08.09.09

08.09.09

Washington

We slept in today since we had decided last night to go to the LATE service at church!  We had, of course, breakfast in the hotel... then headed off to Mars Hill Church for services.  We enjoyed the service, although it was quite different for us considering the pastor (Mark Drischoll) wasn't actually THERE, but preaching via satellite from somewhere else.  Everything else was live.  Ridiculously organized children's program with Top Security.  I might have been all impressed if it hadn't taken us 45 minutes to retrieve our daughter.  I kind of wanted to say, "No need for such top security, we lost her on the cruise ship so we already suffer through OUR OWN inadequate security and we are fine with it".  No one was listening.  The Seattle People were pretty nice.

Afterwards, we went to the grocery store (Safeway) and got our lunch things for the week... had a picnic in the hotel room, then headed out to Mount Rainier National Park.

It took us longer to get there than we thought as we had to drive on some back roads, but the drive was COMPLETELY beautiful!  Probably should have gone to the early service!  Along the way we saw these deer playing by the road... 

We finally reached our destination and got our Passport Stamp in the National Parks book Laurie got us last summer.  

No, we do NOT feel the need to go to every National Park, like we do with the capitols, but we will try to go them whenever we are "in the area"... seriously?  The ones we have been to have all been SO BEAUTIFUL!  And peaceful.  

This picture is just because she is cute:

... and who doesn't love blowing weeds all over someone else's yard?  Although, I'm sure she COULD get arrested for doing it at a National Park.  Perhaps I should delete that picture...

This is Christine Falls.  We liked this stop... super pretty, AND we have a friend named Christine so it really made me think of her!  

Note the Death Grip on the kids... The drop behind me was SERIOUSLY a long ways down... and of course my Not Scared of Anything Children were hanging over the edge while cars were whizzing by on the road.  

The bridge is where we WERE standing for the previous pictures.  We hiked down to the bottom to get this view... you will be happy to know, I was NOT wearing flip flops this time.

See, anywhere where they HAVE to post this sign is probably not a great place to take 2 very active children.  I'm just saying.  Fortunately, ONE of said children is a RULE FOLLOWER.  Unfortunately, ONE thinks she's a monkey.  Hmmmmm.

This is our view of what I like to call, The Very Elusive Mount Rainier.  Truth be told, people who LIVE in this area RARELY see the mountain.  The weather is usually raining and overcast.  Visibility is usually nil.  We knew this heading in... anyways, while we were looking around (remember the Sheer Cliffs?  The valley below was BREATHTAKING!) I got to thinking about how great it would be to "blow those clouds away"... if only it were that easy.  There were people behind us who had a tripod with camera set up and said they had been there all day "waiting".  I shot a quick prayer up, you know one like, "oh come on!  PAAAHHHHlease!  We came all this way.... would it REALLY be that difficult?!?!??!"  you know, because I'm all patient like that.  Suddenly, the clouds blew away!  (apparently whining works with God, too) and we had a pretty good view of the summit!  

Of course, I yell out, "there it is!! Hey, There's the top" and noticed that the Tripod People were NOT listening to me, so I said again, "There it is!  No One is listening to me!"  and just to make me laugh for a very long time, about 5 minutes later they exclaimed, "Oh my!  You can see the summit!  Get to the camera dear!"  Do you see why I'm so easily entertained?

ANYWAYS, while looking at our Surprise Glimpse of the top, I got thinking about how like God... I mean, thankful that He granted us that glimpse, but how He reveals Himself to us, much like the clouds being blown away for mere minutes... those seemingly "random" things that happen to us.  Where we actually get to see Him orchestrating it...   My sister always says "It's a God Thing".  I have a much better picture in my mind now.  I say it all the time: nothing is Random.  Which made me think of that Chris Tomlin song "How great is our God" because, Really?  How can you NOT think of that when surrounded by THIS?  

The Splendor of a King

Clothed in Majesty

Let all the earth rejoice

Let all the earth rejoice...

Ok, so that was MY mountain-top moment... but a really great one, and I'm so thankful for this visual I have ingrained in my head now.  I needed that.  

Back to the Park:

After taking about 100 pictures of the same thing (remember when I said I took over 3000 pictures on our vacation?!) we moved on to Narada Falls, further up the mountain...

They are waiting for me to hike down to the bottom...

It's a steep hike down and of course, BOTH kids went down on their bums, but they were giggling about it, so I'm not so sure it wasn't on purpose...

It is so hard to capture the real beauty of the things we were able to see... can you see that bridge they were on in the previous picture, near the top...

I will take this time to give the weather update... when we started out it was 65 degrees and no humidity (*sigh*) and the closer we moved UP the mountain, the cooler it got.  Just beautiful weather!  

Carly's great photography... 

We stopped near the summit (well, the highest place you can stop, then you hike up, which we DID NOT do... this time!) and walked around... then headed back down the mountain.  Just as we were passing the ViewPoint where we were able to see the summit earlier, THERE WAS THE MOUNTAIN in plainer view than before, so we stopped for 100 more pictures!  I should say, we BACKED up and pulled over, which I'm sure they really don't want people doing near Sheer Cliffs...

This is a close up of the Nisqually Glacier that is on the top of the mountain. There are several glaciers on the top (that "Snow Capped" Appearance would actually be glaciers) and they are VERY COOL to zoom in on... if you click any of these pictures they SHOULD get bigger so you can see details better...

We spent about 4 hours in the park since we didn't get there until 4pm... we WISH we had gotten there first thing in the morning so we could have stayed longer, it was just so beautiful and peaceful and well, BIG... so if you ever go, take that into consideration!  

On our way heading back into Seattle, we saw this sign...

Which made us laugh, you know until we realized that could be information we might need, considering Mount Rainier is actually a volcano.  Hmmmm.... Not to worry, Ben had figured out our McGregor Family Evacuation Plan by the time we got back to the hotel... It's always good to be prepared...

We stopped at a Chinese Buffet for dinner (just a random pick that turned out to be GREAT!) then got back to our lodgings for a much deserved rest!  

08.08.09

08.08.09

Seattle

Cruise is over:(  We were all pretty sad to be leaving the ship!  Also, our last day with Ryan's parents.  Just sad.  We had to be out of our cabin by 8am, so we headed up for one last "Fancy Breakfast".  Afterwards, we waited in one of the lounges until it was our turn to disembark.  This all went pretty smoothly, considering they had a couple of thousand people to clear off the boat!  Locating our driver AFTERWARDS was the tricky part... eventually he found us in the sea of people.  Might have helped if ANY of the drivers had "marked vehicles" instead of all driving the exact same SUV's and vans... We went back to the Fairfield Inn where we started out the week before.

I had to do about 3 loads of laundry and repack everything for Week Two of our fantastic adventure...  while I was doing this, the kids went swimming and before you feel TOO bad for me, I did jump in the hot tub in between loads.  VERY RELAXING (you know, in case I hadn't been relaxing enough in the last week!)

We headed out to Subway for a late lunch/early dinner... pretty happy to actually be eating HEALTHY food!  Afterwards, we had to say goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa and that was kind of sad... they stayed behind in our hotel room while we took off to see, who else, the RAYS!  Just for the record, WE DID NOT plan our cruise by the fact that the RAYS were going to be in Seattle on the last day.  Really.  We were just pleasantly surprised that our timing was so perfect:)  Ryan and I had seen them in Seattle 2 years ago and were pretty excited for the chance to take Ben and Carly to Safeco Field.  Very nice park!

We headed over to the field and got our tickets, then watched a little bit of batting practice.   We were happy to see Aki warming up with them, even though he wasn't able to actually play yet. 

GREAT WEATHER!  It was about 70 degrees to start out and probably around 62 as it got darker, so REALLY REALLY nice and we LOVED being in the outdoor park, which would be next to impossible in our steamy climate in Tampa!

One of the cool things about this park (other than the retractable roof!) is their Nintendo wireless connection.  The kids brought their DS's and where able to get a free download (only works in the park)... they could look up any MLB player and read their stats, play games, see any scores, watch the current Safeco Field game on a live feed, or a computerized feed... and if they wanted to play their own regular games, they could have the score from the baseball game posted across the top of the screen.  Also, they could order food and have it delivered to our seats (well, we did not let them do this!)  That was pretty fun for them...

Our other FAVORITE thing about this park (and yes, Ryan and I distinctly remembered this from our last visit!) would be the giant bags of kettle corn you can get for $4.  It is so good!  What we DIDN'T remember is how HUGE the bags are, and we got 2, then carried them around with us all week afterwards, eating them up!  It is really tasty!  

During the game, the Mariner's TV crew came up to our area and were trying to tape their fans, and very uncharacteristic of Ryan, he and Ben jumped up and got on the jumbo-tron in their Rays shirts... the camera guy was trying VERY HARD to keep them out of the picture.  Usually when we are in "Someone Else's House" we try to be very low key and quiet (not NEARLY as obnoxious as we are at the trop!)  you know, NO COWBELLS... so this was pretty surprising to me that he was acting like that!  And perhaps a little funny that they were on the Big Screen!

The Rays won, 10-4, which was nice for us!  Afterwards, we went down near the dug out to look for friends (Evan, Carl, Carlos, Jason.... THOSE friends) and Carly got a ball from the "Bat Boy" (it pays to be cute with crazy blue eyes!).

We headed back to our hotel... where Grandma had left the kids a "Goodbye note" that they LOVED and some candy.  After they fell asleep, I was turning the lights out and noticed her note sitting there, and then a note one of them "wrote back" that said, "Thank You" and that made me giggle!  We are so thankful that they were able to spend part of our vacation with us.  It was a really nice time, and something we really, really needed!

We interupt this vacation...

... to bring you an "Real Time" blog post... well, it's really Rochel's post, saving me the trouble of doing it myself, you know, since I have 7 more posts to make.  

In case you want to know what Ben and Carly were up to yesterday.  I told you Carly was accident prone.  I'd say she might have "jinxed" them yesterday, but she gets this trait from Aunt Rochel, who was ALSO in the car!  Ha!  Thankfully (duh) everyone is OK. 

We are off to play with Eli this morning!

08.07.09

08.07.09

Victoria, British Columbia

We slept in a little on our last full day on our cruise... by "a little" I mean, until 8am when Mom called to see what we were doing. We hopped out of bed and met up with them for a fun, fancy breakfast in the dining room. MMmmmm!

Afterwards, we all went to the Culinary Show which was pretty cool and included a very brief tour of the galley. 

We then went on a tour of the backstage area of the Princess Theatre. Provided by the Dance Captain. This was also a Q&A time, so we got some pressing questions answered... like, where do the girls change. And the answer would be "in the same dressing room with the boys". Nice. They are spending a lot of extra time rehearsing right now as they just got a new company on board and are doing new shows.

Next, we had lunch... Pizza because "Pizza" hadn't had enough of it the night before. And, it's really good:) We were quite happy to see our regular dinner waiters working in the pool area and we got EXCELLENT service from them! They were pretty pleased to see us, too... Well, the kids.

Ben and Carly went to KC for the last time afterwards, and Ryan and I and Mom went to see the "Life at Sea" presentation. Another Q&A, this time regarding what it's like to live and work on a cruise ship. Super interesting... 

Points of interest:

~ their friends and family can cruise at a significantly reduced rate if there are empty rooms available.

~ they do a 6 month contract then get time off and can then sign another contract

~ their cabin assignments are based on rank and the officers have suites.

~ they get fired for fraternizing with "guests"

~ they can (and most likely do!) work up to 14 hours a day, 7 days a week with NO days off.

~ the ship is based out of Bermuda... so they don't have to follow US labor laws (but THEY didn't bring that up, we knew that from before...)

~ they will only be required to do that jobs they were hired for, so waiters would never go around making beds when their shift was over, for example.

Afterwards, we did a little packing (no one wanted to pack). We then went to our last dinner in the dining room and got some pictures with our favorite waiters!

We went off the ship in Victoria at around 7:30pm, when we got to the Port. Mom and Dad were smart and had already decided they weren't going to get off the boat... it was REALLY cold and windy.   (this picture is for YOU Sue...)

Unfortunately, the ship was docked about 5 miles from town and we didn't have much time there anyways, so we took a couple of pictures and just got back on board.

We went to our room and I packed a little more and we watched Star Trek on the TV (did I mention this is a REALLY good movie?) and relaxed... Ryan and Ben went up to listen to the RAYS game on the XM radio... 

then Carly and I met up with Mom and Dad for the "Princess Idol" finale... There were 4 singers and they were not that great. But funny, so entertaining anyways.

Off to bed for our last night on our fabulous Rockin' Boat. We are so sad our week is almost over!

08.06.09

08.06.09

Ketchikan

We got into the port at Ketchikan, Alaska at 6am. We were at the International Cafe for croissants and coffee by 7 as we had to be off the boat at 7:20am precisely for our excursion to the Saxman Native Village.

We loved this village! It is the Tlingit (pronounced like "clink-it") Village of Saxman. They were the first official settlers of SouthEast Alaska. We started out watching a video explaining the tribe, then walked on a nature trail. 

Our guide, Wayne, explained many of the native trees and how the natives used them for their basic needs, even how they made baby diapers. It was really interesting. 

We were able to go into the Clan House for a dance demonstration. There is traditionally only one SHORT narrow doorway into the Clan House, so anyone coming in had to stoop over and come in one at at time. This was a defense mechanism so their enemies couldn't over take them. 

The dancers were pretty cool and you know, Native. After THEY were done, we got to get up and dance with them, wearing their garb! 

Oh yeah! Ryan and I, and of course, CARLY completely enjoyed doing this:) Mom was kind enough to take pictures. 

Afterwards, we went outside and heard all about their totem poles which they are apparently known for. 

We learned that these were not idols that they worshiped, but rather more of a family crest, or story poles. 

We went into a carving shed where they are working on new poles. They run about $3500 per linear foot, so a little pricey, considering the tallest totem poles in Alaska are 40 feet tall! 

Our favorite pole was the one that told the story of the boy who went down by the water when his mama told him not to and he got his hand stuck in a giant clamshell and they couldn't free him, and then the tide came in a drowned him. 

They put this pole near the waters edge to remind the little ones to obey their parents and stay away from the water! Carly enjoyed this pole completely and acted it out herself. Of course, then she fell on the gravel and busted her bum and there were tears all around. She's fine. Apparently, accident prone:)  Tears stopped with a little "Fry Bread" that the dancers were selling for $2 to raise money to travel. Tasted like fried dough, so it was really, really good. This was a fun excursion... interesting and educational.

After our tour, Mom and I and Carly did a little Power Shopping... we had to be back on the ship at 11:45am, so there wasn't much time. 

To make sure we didn't miss anything in Ketchikan, Ryan, Ben and Dad walked around taking pictures for us. I know. Lame. But we sure enjoyed THEIR memories!

We were sad it was such a short "Port Call" because the weather was a BEAUTIFUL sunny, 70 degrees! 

Apparently that is nearly unheard of in Ketchikan. It's a pretty cute little town, too.

We ate a "fancy lunch" in the Donatello Dining room, then the kids too off for KC as we cruised off towards British Columbia. Mom and I decided we needed naps, so we had a nice relaxing afternoon! Ben and Carly had a little rest after KC and I enjoyed reading my book in one of the many quaint lounges with a nice cup of coffee... we got this Coffee Card for $24 the first day and you can have all the coffee, tea, and hot chocolate you want, plus 16 lattes, or specialty coffee's. Actually a really GREAT deal as we CERTAINLY drank well over $24 worth of these items. Coffee Addict here.

The kids wanted to attend the dinner with the KC people (it was formal night, AGAIN! so we weren't going to the dining room anyways). 

They were having "Pizza and Pasta" night and Mom decided these were great nicknames for Ben and Carly. I had to agree there. So, we enjoyed a quiet dinner at the buffet withOUT our own personal entertainment provided by Pizza and Pasta. Then we went to the "Cinematastic" show, which was pretty good. We learned the next day that it was the first time the cast had performed it and that actually impressed me. There was so much intense dancing, they HAD to be exhausted afterwards, and they still had another performance at 10pm!

We hung out in the cabin, letting the kids play together until they went to bed. I went up to the MUTS area and brought them back popcorn, which they thought was pretty fun. We had to set our clocks ahead an hour before sleeping so we'd be in the right time zone when we got up in the morning, near Victoria.

Another really fun day...

08.05.09

08.05.09

Tracy Arm Fjord

Again, we were up EARLY! Our boat was to arrive in the Tracy Arm Fjord around 8am, so we sent Ryan up to the top of the Ship to be our "Scout" for weather conditions and to try and see how close we were... Not too much going on yet, but we got dressed warmly and headed up ourselves anyways. We took a couple of pictures, then ate breakfast with Mom and Dad before the "Real Action" started.

As we cruised through, we were overwhelmed by how beautiful and HUGE everything was! 

And again, we were amazed that we were even there, in Alaska, surrounded by cliffs, mountains, waterfalls, icebergs... stunning.

Here's where our day got a little sketchy, and I would like the record to show that this was completely MY FAULT. Me, who planned this whole vacation so very carefully. Who chose to fly out with the kids myself because certainly Ryan would lose them. Who purposefully purchased Carly a neon green jacket so we could always find her. LOST. CARLY. Nice. Mom and I took off to take pictures and I neglected to tell Ryan we were leaving. He was looking over the edge of the boat with the kids, looking at stuff. We have ALWAYS been so careful to say "I'm doing this, you've got the kids..." Always. Huh. So, we get back to Ryan and I see Ben with him, but no Carly. He thought she was with me. She's no where to be seen. Trying not to panic. It's a big boat (and an even BIGGER ocean). We start looking all over the deck... about 20 minutes later, trying not to get too panicky, I run down to our cabin "just to see". Have you ever been on a cruise ship? Can YOU remember always which is the front of the boat, and which is the back? Do YOU remember how all the halls look the same, every elevator similar? It's like a maze. And our cabin was on the 5th floor... I lost her on the 15th floor. 

Anyways, there she was in the cabin, playing her Nintendo DS. Calmly. "Ummmm, how did you get in here?" "well, you know, Alex let me in!" Ok. Try not to kill Alex. We aren't sure he even speaks English. She was perfectly fine, although, I'm still not quite certain how she found her way back to our room. I could hardly find it most days. Blah, blah, blah... we head back up and of course, couldn't locate Ryan immediately to put his pounding heart to rest... so I'm standing on the deck holding her very bright neon jacket over my head, and yes, that's the first thing he saw over the sea of people, and knew she was fine. And he wanted to make very sure it wasn't his fault:) HA! My mom said there's nothing wrong with losing your children. Thanks, Mom. Thankfully Carly was safe. Duh.

Back to the fun part of this day... while I was MIA with Ryan's Mom, we were able to watch the Star Princess come out of the narrow passage that gets you closer to the Sawyer Glacier. The "Ship Naturalist" who was narrating for us over the PA said it would be appearing any minute now, so we were waiting to see it... suddenly it makes it's way out and for real, the woman beside us said, "Well, is THAT the ship?". 

Maybe it's just me, but it really made me giggle completely inappropriately. For a long time. Really? What else do you think that is? Just wondering. Got some fun pictures of it passing us in a very small area.

We were extremely disappointed not to be able to get closer to the Sawyer Glacier, due to the warm weather Alaska had been experiencing. 

There were too many icebergs in the water around it.   (Did I mention that glaciers are BLUE?  you can see that a little easier here with this chunk of glacial ice...)  We got some pictures of it in the background, but REALLY wanted to get very close. *sigh*. We'll just have to go back!

After our fancy lunch in the Donatello Dining room, the kids headed off to KC. They begged and begged to get to go back, they really enjoyed it so very much. 

Just Another Hanging Glacier.  They are apparently only RARE to people who don't live in Alaska!

Mom and I had our own personal Whale Watch, and saw a few, which was fun. Also saw this pod of dolphins swimming by the boat. 

"No One" jumped up for us, but still cool to see them. Ryan took off to watch the Rays game on ESPN, then Mom and I went to the Internatinal Cafe coffee shop to download our pictures and eat cookies. Mmmmm. We swapped our pictures "so far" with her computer and laughed and laughed as we looked at them. It was a really nice time. I must admit, I DID feel slightly guilty to be having all this girl fun with Renae, Rochel and Randee's Mama. But not that guilty. Ha! Kidding. It did cross my mind how much they would have enjoyed being there with us, though. I enjoyed myself so much that I completely forgot to pick the kids up for KC and had to run up there (late!) and get them... the counselors were in the process of trying to locate me via phone. Nice. Really stellar parenting. Exactly the kind of Mothering-Day you want your Mother-in-Law to be a witness to. I really do love your Grandchildren... I just can't seem to keep up with them.

Headed off to dinner (yes, I had my children with me... I hadn't lost track of them again) and shocking, Carly got french fries and fettucini alfredo. Again. The photographers came around again... we were feeling all disappointed that it WASN'T the LumberJack Girl, until the girl that WAS there said to Carly (who was smiling HUGELY), "Hey honey, open your eyes!" Hahahaha... could have been one of the funniest moments I have ever been a witness to. And when we saw the picture the next day I laughed and laughed because poor Carly tried REALLY hard to open her eyes big while smiling, and well, it looked hilarious. I know you are laughing and laughing about that, Tracy! HA!

Kids to KC, we went to the Magic show with the very creepy Guitano. Yikes. And his 1/2 dressed assistant, Monica, who really is a very talented dancer. Or so he said. Glad the kids weren't a witness to that one.

 Afterwards, Ryan and his parents watched Star Trek (such a great movie!) at MUTS and I took the kids to the cabin for showers and bed. This is when I decided it would be a good idea to remove the staples from Carly's head (remember the night before our vacation and our trip to the Pediatric After Hours emergency clinic?). So, of course she's about to hop in the shower (ie, not dressed) and I remove the first 2 fine, the 3rd one must have been against a blood vessel because it suddenly started spouting blood. Everywhere. In the very white, pristine bathroom. And I can't really see where it's coming from and all I can think is her laceration popped open. Ugh. And I'm getting very nauseous. Me. A Nurse. Nauseated by the site of blood. Nice. I sent Ben up to get Ryan from deck 15 (are you seeing a pattern here?)... of course, Ben reminds me before I can convince him to go that he's "not allowed to go anywhere on the ship by myself, remember?" (WHY, HOW do I have such a Rule Follower Son?) and by the time he gets back, the bleeding has stopped and I realized it wasn't opened, just a vessel-issue. Didn't stop the bathroom from resembling a CSI scene, however. Remember when I said it was a fine-Mothering day? Bottom line: Carly is fine, and she survived her Mom on 08.05.09.