Carinval Glory - NYC to New England... A Memoir

[Delta Hotel]

I order and receive the shrimp sticks, but I don’t like the sweet and sour sauce. So I just eat some of the rice and all of the shrimp. The rice seems too dry, like it has been sitting too long. The shrimp are decent, but nothing to write home about… or even mention on Cruise Critic.

 

Edited July 21, 2011 by Delta Hotel

[pe4all]

I love the mozzarella triangles they serve in the dining room. That and the cheesy mushroom appetizer are my favorites. You haven't gotten to the bitter n blanc yet - waiting to hear on that! Delta, you are a master of words and pictures. You remind me very much of my dh and our relationship. He is also a wonderful father to our 2 dd's, and a great husband, as the loving banter between you and Mrs. Shaky Beef proves.

[rnvattes]

 

You were expecting me to have a picture of the little dressing bowl, weren’t you? Well, I don’t. And I’m not going to apologize for it.

 

:p LOVE IT! :p

[Irishvisions]

I can't thank you enough for the hysterical memoir! We're taking our first voyage to New England and Canada in September and your memoir has made me look forward to the journey even more. Please continue...

[mia10010]

I am loving every minute of your "memoir". I hope you start a blog!

I have a quick question. Did your cruise stop at Halifax before St. John? I am sailing on the Glory next week and we are supposed to be going to Saint John before Halifax. I was just wondering if this is a recent change??

[ShakyBeef]

I love the mozzarella triangles they serve in the dining room. That and the cheesy mushroom appetizer are my favorites. You haven't gotten to the bitter n blanc yet - waiting to hear on that! Delta, you are a master of words and pictures. You remind me very much of my dh and our relationship. He is also a wonderful father to our 2 dd's, and a great husband, as the loving banter between you and Mrs. Shaky Beef proves.

 

 

You hear that, DH? That's what it is. Next time your sister and brother say our "bickering" is bothering them, tell them it's just loving banter. That oughta shut 'em up.:cool::p

 

Seriously, though... Thanks for all the kind words, pe4all, and all the others that have said such nice things about us here. I didn't realize when he started posting this to what degree our family would be put out there on display. If I had thought about it too much, I would have been nervous about it and might have asked him not to post it and just continue writing it for us, as was his original plan. I am surprised, humbled, and touched by all the positive feedback; and I know he is too. Thank you all.:)

[ShakyBeef]

I am loving every minute of your "memoir". I hope you start a blog!

I have a quick question. Did your cruise stop at Halifax before St. John? I am sailing on the Glory next week and we are supposed to be going to Saint John before Halifax. I was just wondering if this is a recent change??

 

 

Hi,

 

I'll answer for him, because he's at work and may not be checking in for awhile. Yes, our first port of call was Halifax, on June 20th. We arrived in Saint John around 9:00AM on June 21st. They may be doing this in the reverse order for your cruise, I don't know. Happy cruising! I wish we were going again.:)

 

Edited to ask:

 

Is this your cruise date (July 30th)? If so, according to Carnival.com you are coorect, you'll be hitting Saint John first.:)

 

Day Port Arrive Depart

Saturday, Jul 30 New York, NY 5:00pm

Sunday, Jul 31 Fun Day at Sea

Monday, Aug 01 Saint John, NB, Canada 8:00am 4:00pm

Tuesday, Aug 02 Halifax, NS, Canada 9:00am 6:00pm

Wednesday, Aug 03 Fun Day at Sea

Thursday, Aug 04 New York, NY 8:00am

Edited July 21, 2011 by ShakyBeef
added itinerary

[pe4all]

You hear that, DH? That's what it is. Next time your sister and brother say our "bickering" is bothering them, tell them it's just loving banter. That oughta shut 'em up.:cool::p

Yes, it should. My girls know that if we didn't "chepper" each other (a yiddish word that mean to nudge, or bother in a loving way) something would be wrong. An outsider would think we bicker - but it is definitely not. It is more like a comedy routine once we get going!:D

[mia10010]

Hi,

 

I'll answer for him, because he's at work and may not be checking in for awhile. Yes, our first port of call was Halifax, on June 20th. We arrived in Saint John around 9:00AM on June 21st. They may be doing this in the reverse order for your cruise, I don't know. Happy cruising! I wish we were going again.:)

 

 

Thanks. For a minute I thought he was getting tired of writing his memoir and he decided to skip a port to shorten his review. That would be too disappointing to all us readers!!

[Delta Hotel]

On to the entrée! My Indian food comes out first. I honestly don’t even remember what my regular-menu main dish was this evening, and I don’t have a photo of it either.

 

My Indian dish comes out on two plates, again. Remembering last night, I prepared for this by clearing extra space on the table after my appetizers. This evening, I had a half glass of Pinot Noir with Wifey. Wifey is the wine drinker between us. Her favorite type (she calls it a varietal) is Pinot Noir, by far. If there’s nothing else around, she’ll drink a decent Cabernet Sauvignon or some other red, but Pinot Noirs are her favorite. I frankly can’t tell the difference. Oh, she also really enjoys a good Zinfandel (not white), but those are harder to come by, it seems. I normally have a beer with dinner, but decided that tonight would be a “wine night”… but just for dinner. I’ll switch back to beer after dinner.

 

My Indian dish tonight was another three bowls of wet stuff, and one plate of dry stuff. It’s only my second night of Indian food, but I’m noticing a pattern already. I realize that you can’t have a “pattern” of only two things, but it’s possible to infer a pattern with two items. I mentally note my “three wet bowls and a dry plate” theory, and prepare myself to be right or wrong at some later date.

 

The three bowls are very similar to the previous night’s dish, but all distinctly different. This night’s dish has no roasted peppers, which is mildly disappointing. The orange bowl at the bottom of the picture is another curry dish with peas and scallions. I don’t know what the solid chunks in it are. This orange stuff was “medium spicy”.

 

The red bowl was mostly mushrooms, squash-like vegetables, onions, tomatoes, and a few other things, in an oily kind of almost sweet sauce. The bowl in the back with the brown and green was more mashed bean soup.

 

 

The dry plate is similar to last night’s plate as well, but noticeably different. The rice is a long-grain white with a little bit of a toasty flavor. The large flat chip is thicker tonight, and crunchy like a crisp taco shell, rather than the thin shatter chip from last night. The large chip tastes a lot like a cross between a tortilla chip and one of those half-inch rice-cake things that you buy in stacks.

 

 

Dinner this evening isn’t terribly memorable. It’s also apparently not a good night for picture-taking, either. Since implementing my various photo-taking-at-dinner rules (specifically the one about not taking pictures of dishes that I already have pictures of), I take a lot less photos during dinner, and therefore can barely remember anything about this evening. Disappointing, I know.

 

My camera isn’t just for taking pictures; I’ve learned to use it as an extension of my memory. Some of the photos that I take are for the sake of the photo. Many of my pictures are intended to be small, self-contained, isolated works of art. I don’t take these photos to share with others, but rather they live on my computer at home, never to be seen by anyone other than me. Most of my photos aren’t even seen by Wifey or my girls.

 

I used to share my photos with them, but it became impractical when I started taking SOOOO many pictures. My camera has become an extension of my memory, and an extension of my hand. Each morning as I prepare to go to work, before I walk out the door, I go through my mental checklist of critical items. These are the items that I just shouldn’t go through the day without. I stand in front of the door, and chant to myself, “Keys, wallet, phone, computer, camera…” If I leave the house on any given day without one of these items, I’m going to regret it.

 

Despite my efforts to keep a sharp memory and exercise my mental-archive muscles, I’m constantly reminded that my memory is faulty, lacking, and often wrong. I tell Wifey that I already know it, and she can stop reminding me, but it seems that she forgets, too.

 

My photo-memory has fallen through the cracks this evening. For some reason, I have very few pictures to help me remember what dinner was like this evening. Well, it sucks to get old!

 

Anyhow, enough of my little memory-pity-party! Back to dinner. After entrees, Wifey orders her trusty Warm Chocolate Melting Cake and I order my standard cappuccino. Both daughters get sherbet this evening.

 

Wifey gets the Warm Chocolate Melting Cake for the warm cake and the ice cream, but not for the chunk of chocolate that’s served with it. Each one of these cakes comes with a shard of chocolate stuck into the vanilla ice cream. I like to steal this chocolate shard from her ice cream and melt it into my cappuccino along with my two mini-bricks of natural sugar.

 

 

 

After desserts, we leave the MDR without anything notable happening.

[nbsjcruiser]

What a great review. The way you are telling it I almost feel like I am right there with you. You seem like such a great family. It would be a blast to be on a cruise with you. I am from Atlantic Canada and it is great to hear you enjoyed your time here.

[ShakyBeef]

What a great review. The way you are telling it I almost feel like I am right there with you. You seem like such a great family. It would be a blast to be on a cruise with you. I am from Atlantic Canada and it is great to hear you enjoyed your time here.

 

Thank you.:)

 

Yes, we did enjoy it. We didn't do much of the touristy stuff in Saint John (which DH will get to covering, eventually:rolleyes:). A few yaers ago, we took a 2-week land-based trip with my parents from in their motorhome form Maryland, up through New England, and over to New Brunswick.

 

We saw a lot on that trip and LOVED your part of the country. It's beautiful and charming. The amazing tides of the Bay of Fundy are hard to believe, even when you see it. We did the reversing falls, kayaking in the Bay of Fundy, the caves, and spent much time collecting those beautiful rocks from the beach of the campground at which we stayed (I believe it was in St. Martins).

 

When we asked the campground owners if it was alright for us to take some of the rocks home with us, they told us that the locals always say, "Let the tourists take all the rocks, maybe there's sand under there!":p

 

Anyway, although we didn't see much of it on this short cruise, we know you've got beautiful country up there. I hope to go back many more times.

 

As a long-time fan of Anne of Green Gables, I also really want to see Prince Edward Island.:o I'm hoping to do a much longer Eastern Canada cruise that includes P.E.I. with N.S., N.B., and other ports in the next few years.

 

If you really want to cruise with us, come on down to Baltimore and hop on the Carnival Pride to the Bahamas, January 29th!:D Unfortunately, I can't convince DH to take off of work anymore before then for a sooner cruise.:(

 

 

BTW - Sorry about the delay in installments from DH, folks. He's trying to catch up at work for all that time he took off writing the first part of this cyber-tome. He'll be posting some more tonight.

[rnvattes]

 

As a long-time fan of Anne of Green Gables, I also really want to see Prince Edward Island.:o I'm hoping to do a much longer Eastern Canada cruise that includes P.E.I. with N.S., N.B., and other ports in the next few years.

 

DH (mine, not yours ;) ) took our first vacation together to PEI. Man, is it ever GORGEOUS up there?! We stayed in Charlottetown, the capital, which is just such a quaint little walkable seaside town. Everyone there is SO friendly, and back then it was very affordable (either our dollar was stronger, or theirs weaker, or both -- but it was almost 2 canadian dollars to every 1 US dollar -- does that make sense?)

 

Anyway, definitely DEFINITELY DEFINITELY go there someday. We saw some really neat things on that beautiful little island (including but not limited to a very well done production of Anne of Green Gables). PEI is definitely a "can't get there from here" kind of place (it took us almost 24 hours altogether and we live in NH) but it's worth the trip!

[dogbert's mom]

Enjoying your memoir, but I'm also very envious. As a mother of five son, I'm blown away by how your daughters play with each other. I'm sure my boys would have beat each other silly while your girls played with their Barbies.

[silverfoxcruiser]

That means that the remaining 4200 views [quick math in head] among the 6 of you, would be 700 views each. That's kind of insane, don't you think? I love reading too (not really), but 700 views per person? (quote)

I've been reading, and enjoying immensely, and I promise that I haven't perused more than 642 times! Please, keep writing.:rolleyes::D Silver

[hockeyluver]

hmmm I wonder if there will be anything to read tomorrow while i have my morning coffee....

[ShakyBeef]

Sorry, folks. He's typing it at this moment. He just got home from work about 15 minutes ago.:eek: (Still playing catch-up.)

 

But now I'm cracking the whip and his fingers are flying across the keys like only a professional computer geek's fingers can. You'll have something to read here with your AM coffee. I'm not guaranteeing of what quality it'll be, though. I mean, he's been all over God's Green Delmarva all day today, doing whatever it is he does when he tells me he's "going to work".:rolleyes: I don't know how much literary quality he's got in him tonight.

 

Consider yourselves warned.

[rnvattes]

Sorry, folks. He's typing it at this moment. He just got home from work about 15 minutes ago.:eek: (Still playing catch-up.)

 

But now I'm cracking the whip and his fingers are flying across the keys like only a professional computer geek's fingers can. You'll have something to read here with your AM coffee. I'm not guaranteeing of what quality it'll be, though. I mean, he's been all over God's Green Delmarva all day today, doing whatever it is he does when he tells me he's "going to work".:rolleyes: I don't know how much literary quality he's got in him tonight.

 

Consider yourselves warned.

 

 

Sigh.

 

Don't you know it's the editor's job to make sure it is quality work the grunt is putting out?

 

Hoping something is posted soon to read... I'm working all night, and it's ... well I've got some time (we don't use the "q" word around here, or it suddenly isn't anymore)

[Delta Hotel]

As we leave the dining room and approach the atrium lobby, “Yoo-Hoo” (the ship’s photographer) notices us and calls to us with his signature sing-song yodel. When we make eye contact, he smiles and waves us over to his impromptu photo-booth. He’s set up the “ship’s wheel” prop at the end of a low-traffic hallway that dead-ends at a railing, which overlooks the atrium lobby. Still, we have no intention of buying these photos, but we let the girls pose for the pictures, and we let Yoo-Hoo meet his photo quota.

 

While he’s instructing the girls on where to stand, where to place their hands, and how to tilt their little heads, Wifey watches them to make sure they’re following directions. I, however, am looking around for a photo opportunity. I’ve stolen a shot or two while standing behind a ship’s photographer, but in this case, it’d be too obvious, and I didn’t particularly like the setup of the photo. Ironically, as my daughters are modeling for a photographer, I’m looking around for a good composition.

 

Yoo-Hoo asks that we join the kids in one of the pictures, so Wifey sets her wine glass from dinner on a nearby seat, which seems to be there just for the purpose of setting things on (other than your butt). We join the kids for a picture or two, then I go back to looking for something to take a picture of. I kneel down, take a shot of the wine glass, and look at the picture on the camera. The lighting is really awkward here, with bright spot lights all around, yet the subtle glow of psychedelic ceiling tiles above us. My eyes see one thing, and the camera keeps showing me another. Yoo-Hoo continues to take pictures and moves the girls around to different standing positions around the wheel, so I have time to play with my settings. I never get it quite right, but this is the best example I have.

 

 

Once we’re done with the pictures, and Yoo-Hoo bids us farewell with his signature (and a little creepy) “Yoooooo-hooooooo….”, we head down to the atrium lobby by way of the half-spiral staircase nearby. The musician is playing some up-beat song that I can’t remember, and the 5-year-old begins to bop along with the song as we pass by the dance floor. I stop and let her dance along, and I dance with her to help her feel more comfortable, like not everyone is just watching her. People weren’t really watching either of us, because… well, they have better things to do than watch me try to dance.

 

I take my daughter’s two little hands and begin to dance with her as she hops and skips around on the floor beside me. If you’ve never tried, it’s hard to actually dance with a little kid. It usually ends up just being me swinging my arms from side to side as they have little joyful spasms with their feet and hands. After 30 seconds or so, the song ends, and we stop dancing.

 

Daughter #1 requests that we all go somewhere that they can run and play, like the running track. It’s still a little light out, and not miserably cold, so I figured… sure, why not. We need to go change first… since we’re in our dinner clothes.

 

We trot back home and find that we have a new friend on our bed for the evening. This evening’s towel animal is an elephant with his legs crossed. The steward found Wifey’s sunglasses on the desk, and set them on the elephant for that nighttime ****-daddy elephant look.

 

 

We quickly change out of our evening clothes into jeans and comfortable shoes for running and playing. The girls haven’t had much of a chance to run and play these past few days, so this seemed like a good idea… until we got to the jogging deck.

[FlipFlopCruiser]

 

We go through the checkout line at the ship’s door and “bing” our Sail & Sign cards. “BING” for me, then I wait on the other side. “BING” for Wifey, “BING” for Daughter #1, and “BING” for Daughter #2. We all head down the gangway. We enter the Port Terminal. Inside the port terminal, there’s a ship’s photographer ready to take your picture with a person in a moose costume. The moose costume is more like Bullwinkle, rather than a real moose. It didn’t look like a real moose at all.

 

I shove the girls over to the moose for the picture, fully knowing that I’m not buying that picture, but I had my camera strapped around my neck, hanging just above belt-level. I place one hand on the camera, flick the ON/OFF button into the ON position, aim the lens at the kids and moose, then snap three quick pictures from just beside the photographer. My camera takes pictures at a rate of 7 photos per second, so 3 pictures is really just half-a-second, so I don’t think anyone noticed.

 

 

 

I got yelled at by Mr. Wooooohooooo here because i took a pic of my 15 yr old son with my own camera. He wanted his pic taken with the moose to use as a profile pic on facebook, but i knew i wasn't buying it just for that, so i took my own. He yelled, hey you...i will take it with this camera!

Anyway, we were on the same cruise and i am loving your review!

[australian_girl]

This might be a really dumb question but I'm going to ask it since I have only been on one cruise:

 

Do the photographers really have a photo quota to make? I shooed them away when I was on the Sensation and I'll feel bad if I could have made someone's job easier by standing still for a few seconds. :confused:

Edited July 23, 2011 by australian_girl

[Delta Hotel]

This might be a really dumb question but I'm going to ask it since I have only been on one cruise:

 

Do the photographers really have a photo quota to make? I shooed them away when I was on the Sensation and I'll feel bad if I could have made someone's job easier by standing still for a few seconds. :confused:

 

The truth is... I don't know. I would guess that they don't have a quota, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. I'll try to remember to ask a photographer on our next cruise. I normally find myself having a conversation on each cruise with a photographer about cameras (since I carry the same camera that some of them use), so I'll try to ask them about quotas.

 

And it's not a dumb question... thanks for asking =)

 

DH

[Delta Hotel]

As soon as we step out onto the outdoor area of Lido with the huge (yet not impressive) movie screen, I notice the wind and the cold. Now, my definition of cold is a bit different than most others, most notably my wife.

 

Ok, I think we have just enough time before I go back to talking about the outdoor movie theater to talk about “cold”. My definition of cold is quite different than many others, I’m told. Some people say that they’d rather shiver than sweat. I would rather sweat than shiver, but with that being said, I don’t really start to “sweat” by most people’s definitions until it’s well into the 90’s. I don’t normally turn on my car’s air conditioner until the outdoor temperature approaches or breaks 100 degrees. Up to about 95, I just open the window, hang my arm out, and I’m fine.

 

Here’s a funny little story about “being hot.” I was driving to a client’s office one summer day about 3-4 years ago. I think it was about 95 degrees, give or take 10 degrees. I was riding with a co-worker in my passenger seat. The ride from our office to the client’s office was about an hour, with mostly highway between the two. I thought it was beautiful day. I was really looking forward to driving for an hour with the sunroof open and no traffic.

 

We get in the car and start down the road. I ask CoWorker if he’s OK with “doing windows” today. He says, “Yeah, sure. It’s a nice day.” The windows are open, my sleeves are rolled up, my arm is out the window, the sunroof is open, and it’s a great day. All is right in my world because I’m loving my day so far, and I’m getting paid to do it. It doesn’t get much better than this. CoWorker and I are talking about work, and he asks me a question which requires that I explain a rather detailed process involving electricity, circuits, and stuff. I begin talking while driving.

 

After about 10-15 minutes of driving and lecturing him about electrical theory and how it applies to our work – I ask him a question like, “Is that what you were looking for?” I wait for a second or two, and I hear no response. I look over to him (for the first time since I started lecturing) and see his face drenched in sweat, his head is flopped back onto the head-rest, and his’ eyes are rolling back in his head. I immediately let off the gas to prepare for a sudden stop and ask him in a louder (but not shouting) voice, “Hey, are you OK?”

 

He barely rolls his head in my general direction, focuses his eyes, and murmurs, “Yeah, I’m OK… just a little warm.”

 

“Hey, are you too hot?”

[mumbles] “No, I’ll be OK…”

[turning on AC and closing windows] “You should have said something, you dork.”

“Yes…Boss...”

 

I am technically his boss, but he only calls me “Boss” when he’s joking. We’re both of approximately the same technical skill level, just from very different backgrounds. I turn on the AC and close all of the windows; CoWorker begins to come back to life after I had almost turned him into a sun-baked pancake. Since that day, he’s learned to ask for AC when riding with me in the summer.

 

Oh, I just realized that I’ve told you about “hot” but not “cold”. OK, I’ll keep the “cold” story relatively short. I don’t like the cold. At all.

 

Now onto the outdoor movie theatre! We walk out onto the Lido deck where the movie theatre is, and we immediately get hit with a blast of cold, hard air. Again, with “cold” being relative, I’ll explain. I believe the temperature was most likely in the low 70’s, or high 60’s. That’s just my best guess, but take that estimate with a chunk of salt – all of those cold temperatures kind of run together for me, so it’s hard for me to tell. All I know is that it was chilly, and extremely windy. The wind gust alone nearly knocked us back into the sliding glass doors.

 

Immediately after the gust of wind, we notice that there’s a giant glowing screen in front of us. We had noticed this before on the ship, but never had we heard it so incredibly loud. The ship is playing one of those music concert shows and the sound was literally shaking the deck; I could feel it in the floor beneath my shoes. Now, I love loud music and movies, but this volume was carefully balanced on the thin line between “absurdly loud” and “WHAT?! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

 

The girls both cover their ears because it’s so loud, and they follow me to the stairs flanking the movie screen. Wifey goes over to the Lido bar to get me another beer, and to get her another drink. Once we get up one deck, the sound isn’t so bad, but our goal is to get up to the jogging track. The wind on Deck 10 is worse than the wind on Deck 9, so we fight our way through the wind to get up to Deck 11, where the jogging track is. The girls go ahead of me with strict instructions to stop at the top of the stairs and wait for me. When they get to the top of the stairs, they begin dancing to the music coming from the Seaside Theatre.

 

 

 

I follow them up the stairs, fighting the brutal wind the entire way. I reach the top and scan around the jogging deck – as I suspected, there’s not a soul up here… or maybe there was a few minutes ago and they blew away. I’ve heard that souls aren’t terribly good at bucking the wind.

 

As soon as I give them “the look”, they begin running around like insects when you’ve lifted their rock. They scurry around on the deck, giggling and screaming with joy. I can hear them screaming, but just barely. The wind on the upper decks is so forceful that almost nothing could be heard more than 20 feet away. The girls run around the track in zig-zag patterns trying to accommodate for the wind. Just to make sure they don’t get hurt, disappear, or bother anyone, I follow them around the jogging track.

 

Following them becomes a bit of a problem in and of itself. As soon as they start running, I follow them so that I can keep an eye on them, but they see me following them, so they start running faster. I try to keep up (which isn’t hard to do since their legs are short). They both think it’s a game now. It’s become the “Run Away From Daddy” game. I hate this game, but mostly just the end part where I get tired and they’re not. The beginning of this game isn’t so bad.

 

At one point as I’m following them around on the track, Daughter #1 discovers the outdoor shower. I’m not entirely sure of the practical implementation of an outdoor shower on the jogging track… but it’s there, near the basketball court stairs. Anyway, the shower stall is a clear tube about 8 feet tall, and about 3 feet in diameter. The shower stall is a “C” shape so that you can walk in the opening.

 

Daughter #1 wants to get out of the wind for a while, so she ducks into the shower and stands in the middle of it looking around. She notices that there’s a metal tube on the back wall with a big metal button on it. It hasn’t occurred to her what this clear glass room is yet, so she looks at me with a big smile and says, “Daddy, MAY I?” I glance up at the shower head and look back down at her. She didn’t seem to notice me looking up, so she’s still waiting for approval.

 

I think to myself, “I wonder how mad Wifey will be if Daughter #1 is a little wet when we come back downstairs?” I look at Daughter #1 and say, “Sure. Go ahead and push it.”

 

She gets a big gleamy look in her eyes, a big toothy smile, and then turns on her heels to face the big button. I prepare to see her be surprised by the water. As if real life had turned into a slow motion movie, I see her turn around, face the button, bring both of her hands up in front of her face and overlapped them as if she were about to give this button CPR. Right as she’s beginning to move toward the button, Daughter #2 sees what’s happening, and begins to run into the shower so she’s not left out of “the fun” that her sister is about to have. Daughter #1 puts all of her weight into pressing this button and successfully presses it in. The water immediately comes out of the shower head and begins to fall – but since the showerhead makes a gurgly water noise as it begins to spray, both girls look up…

 

Daughter #1 quickly sees the water falling and turns her face away, but she’s already standing right next to the shower wall, so she barely catches any of the spray. Daughter #2 is standing right in the center of the spray and gets it right on the top of her head and shoulders. Daughter #2 tightens up her shoulders and her face gets clenched with shock, and she runs further into the shower and stands up against the wall with her sister. Once both of them were out of the spray, they begin to laugh hysterically at the falling water in front of them, and the fact that they find themselves trapped in the shower.

 

The shower continues to spray for about 10-15 seconds as the button slowly depresses, then the girls come out cautiously once the water stops. I’m laughing on the inside, with just a smile on the outside. I tell the girls that we need to go find Mommy, and we begin heading back around to the stairs when Daughter #1 notices that the large glass dome that sticks out of the deck has lights inside of it. She runs over to it and looks in the glass. This is the glass dome that serves as the ceiling of the Emerald Steakhouse restaurant. She calls her little sister over to look and they begin to laugh and giggle at the feeling of spying on someone. They duck down and have just their eyes and foreheads above the ledge and they peek into the restaurant.

 

I’m trying to get their attention, but the wind is so loud that they can’t hear my voice. I get closer and tell them that we need to go. They stand up and start to run toward the stairs. I yell to them to stop before getting to the stairs, and they do.

 

 

 

We head back down the windy stairs, and find Wifey on the Lido deck sitting at a table near the outdoor bar waiting for us.

[Delta Hotel]

hmmm I wonder if there will be anything to read tomorrow while i have my morning coffee....

 

I hope you enjoy these last couple of posts. I've inserted a few subliminal messages for the readers of this memoir. See if you can find them. Please have an extra cup of coffee for me... I don't think I'll be getting up before noon today =)

[pe4all]

It was 102 degrees here yesterday, and I was sitting in the backyard in the sun reading a book. We visit Arizona/Vegas in August. There is no such thing as "too hot.":D