Saturday-Day One-Cruise Vacation

Saturday began with us just finishing up our packing and making sure the house was ready for us to be gone. (This was supposed to include turning off the Hot Water Heater…but when we returned home we found out this must not have been done!) We took Little Monkey to GrandMom’s House (Big Monkey’s Mom) and went over last minute stuff with his diet and all the stuff we had brought over. We also got to see our dog Amos again before we left. I’m sure he did not miss us all that much though!

GrandMom took us to the airport. We jumped out at the curb, told Little Monkey bye and got our stuff. I tried to make the good bye with Little Monkey very quick because I was afraid that I’d get sad about leaving him otherwise. I don’t think he really knew what was happening yet. We ended up being quite early so we decided after we got checked in that we’d eat. We went to the Chili’s in the center of the airport and had some lunch/dinner. We took our time eating and just tried to relax and not worry about Little Monkey being left.

After dinner we headed to find out gate and wait. We found our gate and got settled in and did some people watching. We saw the flight at the gate next to us was a direct flight to Los Angeles (Ours was Orlando to Atlanta to Los Angeles.) so we tried to get on that flight. The direct flight would have gotten us into LA about four hours earlier. We were told that it was actually overbooked so we’d be better off just staying on our current flights. They even ended up asking if anyone wanted to be bumped off the flight (For a hotel stay and free round-trip ticket) to allow some other people to get one. One kid jumped up right away and took that option. The next flight out available for him would be the next morning!

So we stuck with our original flights and actually left Orlando a few minutes early. We were going to have an empty seat in our row (Hooray!) but this lady was trying to get people to move around so she could be closer to her kids (who were like 10 and 16 probably). They finally got everyone moved so that the kids were in front of us and she was in our row. The girl (16ish) had a head cold, so much of the flight we had to listen to her mom continually telling her to swallow, drink water and push on pressure points on her ears. It was VERY annoying. It was a long two and a half hour flight. Thank goodness for Ipods. We arrived in Washington, D.C. a few minutes early and headed straight to our next gate.

There were not very many options for food between the two gates, so we ended up getting some Starbucks and got on the flight. It was a VERY full flight and was not easy to sleep at all (although that could have more to do with the Starbucks now that I think about it). A lady came on the flight with her baby in a backpack and ducked to fit under the overhead compartments but apparently forgot that she had a baby on her back. The baby got to feel the lights and call buttons in his head-poor kid. So he cried for a little bit but was then quiet the rest of the flight. I played some games on my Ipod (Did you know Ipods came preprogrammed with some games?) We had some free pretzels and soda.

We arrived in LA right on time and went to wait for our luggage. There were three arriving flights worth of luggage on the same carousel. It was pretty hectic. Most people have black luggage and would pick up four or fives bags before finding the one that actually belonged to them! The first bag we found was the hang up clothes bag that Pops loaned us. It happens to be black but had a BRIGHT orange tag on it. We found the other two soon after and headed outside to find the shuttle for our hotel. We only had to wait a few minutes. We got to the LA Marriott around 1:15am (LA time…4:15am our time!) and checked in. The hotel is supposed to be all non-smoking rooms but when we got to our room it had a strong smell of smoke. It was quite bothersome/mostly annoying, so Big Monkey called down to the desk asking for another room. They claimed to be sold out, but Big Monkey persisted. They ended up giving us a suite for the same price. Finally we settled in to go to sleep.

Vegas Vacation-Day Seven-Tuesday

The final day of our trip was mostly just getting back to Orlando. We woke up at 7:15am, showered and left the hotel. I had a hangover for sure and would have liked to just throw up. I’m sure I would have felt better right away but this did not happen. We went and filled the car with the rest of the gas it needed and dropped it off at the car rental place. We took a free shuttle to the airport and checked our bags. We went through security and got pulled out because we had forgotten to pull Little Monkey’s liquid medicines out of his backpack. We had to go to a separate table where the TSA lady pulled virtually everything out of his backpack. She let us through with the medicine and said that since we had Little Monkey with us, she would allow us to take the single serving sized applesauce as well. I hadn’t even thought that might be an issue!

We caught up to Uncle K, Aunt S and Aunt K who were already there having some breakfast. Big Monkey ordered some breakfast also and I got a muffin and water from Starbucks. I still wasn’t feeling good and just wanted to be sick. We finished eating and went to wait for our flight at the gate. Everyone else boarding the plane, while Little Monkey and I waited for Final Boarding. As soon as we walked to our seats, he told me that he pooped. Great…well you’re going to have to wait a little bit for us to fix that. The flight was overbooked and they kept coming around looking for empty seats. At the time, Little Monkey had been wandering around (hello he’s two) and they gave Big Monkey a big fit about getting him in his seat so they don’t give his seat away. We got him to sit down mostly and finally they decided we were ready to go. We took off only about five minutes late.

The take off was very rough. I already didn’t feel good and this surely wasn’t helping. It smoothed out a little bit but that didn’t last too long. We are all pretty sure that the pilot was on his first flight and reading the instruction manual as he went. This was the worst flight I had ever been on. Little Monkey ended up falling asleep sitting up in his seat. When we finally got in to Atlanta, the descent and landing was horrible too. Finally, I actually did throw up and felt SO much better. (I know you wanted to hear those details!) I did actually have a large ziplock bag, so there was no real mess, but I did feel bad for Aunt S who was sitting next to me. She didn’t seem to mind too much.

We got off that plane and almost right onto the next one to get home to Orlando. This flight was much quicker and MUCH smoother than the last. We found our luggage and were on our way. We got our car from the parking place and headed home.

Overall the entire week long trip went better than most of us had expected. We had a good time and got to see some new parts of the country. Thanks to Grandpa for taking everyone on the trip.

Glad To Be Out Of LA

After seeing this news story, I am glad that we are home! When we first got to our hotel I was reading the hotel book and it gave information for earthquake safety tips. I was thinking that this is NOT what I want to happen while we’re here. I hadn’t even thought about it being a possibility!

Computer Saga Continues

I got an email from HP saying that they were sending me the part I needed. Great I thought. Until I got it today and see that they sent me some external card reader that only reads SD cards. I already have a card reader in my computer that does this. I am missing a different part and it is NOT an external part. Looks like I’ll be calling them again to try and figure out what the part really is and what they did with it. I mean, they took it out of my computer and never put it back…so it should be sitting around somewhere. This is just crazy.

We Are Home!

We finally made it home this morning around 7am. It was good to be gone but also good to be back. Sorry for the short post….but we are trying to get switched back over to eastern time, so I’m going to try and get to bed. Hopefully tomorrow I can get to work on writing some blogs about what really happened on our trip.

The End Is Upon Us

 

Today our ship will arrive back in Los Angeles. Sadly our vacation will be over but I’m sure we have enjoyed it. We have been discussing taking an excursion in Los Angeles because we have a red-eye flight that leaves at 10pm. If we do not take an excursion, we will be going to the airport and try and get on the 2pm flight as stand-by passengers.

Another Day On The Ocean

This is the last day out to sea, but our second day in a row staying on the ship. Hopefully there will be lots to do or maybe we’ll be tired and we can just sleep. I’m sure there will be some casino playing as well. Hopefully this has been a great trip.

Today is our 5th anniversary. Seems like its been longer and shorter than that at the same time.

Floating…on the big blue sea

Today is a full day at sea. Hopefully there will be lots of sun for getting a tan. I’m sure we’ll be eating lots of food. Maybe there will even be a fun midnight buffet, like the one you see here.

Puerto Vallarta

Today we will be spending 12 hours in Puerto Vallarta. Once again, no real plans but we will get off the ship and look around. Possibly shopping too.

Mazatlan

Today we will arrive at Mazatlan at 6:15am. We have an “excursion” planned. We are going to a private beach for all you can eat, all you can drink, enjoy the beach all day long. This was Big Monkey’s choosing…we’ll see how it goes! Maybe I’ll look like this all day: