Cruise to the Bahamas -- Day 2 at sea

Today was a full day of sailing.  We were pretty lazy most of the morning, and slept in until the very last minute before breakfast ended, then dashed out for food.  After breakfast, we went to a shopping seminar in one of the lounges.  At these talks, they tell you about which stores in a particular port can be trusted, which offer special deals, how to make the most of your shopping trip, and much more.  The room where this seminar was held was called the Butterfly Lounge.  In the back of the lounge, there was a wall of glass cases and in each case was a mounted butterfly.  I knew Kenzie would be bored with the talk, so I brought my camera along and turned her loose taking photos of the butterflies.  Here are a few good ones; she took over 90 photos! Click on the picture if you want to see a larger version.

 

After the talk, we had a quick lunch and went back to the room for some gazing at the ocean.....

.....and goofing off in the room!

Then Nelson and Kenzie headed off to the pool and the waterslide.  Here's the main pool on the ship:

But that's not where I found them -- they were goofing off up on top of the ship in the kiddie pool!  Why??  I don't know.....

Then off they went to the waterslide!  Here they are before going down the slide:

 

Then downstairs to the pool for more fun!

 

While they played around, I walked around the deck and took shots of the ship and the scenery.

 

That evening was the first formal dinner. Here's Mackenzie dolled up for the occasion:

Nelson was having a good time!

And apparently I was, too!!

 

This is a lousy photo, but it's a  view of the dining room from where I was seated.  The circle of lights on the ceiling is where you can look up to see the 2nd floor of dining room seating.

 

Standing in the lobby/atrium of the ship, looking up about 7 floors.  Glass elevators are on the right, outlined by the blue lights.

Another view of the elevators (taken at night, pretty dark pictures!)

The bar in the lobby, and one of our favorite performers on the cruise was sitting on the small stage above the bar that evening.  (Very hard to see again!)

Then back to the room, where we discovered our new towel critter, complete with Nelson's sunglasses!

And then, off to bed. Tomorrow, Port Canaveral, Florida.

~~~~

Changes, chaos, craziness.....

This last week (two weeks before the wedding) has been nothing short of chaos.  We had all sorts of plans for things to get done, and then found out Monday that Nelson would be leaving Wednesday for a three day business trip to New Jersey.  Sigh..... not a great way to start the week!

Because Morgan and Solomon's insurance situation after the wedding is still a bit unknown, we decided it would be a good idea to just hurry up and get a good dental cleaning, get three months' worth of any prescriptions filled, maybe an eye exam -- just get all the bases covered.  On Monday, I took her to the dentist.  Now, Morgan is the kind of kid who's always been pretty meticulous about her teeth.  She brushes, she flosses, she drinks more water than probably the rest of the family put together, and she very much limits soda, coffee and tea intake, so her teeth are usually better than anybody else's.  She hasn't had a cavity in YEARS -- until this visit...... sigh....... there were THREE of them!!  How?  We don't know -- very strange to us -- but there they were.  So we made an appointment on Wednesday to come back and get all three fillings done at once.  By Wednesday night, she was hurting; by Thursday AM, she was in agony.  Yikes -- please don't tell me she's going to need a root canal!!  So we made ANOTHER appointment for Friday AM, and went in to the dentist with fear and trepidation.  Thankfully, THANKFULLY, it appears that the filling on the bottom tooth was just too high and when she would bite down, it would cause extra pressure.  The dentist was able to grind off a portion of the filling, and thus far, it seems like the pain is gone!  YAY!!

I forgot to mention, though, that on the way to the dentist on Friday, I was sitting at a stop light in front of a police car.  As I pulled forward, on came the police woman's lights to pull me over!!  Huh??  What did I do?  I certainly wasn't speeding -- I was stopped at the light!!  Quick mental check -- I know the license plate is current; maybe somebody stole them overnight?  What else could it be?  After doing the mandatory "License and registration, please, ma'am", she says "Do you know that your rear brake light is burned out?"  Uh, no -- how would I know that unless somebody TOLD me??  Thankfully, she only wrote a warning, then sent us on our merry way to the dentist.  We had to call them and tell them we'd be a few minutes late since I'd been pulled over -- I got a fair amount of good-natured teasing about that at the dentist's office!

Additionally, one of the prescriptions we tried to fill was rejected.  Turns out it's been almost a year since Morgan had visited the allergist, so they wouldn't refill it without an office visit.  That ended up being Thursday's errand.  That was an easy in-and-out visit, which was good, because I don't think either she or I could've stood one more complication this week!!

I was able to find a kennel to board the dogs for the days surrounding the wedding.  There will just be too many people and too much chaos to have the underfoot for those days -- not to mention that we really don't want to deal with dog hair and dog drool on wedding dresses!!

The one thing I HAVEN'T been able to come up with is a full-sized passenger van.  I was really hoping to rent one, since we'll have so many extra people to be moving around next week.  But it appears they are all rented out.  Hertz, Alamo, Enterprise, Avis, Thrifty, Budget -- you name it, I called it -- and there are just none available!!  Maybe we'll rent a mini-van instead??

The guy who's been working on our wood floors came out this week to finish the installation of the trim and the last three stair treads.  He needed to complete the trim around the floor edges as well.  He got the trim done; unfortunately, the stair treads we needed were not available for him to pick up -- so we've still got one set of stairs only halfway done!!  But the flight of stairs that goes from the foyer up to the first floor look great.  Nelson was able to stain those this week and put the first coat of polyurethane on them.  It makes me feel good to know that I don't have to be so worried now about those steps getting wet or stained; they're at least partially protected now.  After the wedding's over, we'll try to get a few more coats on there, but for now, it's good enough.

And the bachelorette party -- which is all the girls getting together for food, talk and "chick-flicks" somehow mysteriously ended up being held in MY HOUSE today -- and I didn't find out about this until YESTERDAY???  Uh, seriously, ladies??  You think I don't have enough to do already??  OK..... what's a bit more chaos when you're already completely upside-down???

Bryanna flies in from Texas tonight.  Originally, she told me she'd be in around 8:30 or so; yesterday she realized her flight actually arrives around 4:45 -- and the party starts here around 3:30.......  It's gonna be interesting -- how many places can I be at once??

This is going to be a long, long week!!!!

~~~~