Cruise!!!!!!!!

The family went on a cruise. Nevin, Myrtianne, Warren, Jackie, Mike, Ryan, Brad, Jennifer, Hayden, William, and Alison. Count them. Should be eleven people. We had a great time. We all met up at the Orlando airport and then took a transport to the cruise boat. We sailed on the Freedom of the Seas, Royal Caribbean, which for our first night was the largest cruise ship in the world. Woohoo. It was an enormous ship. I always want to call it a boat, but I am always reminded by someone that it is a ship not a boat. Whatever. As long as it doesn’t pull a titanic move, we’re good to go. Because I’ve seen the lifeboats and I do not want to be in one on the open ocean any time soon. An-y-way, we sailed from Florida to Haiti to Jamaica to the Grand Caymans to Cozymel and back to Florida. It was a great trip with many, many memories. However, in order to consolidate, I plan on doing a top ten list. (I also just love lists! Always have, always will. I cannot resist the joy of checking something off of my to-do list.)

1. My nephews. Okay, so you could all probably write this list for me the way things are starting. They are just awesome. The four of them are so different, it’s amazing. We laughed and played and ate hamburgers and French fries and swam and played mini golf and just had the best time together.



2. The towel animals. I love traveling for a very simple reason…I can leave my wet towel on the floor and someone will magically appear in my absence, pick that wet towel up off of the floor, take it away, and replace it with a fresh, soft, dry one. Take that one step further. On the cruise, the stateroom attendant picks up my dirty towels, makes them disappear, replaces them with new ones, and then leaves a cute towel animal on my bed complete with sunglasses. It’s awesome.


3. The fruit. Each morning I rolled out of bed, pulled on a swimsuit, threw some towels on the floor with glee, kissed my towel animal adieu, and went to the windjammer for breakfast where there were always large bowls of already-cut-and-ready-to-eat fruit. Awesome. Sign me up for Freedom of the Seas Part II.

4. Johnny Rockets. Best onion rings, French fries, hamburger, and apple pie I have ever eaten. I was only pulled out off of my food cloud by my four nephews at the next table over. I intervened once the third drink had been spilled and Mike had his hand in his strawberry milkshake trying to retrieve a dime that had fallen to the bottom. Of course, my intervention resulted in Mike pulling his hand out of the milkshake and reaching for a napkin. He spilt William’s drink all over William during this process and I burst out laughing at William’s pathetic little wet body topped oreo covered faced. He looked at me and said, “That was NOT funny!” and then promptly got in trouble by his parents for speaking to me like that and had to apologize. It WAS funny though.


5. Swimming with stingrays. Warren, Jackie, Mike, Ryan, and I went swimming in the ocean with stingrays. Yes, it was cool and yes, it was really freaky. One slide across my back and I got to hold and kiss a really large stingray. Love at first sight it was not.

6. Mini golf. On the top deck of the ship was a mini golf course. It had about 9 holes and was quite compact and quite delightful. Ryan and I spent part of our afternoon there and just had a blast. I wish you could have seen that little guy swing though. He wound up like Tiger Woods and sent his hard blue flying around that golf course, much to the delight of the other golfers who were trying not to lose brain cells, eyeballs, and consciousness.

7. Books. I got to read four books on my vacation. Skip The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Not worth your time. I was so-so about On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. I loved Sarah’s Key and The Glass Castle. Excellent reads.

8. Sleep. Glorious sleep.

9. I forgot all about work. And bills. And sick patients. And broken families. And snow. And rain.

10. The joy of children. Our transport to and from the airport was a stretch limo. I had actually never ridden in a limo and it was quite fun. My nephews were freaking out they thought it was so cool. We got to watch half of The Incredibles on the way to the boat…err, ship…and half on the way back to the airport. Fun, fun. I don’t think they even noticed that our stretch limo had a trailer attached to the back making us almost classy, but not quite.

All in all, a great trip.