Cruise - Day 3 (October 30, 2018)

Day 3 of our cruise was more traveling through the ocean all day.
For breakfast we went down to the main dining area and ordered our food and got waited on. It was delicious but so weird to be so served and waited on so fancy.
We relaxed a bunch on the side of the ship staring out at the open ocean and read a book or took a nap. It was SOOO nice!!

At one point we did go to an art seminar.
The cool auctioneer, Vouter, was doing it. He would have a bunch of pictures up on a slide and ask if anybody knew what painting that was. Chris sometimes likes to be a show-off and so he was answering all of his questions correctly. I was a very proud wife! Since Chris was answering so many correctly Vouter said, give that guy a bottle of champagne! So Chris was a bottle of Champagne:)

Obviously since we don't drive, we told the South African crew we don't drink and he traded us a $100 credit to use on some art.


We had lunch at a new place called The Solarium. The BEST thing about this place was that you had to be at least 16 to be there! It was great for us since we didn't have our kids with us. We ended up eating here a lot.

As we were standing waiting to get into another Art Auction there was a parade that came through with a bunch of different DreamWorks characters.

We didn't buy anything at the art auction but we enjoy going to them.
After that we headed over to the Ice Skating rink. I have ALWAYS wanted to try ice skating. It looks easy.
It was the FUNNIEST thing on the whole cruise. I laughed and laughed and laughed. I couldn't be how hard it was. Chris was a good sport and though he didn't want to do it, he did it anyways. We tightly held onto the side THE WHOLE time around and even then I was having a hard time staying up. I laughed and laughed and laughed. It took us quite awhile to make it around the rink once and by the end I was so done, but it was hilarious to me for some reason how bad we were. We had to wear helmets to go ice skating.

After our ice skating adventure we took our books up to our usual relaxing spot and relaxed and/or took a nap in between reading, until it was time for get ready for dinner.
After dinner we had fun playing cards with our other friends.

Cruise - Day 2 (October 29, 2018)

Day two we got up when we wanted and had a delicious buffet breakfast.
Then we were told that we HAD to go to this Sales Pitch. We thought we would find out what we could do on the islands but apparently it was just all of the jewelry you could buy on the islands. We were told we had to go and get the coupons but I didn't remember being told that we could leave once we got them at the beginning so we stayed for the whole 2 hour spill and didn't even win any door prizes. It was really just a big sales pitch for jewelry which we don't really buy so it was a wasted 2 hours.
For lunch we tried the carnival type deck and ate a hot dog but wasn't all that impressed so we went back to the Windjammer for lunch.
After that there was an art auction that we wanted to go to, to experience one. The art crew was from South Africa so they had a cool ascent. The main auctioneer was a funny guy so it was fun. There was one piece that sold for $40K!!!!! It was CRAZY!!!
I knew I wanted to go on the zip line, but figured the line would be really long. One of the times we were just walking around the ship there wasn't a long line so I went and did it. It was scary but also very short. I had planned on going again some time but never ended up doing that.

I was completely surprised that I wasn't freaked out about only being able to see water. I REALLY thought I would be because of past experiences but it was actually calming. Now if I was just in a little boat, that may have been different but being on this HUGE ship basically seemed like you were on land and there was SOO much of the ship.
That night was our first format dinner. We all just agreed to wear Sunday clothes but some people were in tuxes and formal gowns, which would have been fun also.
After dinner that night we went to an Aqua Show. It was pretty cool, but the craziest thing were these 2 High HIGH divers, I mean HIGH, probably like 20+ feet and they had such a small area to land AND the ship was still very much moving back and forth. They almost cancelled the show that night (like they did the previous night) because of it, but ended up having it. It is incredible what they can do on a ship.
After the water show we went to the game room and played cards. I definitely had beginners luck and won at a new card game with like 730 points which all of the people had never heard of before. You win the whole game with 1000 points so it only took us 2 rounds before I won and they were gunning for me the second round.

Formal dinner night!

Room maintenance always came in at least twice a day. Once when you were at breakfast/out of your room in the morning to make your bed and tidy up and then the second time while you were at dinner to turn your bed down and then on formal night they made you a little towel animal to come back to. It was REALLY fun to have such awesome service!!

This is the stage for the Aqua Show, it doesn't look very high, but that was the back and highest part of the ship, so at least deck 16 or higher and then we were sitting on deck 8 or lower. At the very top on the left you see a little bit of red, that is where they dove from and landed where in that blue on the floor there but that floor raises and lowers and did it numerous times throughout the show. One minute they are standing on it, then the next they are diving into it and you sort of freak out because you think it is still hard floor still, but you never even saw the floor go do and it become water. Just AMAZING!!

So they dove from super high up there and then they only had this spot that has lights around it (almost all the way) and that was where they had to land and with the rocking of the boat? Those guys better get paid A LOT!!!

 Look at that, very top left down to the lined area when that has water in it and that floor goes down. Apparently that floor can go down 20 feet or more, I believe I remember hearing. I think that is where you can go diving when you go and rent diving gear on the boat.

Cruise - Day 1 (October 28, 2018)

I still can't believe that I went on a cruise. It seemed like one of those things that I would never be able to afford to do. I was also REALLY worried about being on only water and not being able to see any land or anything. I am not a big water person.
We got up at 4:00AM and my friend, Sharon Richardson, who I know wakes up early took us to the airport at 4:30am. It was so nice that my mom didn't have to worry about getting up early and then driving back from the airport herself.
The flight was fine going and then when we got there, we tried for the first time to use an Uber. We have heard lots of things about Ubers so we had them pick us up from the airport and then take us to IHOP for breakfast. We ate a delicious breakfast and really excited that we were kid FREE!!
Breakfast was delicious and then we needed to go buy me some sunglasses since I forgot mine. Luckily with our suitcases we walked only a little bit from IHOP to a Walgreens. It was perfectly planned if I had actually planned it. Once we were done there, I tried to save some money and messed up my Uber account. I couldn't get it to work again because of it so we had to use Lyft. The guy picked us up at Walgreens and saw that we had suitcases so he ASSUMED that we were going to the airport. Once he got to the airport he asked which flight, when we told him that wasn't where we were going to actually looked at our destination and took us to the hotel that our friends were staying. I was so glad to catch up with Hal & Debbie. They had been on cruises before and we were able to just follow their lead. They called an uber and we rode to the Ship in a Honda Odyssey. Hal drove his plastic cup of soda in the van and it spilled all over him and the guys van. I was so glad it wasn't Chris or I.
I was glad that an uber was taking us because I had no idea where we were going. They dropped us off at this HUGE enormous ship. We went with Hal & Debbie as far as we could but then they were higher members than just us low-life cheap people so we had to split from them and they had a much shorter line than us. We finally made it up to the front and they asked us if he had flu-like symptoms, thankfully we hadn't.
They told us to go up the stairs. So we did. The staff there were not very friendly. People would try to ask them questions and they would just keep saying the same thing, ignoring them. We were just kind of following the crowd. We went upstairs and they said diamond holders come this way, everyone else keep going down. We kept going down and then Chris had to go to the bathroom. While he went into the bathroom, there were 4 seats just open so I asked the people next to them if they were taken. They said no, so I sat down and waited for Chris to get out of the bathroom. When we did, he just sat down with me. In just a few minutes people in the rows behind us started getting up and going somewhere. We had no idea what was going on and eventually they got to our row and so we got up and followed the people in front of us. As we were walking, we actually saw Hal and Debbie sitting down. We were going to be walking in front of them about 8 rows. I told Chris that they were over there but not to look at them. We started hearing something about that being the last of the Gold members. We were getting the idea that maybe we were in the wrong place and we probably shouldn't be where we were but they could tell us if we were. We got up to some ladies that were checking tickets and figured she would tell us to go back, but she didn't and we just got on. We kind of realized that we got on earlier than we were actually suppose to but we honestly didn't know what we were doing, and they didn't direct us very well.
When we walked in, it was absolutely CRAZY amazing!! It was like a downtown, like complete shops and just incredible. It was like more enclosed mall type feeling with shops and stores and things to do, just amazing.
We couldn't get into our room right away because they weren't ready yet but we just kind of walked to see where it at least was.
We got a text from Hal & Debbie and so we met them down on the main floor. This was the 2nd largest ship at the time, and had 16 decks on it. We later found out that 6500 passengers and 2500 crew were on board. When we first got on since nobody could get into their rooms yet, it kind of felt like a TON of people. However, it didn't any other time.
We met up with Hal and Debbie and found out that we really weren't suppose to be getting on before them. They paid more to have a Gold status and therefore suppose to get on before us. Hal is VERY competitive so that really got under his skin and so it was the running joke that we were better than them the whole trip. Annette and Bary met up with us and we all had a great chat as we waited for our rooms to get ready and then we went to the Windjammer Cafe for lunch, and after that our rooms were ready.
We thought our room was pretty nice and surprising spacious for being on a ship and we were surprised what all was in there....again, especially being on a ship. After we were able to get in our rooms and get our luggage, Chris and I just explored the ship. There was SOOOO much to see, and I am sure we didn't check everything out. It was crazy to see what all could be on a ship that size, like rock climbing and zip line, and ice skating rink, SO much!!
Our scheduled dinner was at 5:30pm and we were eating with Hal & Debbie, Bary & Annette, and then Bary & Annette's friends from California came on the cruise also. They were Kelly and ah man, I can't even remember her name. I am sure it will come to me eventually, or I will ask Chris later. They were fun, and we got to know them a bit, but it was more fun to be with those we already knew. Not like we will ever see that other couple again.
Dinner was in the main dining hall and it was fancy! I felt pretty uncomfortable, the servers put your napkin on your lap for you and you could order whatever and however many you wanted and it was all already paid for by your ticket. We had some AMAZING food!! Our waiter was hard to understand a bit and not super friendly but he got better by the end of the week.
After dinner we all went to watch Momma Mia the musical. It was a GREAT show and they did an amazing job. It really pumped me up.
Once we set off for sea you could tell we were moving, like moving on a boat, back and forth, back and forth. It was like SUPER bad or anything but I was a little nervous that I would get sick. I even had to wear Chris' seabands. Everybody said that it was so unusual for us to feel the moving like we did. We must have had some bad winds/waves. We did see whitecaps which means it is pretty rough seas. You don't normally see whitecaps unless the seas are rough.
The WHOLE cruise environment was a little too uppity for me just because it was really nice. It was so nice, I just am not used to all of that. I got used to it and really enjoyed it but at first it was A LOT to take in and SOOOO much fun!

Here is us at port in Fort Lauderdale, Florida as we watched up debark!

Here is our GIGANTIC ship, Allure of the Seas

Ward Fall Festival (October 27, 2018)

We had our ward fall festival and had to have it at the church since it had rained too much and would have been too muddy for where we were supposed to have it. 

This girl, LOVES Michael Jackson and she comes as Michael Jackson EVERY year. She visit teaches my friend Sharon. Sharon agreed this year that she would be Liz Taylor. My other friend who I was going on the cruise with the next day was supposed to be the paparazzi, but she wasn't able to make it so she asked me to be the paparazzi for Liz and Michael. It was fun and "Michael Jackson" just LOVED it.

Here is Sharon (Liz Taylor) and I

Swim Training Meet (October 27, 2018)

Allison wanted to start doing swim training in October so she used her own money and paid for it. She went 3x a week. She has a coach that Matthew never liked and so she hasn't really liked him. 

They usually have a meet the last Friday of the month, and it happened to be when Grandma was going to be here. Allison was SOOOO excited that Grandma was going to be able to watch her swim fast. Grandma was a swimmer back in the day so it was fun all around for her to experience it.

Here is Allison with a friend from church that swims in the same place. She is 2 years younger but is faster than Allison in one of her events. This is Laura Eliason and both her parents are swimmers and her two older brothers, the oldest of which I think will make it to the Olympics and they all swim year round. They competed against each other even in the same heat sometimes.

Since Grandma was there, Allison got personal bests in all the events that she did.

Pre-CRUISE!!!!!!

Back in April, some friends of ours who do cruises a lot asked if we wanted to go with them on a cruise the end of October/beginning of November. We told them we couldn't because we were due with our baby Nov. 7th.

However, when we lost the baby at 16 weeks (June) we tried to find the positive in this very sad situation that we were in. We decided that it would be a nice Anniversary celebration so we booked it.

We were going with Bary and Annette Dalton, and Bary's Uncle and Aunt Hal and Debbie Dalton who are also in our ward. They kids name Hal & Debbie Grandma & Grandpa Dalton because they take care of them and let us stay with them for a week while we were homeless. Hal & Debbie have grandkids so they are older, but not a lot, probably 50s. Bary and Annette are more like our kids aunt and Uncle. They have started calling her AuntAnnette. It is really fun. They have 4 kids ranging from 14-20, many of them redheads:) We get their hand-me downs!! Bary and Chris (and Hal) get along really well, so all of us get along really well.

Both couples have cruised a few times before so they were constantly telling us the inside scoop of things and what we need to take.

Since my mom was going to come down to help me with the baby came, I was hoping that she would come a week earlier now and watch our kids so we could go. She graciously accepted the responsibility.

I had her come in on Tuesday night before we left so that I could show her how we do things around her and also get her familiar with the area since she would be driving kids around.

I had Michelle on a pretty good schedule so that she would be good with going to these different places with grandma. I also didn't take Michelle's binki away, nor had her go into panties until grandma was gone so that it would be easier on grandma. 

On Wednesday, we took grandma to playgroup with us and that was at a pumpkin patch that week and also showed her how we do preschool with Michelle on the 3rd floor. Thursday we took grandma to storytime at the library and had her take Matthew to archery and watch how they do archery. It is really interesting actually. Very structured. 

Friday morning we scheduled a trolley tour for grandma and Michelle and I to show grandma around Richmond. It was a fun 2 hour tour. I liked the tour guide better than when Tina and Heather and I went on it. Michelle LOVED being on the trolley. Her favorite tv show Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood has a trolley so she got to be like Daniel Tiger. We forgot to take a picture until the trolley was already gone:(

That night, Allison had a swim meet so she was SOOO excited to be able to swim while Grandma watched her. She loves to show people how fast she can be and tends to get personal bests when new people watch her. Grandma enjoyed the swimming atmosphere since she was a swimmer herself but didn't get to do any meets.

Saturday morning we had a scouting for food activity for Matthew, then Allison had to conduct the music at an 8 year old girl's baptism (she was a little nervous since it was her first time) and then that night we had our ward fall festival/trunk-or-treat. I made my traditional homemade root beer. Once all of that was over, THEN I could start thinking about packing to leave at 4:30 the next morning for our cruise. I had a few maps that I made for grandma and a schedule and also a meal plan and tried to make it as "easy" as possible for someone who doesn't know the area, nor the house. 

Fall Concert (October 23, 2018)

Normally the first concert of the year isn't until the end of November or the beginning of December.

However, when your chorus teacher is due the beginning of November you have a shorter concert in October.

It was nice that it wasn't quite so long. Each group only had 1 or 2 songs rather than 3-4 each.

Matthew was in a 7th grade mixed chorus, then he was in a Mens chorus and then he also made Show Choir so he was in that group, so in about half as many groups as there were.

This is the mixed choir

This is the show choir but because their red ties, vests, and dresses didn't come in, in time, they couldn't change.

After his concert I went to the airport to pick up Grandma. It was too bad that she wasn't able to come in early to watch him.

Rock Climbing (Sept/Oct)

I was 100% sure that I had already posted about rock climbing especially the one with Allison but I didn't see it so I either didn't save it, or just didn't do it, I don't know.

The Boy Scouts wanted to go rock climbing so they scheduled it, went to the Y and did rock climbing. Matthew had never done it before so he was excited and anxious but ended up really liking the achievement that he got from it.

 Then a couple weeks late, we went to a Fall Festival community event and Matthew and Allison got to climb a rock wall, which they both enjoyed and both made it to the top.

Post Hurricane Clean-up in North Carolina (October 13-14, 2018)

I am a little surprised I haven't blogged about this yet.

After Hurricane Florence went through the Carolinas, our ward got asked on like a Wednesday how many YM and how many men would be able to go down sometime for some amount of time to do some work some place. Literally, that is what it was like. There was so little information but people were willing to go into the unknown.

However, they called that one off and then actually assigned our stake a weekend planned a week or two in advance and said that it didn't just have to be YM and Men, but it could also be women and YW ages 12+.  We were told we were going to have to camp and be self-sufficient for the whole time we were down there. Now that I could go, I was excited for it. Matthew needed 2 more nights (out of 20) of camping to get his camping merit badge, but he also needed to cook some meals for the troop. At a troop committee meeting I attended the Scoutmaster said that if the boys cooked the food for their family, that would count as the troop, so I was SOOO excited about that. Relying on the troop to get things done really holds things up a lot. 

Matthew planned out the meals and helped pick them up. I went and bought a camp stove so that he could do this but also so we could have one in our Emergency stuff. 

We packed up all of our yard tools and other tools as well as all of our camping and cooking gear and headed 4+ hours southeast to where we were to report. We arrived Friday night and set up camp. Matthew prepped a foil dinner for us by cutting the veggies up before we left and then on the way down, put it all in a tin foil dinner for each of us. When we got there, we found out that the small propane tanks I had did not fit on the oven I had, so we had to hop back in the stove, found a Walmart and just get whatever they had so Matthew could make the meals on a camping stove. 

We were hoping someone would actually have a fire there, but since they didn't we cooked the tin foil dinners inside a pot on the camp stove. A scout is resourceful, so we made do with what we had. It actually turned out to be REALLY good. Matthew put just the right amount of spices on the meat and carrots and potatoes were delicious as well. We both wished that we had more.

Saturday morning we went into the church building that we were staying outside of and the gym looked like a mini Home Depot. I wish so much that I took a picture of it. There were rows and rows of wheel barrows like this with supplies inside of them. They also had big black sleds that we put all the debris that needed to be carried out of the houses. It was SOO well organized. This picture is just one I found online, I wasn't quick enough to think about taking a picture. This picture looks a little bit like chaos, but the command center where we were was very organized. 

Saturday, Matthew made us delicious blueberry pancakes and fruit kabobs.

It was REALLY awesome to get a "yellow angels" shirt that we had heard people talk about. Matthew was SO excited to get one and we couldn't believe we actually got to wear one and help like this.

We were assigned to teams about 10-13 kids & adults per team. We had about half & half kids/adults.

There were 4 teams from our ward there.

We got into our teams, got our equipment for the jobs we were doing that day and then away we went.

We went to one house and the homeowner wasn't there but told us where the key was to get in. She was on her way there. We walked inside and the first thing we saw was a big THANK U LDS on the living room wall. It felt nice. On all the walls it said what needed to be done, like wall gone, carpet gone, ceiling gone, wall stay, etc. It was almost a complete demo of their house. The young ones LOVED destroying the walls and ceilings and everything. We had to pull 75% of the walls and ceilings down as well as pulling ALL of that insulation out. They originally had spray foam so it was little pieces EVERYWHERE!!

There was A LOT of demo and then we also had some yard work in the back to do also. The couple did come and help for a couple hours doing the demo.

We took everything out to the curb and the city came around everyday and picked up piles of garbage.

Here is our crew when we FINALLY got all done with this job. It took us about 5 hours to pull everything down and out to the curb and then sweep it out.

We were pretty tired but we had more to do.

We went to the next house and it was only suppose to be REALLY easy, like EASY. He just had a fence that fell down and it only took 4 of us to move one piece and he had 4 pieces to move, and then he had a fence gate that he needed help with.

I don't like to just sit around especially when I am suppose to be helping. I looked around and saw that their lawn was really tall, like 2 feet tall. I asked if they had a lawn mower and I would mow it for them. The husband showed me the lawn mower and it was a riding lawn mower, they didn't have a push one. I kindly said, oh well, I have never used a riding one before, I won't be able to do it. Apparently I seemed like someone that needed to learn, so he had me get on it and showed me how to do it. I mowed the rest of his back yard while some of the guys were fixing the fence. Once I got done with that, again, not wanting to sit around doing nothing, I jokingly said, come on, what else do you have for us to do. He took me to their Florida room and it had mold everywhere, even orange mold which is really bad. I figured that would be too big of a job for us to do today, but I went and started talking to our team leader, he went and talked to the guy and looked at it while I called command center to see what they wanted us to do. Since we had already mucked out a house earlier that day, we had all of the tools to do it, so they told us to stay there and muck out that Florida room. It was pretty bad mold and the walls were still moist. You could smell the mold. Thankfully we all had masks on. Our team leader is in the Fire Department Academy and he brought a tool for tearing down walls and it was very helpful. This team leader is also a very stereotypical very in shape guy who definitely knows where the weight room is. He was cracking me up because he started just hitting the wall with his bare fists to break into it. His son and Matthew are the same age and they worked really hard at that demo.  Some other kids just stayed in their cars and played on their phone or took naps so I was even more impressed with these two boys. They worked hard. It took us about 3-4 hours to completely gut that big room.

The husband laughed and said, I didn't know that it was the Mormons that were going to come help. This is the 3rd time the Mormons have helped us with something, maybe God is trying to tell me something. Apparently his son went on a mission and even got married in the San Diego Temple and lives in California. They were very grateful for our help.

After that we were ready to go back to the church/command center and rest.

We went back, Matthew cooked our macaroni & cheese and then he made no bake cookies and shared them with those around our camp.

We slept pretty well that night, got up and had a sacrament meeting in our yellow shirts and work clothes. The chapel was packed (not even enough room to fit everyone) and most everyone was wearing yellow shirts and it was weird to see the sacrament getting passed by guys in shorts.  It was only supposed to be a short 30 minutes meeting, but I am not sure the members of the church know what the word short means. It ended up being about 1.5 hours. It was really quite since there wasn't anyone under the age of 11 there. Felt like I was back in the singles ward again. I think they said that there were 150 Young Single Adults from the Washington DC area that drove down to help. That is an extra 2-3+ hours more than we drove! The YSA Stake President was almost to the command center around 2am Saturday morning and he may have been speeding just a bit. The policeman asked him what he was doing here and he told him that 150 members of his congregation were coming down here to help clean-up. The policeman asked why he would do that and the stake president said, because I know if the roles were reversed you guys would come and help us. The policeman thanked the Stake President and asked him to thank his congregation. He did not get a speeding ticket!!

The wards that met in the building could only hold sacrament because the rest of their building was a command center.

Our assignments for that day were all outside. We had a huge yard that needed cleaning out from all the trees that fell so there were chain saws being used and we were clearing out all the branches and taking them to the curb and then the big pieces they were cutting and then we were stacking them and we had to make numerous stacks. We did a few jobs that day some bigger than others clearing out branches and leaves and cleaning up yards. The first day was inside mucking houses out and the second day was yard work. Matthew got like 13 hours of service and then after we were done we still had to go back to camp and put it all away and then start the 4+ hour back. It was a long hard two days but it was so cool that we were able to go help, have those experiences and that Matthew was able to cook so much and get so much scouting stuff taken care of.

Matthew and I wear our 2 yellow shirts each (they gave us a new one the second day as well since we were able to wash our first one) with pride and think of our time as a yellow angel. 

Washington DC Temple under Construction (October 6, 2018)

I had to drive up to Washington DC, at the beginning of October to pick up some things at the LDS bookstore there so I didn't have to pay $90 in shipping so I did. While up there, even though the Washington DC Temple is closed for reconstruction for 2 years, we still stopped at the visitors center.

If you look closely at the Temple, you can see scaffolding on it. It was weird to see the Temple getting worked on. There were also all kinds of construction trucks in the parking lot and big rock piles.

On the side of the Temple, there is stainglass all the way up. The guy in the visitor's center said that there were 90,000 little pieces of stain glass and all of it originally came from Chicago, so they are taking each piece down and shipping it to Chicago to have it cleaned. Seems crazy to me, and maybe even a waste of money, but I am sure they are doing what they are suppose to.

Michelle liked looking at the Cristus inside the visitors center and it was cool to see the model of the Temple and see all the floors at once.


I had to pick up these pictures to go around the mat for this Living Christ. It was the Super Saturday craft that I was in charge of.

Allison's 10 year Measurements

Allison's 10 year check-up was at the beginning of October 3rd.

She has 20/20 vision in both eyes so that is good.

Weight: 85lbs (75th %)

Height 56.25in (73rd%)

Blood Pressure: 102/60