eden and I collaborated on a candy-free valentine for their classes this year. I asked them to show me their most AMAZED faces. I think Grant won. But he is really good at making silly faces.

Katy 13.1

Katy, one of Houston's most well-known suburbs, hosted their first annual half-marathon/5K/fun run the first Saturday of February. Cori and I registered for the 13.1 mile stretch early the last Fall and started training through the winter. Cori struggled with an injury and did not end up running. I was very close to dropping out as well. In the middle of January, we got the exciting and shocking news that we were pregnant. I will write much more about this soon (we have just come through a late miscarriage). But in regards to this race, I found myself very frustrated. I had been trying to catch my stride and, after a year of starts and stops, felt I was finally making progress. January marked the 18 month postpartum mark for me after having Jeffery. Historically, this is when the clouds start to clear for me. My long runs started feeling good. My body was starting to change. I found myself feeling spontaneous and unsolicited happiness. At last! I was coming back! I had enjoyed a week or so of this realization when morning sickness set in. Nausea and fatigue made it impossible to finish the training schedule I was working through. I decided to run the race anyway. I didn't shoot for any particular pace. Just the finish line. It was a nice flat run. The morning was cool and misty. My pace averaged out at the 10:30 mark- nothing special, but a full minute faster than my long runs had been leading up to the big day. Several friends from church participated in the run as well- it was a good time being together.

name that book

The school district here does a competition every year for the 3rd-5th graders called Name That Book. A list of 100 books is released at the end of the previous school year. Children are encouraged to use this list for their summer reading. When they are back at school, the kids form teams of up to 6 members. Then in the middle of January, a series of competitions begin. 10 - 12 teams meet for battle in the library (of course). Team one is read a quote. Team one then has 30 seconds to name the title of the book. The title has to be exactly correct. (Some of the titles are ridiculously long) If they answer in time and correctly, they earn one point. If not, no point is awarded, and they move on to team two. Etc. Each grade level has two heats. Then there is a school wide competition among the heat winners from each grade level. The singular school champion team goes on to represent the elementary school at the district level.

Grace was nuts for this competition.

I mean, she went completely bonkers for it.

She single handedly read at least half of the list in the first few months of school. ( I hadn't procured any of the list books for her over the summer because we had just moved in before the end of the school year and I had no idea what any of this stuff was about...) Her team met together in the library during their lunch recess. They practiced quotes and practiced reciting titles. Grace worried and worked and worried and worked. It was the only thing she could talk about. For months. MONTHS.

The night before their first competition Grace asked Cori to give her a father's blessing which helped calm her down a little. Then, at last, it was finally time to compete. Her team did well out of the gate. They were 3 or 4 questions in before missing their first point. Once time started running out, they took a tally of where all 12 teams were. Grace's team was tied with one other team, and so they went into a shoot out. It was nerve wracking!

Team Grace: correct
Other team: correct
Team Grace: incorrect (oh no!)
Other team: incorrect (Ahhh! There's still a chance!)
Team Grace: correct (then they all sat in their little circle with heads lowered, crossing fingers and holding hands...)
Other team: incorrect (Victory!)

Stewart, Michael, Christopher, Grace, Clara, Taylor

I was standing in the back of the library violently rocking Jeffery in his stroller I was so anxious for her. The librarian brought them up front and introduced them to everyone and oh my, was our girl beaming for weeks. We were so glad her team won, though it meant that we still had another competition looming in the future.

The school-wide competition was about a month later. Grace's team did well again, but they came in second to a team of 5th grade girls who had been working hard to get to the district competition since they first became a team as 3rd graders. Grace's team was 8/10 on their quotes. The winning team was a quick and effortless 10/10. Grace and her team mates were very sad to have lost, but they were glad such an awesome team went on to represent Swenke at the district competition. The librarian gave them each a big hug and told them that she had never seen a 3rd grade team do so well.

We have two copies of next year's list...

A morning with Monet (and five kids and an impromptu ice skating adventure)

The HMFA had a fantastic Monet exhibition that was available through the late winter. I really wanted to get to it, and finally made it happen on President's Day. While the rest of Houston was packing it into the zoo and the children's museum and the museum of natural science, we had the art museum practically to ourselves. Grace invited her friend Becca to come along.

I really enjoyed the way they chose to curate the collection. At the beginning of the exhibit, there was a map of the Seine superimposed with a timeline of the Monet's several homes along its banks. Each room of the exhibit was a collection of what was painted while Monet was living in one of those riverside houses and flowed chronologically. Most of the walls displayed several paintings of the same scene (this is pretty typical of Monet collections)- each done in different color schemes as they were painted at different times of day. This curatorship gave a comprehensive progression of Monet's style development that I had never seen in a museum. 

The kids were so good. I had several museum patrons pat me on the shoulder and compliment how well they were behaving. (I kept it to myself that I had issued certain threats before we got out of the car...) I loved seeing them read the captions on the wall and overheard some cute conversations. Budding little art historians. On one wall, there was a collection of three paintings, all the same scene. Two of them were in the beautiful pastels. One was in greys, browns, and oranges. Grace asked why someone would choose to paint something in ugly colors like that when he could paint it in beautiful colors like the others. Grant whispered that the point of the painting wasn't to be beautiful. Good questions and thoughtful answers. It was a moment that filled my heart with hope for the rising generation.

After we were through with the Monet exhibit, we wandered through the whole west wing of the museum. By this point, Jeffers was starting to act really ready for lunch and a nap, and I was feeling really ready to be done wrangling my herd. On our way out, we passed this ice skating rink that had been erected in the main foyer. Calling it an ice rink is generous because it was, in fact, oiled plastic arranged to look like an ice rink. The children all looked to me with their biggest pleading eyes when the following conversation ensued:

Kids: Begging and petitioning and making promises.

Me: Wow. That does look like a lot of fun! Did any of you bring your fun money?

Kids: Shaking their heads no, with an expression on their faces that seemed to say, "you know we didn't bring any money, Mom!"

Me: Darn it. Sorry about that, friends. I spent all my fun money getting us tickets to see the paintings. How about we just go get some lunch?

(un)helpful museum docent who was suddenly standing behind me: Oh, did you say you went to the Monet Exhibit?

Me: Yes, we loved it!

(un)helpful museum docent: Well, the price of skate rentals is included in the price of the exhibit ticket!

Me: Forcing a smile. Wonderful!

Kids: Smiles of triumph all around.

(un)helpful museum docent: Just go to that desk, fill out waivers for each of your skaters, and they will take you to the tent where they will be fitted with skates. Oh, also, you will have to skate with them, since you have little ones.

Me: With the same forced smile and through clenched teeth. Thank you, sir! You've made our day.

I then proceeded to fill out paperwork, lace up 10 ice skates, buckle Jeffery down into the stroller (he stayed on the side of the rink) and hope for the best. It wasn't that bad actually. And I was grateful the docent happened to be there. The kids loved it.

New Year's at the Lake

Once we had had our fill of Christmas festivities in the valley, we headed up to the Lake Tahoe condo for a few days to ring in the new year. The parent company that owns Vail and Breckenridge bought Heavenly a few years ago, and they have worked hard to make New Year in Heavenly Village something special. This year, they had professional ice skaters perform every night of the week. The weather while we were there was exceptionally cold and windy. We stood out for as long as we could and enjoyed the show. Mostly we felt terrible for the scantily clad lady skater who was surely FREEZING!

We did some ice skating too - just in the sunshine when it was a few degrees warmer.

This happens to be the view from a piece of property that Cori and I are in love with. Dad currently owns it. It is in a gated community in the foothills of Genoa. 9 acres that cut up the mountainside. There is a trail out the back yard that connects up to the Tahoe Rim trail system. Cori and I drive up to it every time we visit my parents. We made a quick stop here on one of our trips back to the house. Man, would we love to build our dream house/cabin here someday!

One of the nights we were at the Lake, Mom and Dad treated us to a fancy dinner in North Lake. The restaurant itself is a cabin that Charlie Chaplin once lived in. The food was amazing. And the drive...

Heavenly Village has a novelty soda shop called Rocket Fizz. It has become a tradition to spend some of our fun money there and then have a tasting night. Over the years we have tried frighteningly unique flavors and tasty treats alike: key lime pie, red velvet cupcake, raspberry ginger ale, mint, bacon, and (never to be forgotten) alien poop.

We played Ticket to Ride as couples one night. Dad always wins this game. (My mom always wins the trivia games, and Cori always wins the card games!) It was a treat watching him and my mom bicker the whole game through regarding their strategy. Just remember, "one off the top" will get you where you want to go Mom!

Half of the mountain was closed due to lack of snow and high winds. The temperatures were also intimidatingly low. We persevered out for a ski day anyway. While I was taking these quick photos of the kids, Cori was in the shop next door getting face masks for them as their ski instructor warned us about frostbite risks that day. Ski school was off somewhere we weren't able to go this time, and so we didn't get to watch them at all. But they loved their day on the mountain. The big kids (the rest of us) did too! I didn't get any pictures - I never dared take off my gloves!

Mom likes to drink soda out of wine glasses. I totally approve of this. Sometimes I do it too. While I'm cooking. It really makes you feel like something fancy!

On New Year's Eve they fence off all of Heavenly Village and visitors have to have a bracelet on to be there. There are performers everywhere and they do a gondola drop and fireworks at 9PM. I love this tradition. We wandered down around 8 to check out the entertainment. It was SO COLD. We made it though.

New Year's Day found our family on a plane headed back to Texas.