Deitrick Detail

So Justin and I went on our first cruise and it was so awesome!!!!! we desperately needed a vacation and my mom was so nice to be willing to come watch the kids for us. Mom flew in on thursday and i quickly flew out within an hour of that. Justin was in Cali for work the whole week before, so we were going to meet him in LA for the cruise on friday.

I flew all the way to phoenix and spent the night with carlee. During my 4 hr layover in denver Erica was able to come and hang out with me for a bit. I havent seen her in years so it was so great to catch up. definitely have to plan for another get together when im in broomfield next. after a quick 4 hr nap, carlee and i, and the 2 friends she had coming with us on the cruise all got in the car to drive the 6 hrs to LA. I havent traveled by myself since i have had kids. all my time at and in between flights was so weird to have to myself. i didnt quite know what to do. i was almost a little bored (but in a good way) to not be running after kids all the time. i kept trying to relax but felt like i was missing something or someone was getting into trouble. it was so nice to read my own book, listen to my own music, or watch my own movie! that is definitely not something i have done in a very long time.

Jusitn and I wanted to walk the Hollywood sign hike, so we planned for that beforehand. it was a good short hike, and definitely the most exercise we were going to have all weekend. But i definitely realized that I still dont exercise enough and im super bad at it. it was a rough hike, but we made it through! definitely something we would like to do again sometime. but for now this was good.

we then drove to check in and got on the boat! it was exciting and we were so thrilled to start eating our weight for every meal and everything in between. we had to work a little bit to get everyone at the same table, but it worked out. day one was spent eating and hot tubbing and exploring the ship.

day 2 was our "day at sea" Since justin and i are incapable of sleeping in we did a lot of exploring before anyone else woke up. haha. we ate 4 breakfasts worth of food and then walked around. we looked up what activities were on the boat for that day and made a plan. eventually after meeting up with everyone else it was mostly a chill day. I honestly cant remember what we did most of the morning. I remember food, always. i dont think we ever stopped eating. haha.

We tried to go tanning in the late morning, but it was so windy! carlee i think did the best tanning while in a hoodie and covered in a towel. haha. but we tried! we only lasted about an hour before justin and i decided we wanted a nap and went back to our room for a quick nap. in the afternoon there was a harry potter trivia activity that i wanted to go to. im kinda a huge closet nerd about all things harry potter and disney. i have a pottermore account and have made a potion on line to unlock secrets. I know lots of trivia and it makes me happy. so! i thought i would sit in the back and see if i learned anything new. it was set up as a team (or individual) and we would write down the answers to 20 questions and then turn it in to see who had the high score. with my social anxiety that worked well for me. I named myself Seamus "Win"nigan. (get it... instead of the character Seamus Finnigan. please laugh, I thought it was funny.) and started writing my answers. most were not hard, but there were some questions that i definitely knew, but also knew it wasnt something commonly known. so I thought maybe i had a chance. I only got 2 questions wrong! one i definitely didnt know. but i looked up the answer and i promise i wont forget ever again. haha. the other question asked who was the main villian in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (number 5) the right answer is Voldemort, but I contest that because though he is the main villain in the series, he did not do too much in that specific book. In my opinion Prof Umbridge was a much bigger villian. She did so much more that made me angry and hate her so i put her down. cant be too mad about it, but i mostly just disagree with the answer they wanted.

Anyways! so i was there by myself for like 5 min before justin joined me. then about 10 min later carlee, beez, melissa, and allyssa joined to watch. they helped check my answers and then i turned it in. Low and behold there was a tie between me and one other team. (also and individual funnily enough) so we had to go up before everyone and do a tie breaker question. so much for laying low. my social anxiety reared its ugly head and i was super nervous about being in front of a lot of people i didnt know. thanks for the support team behind me! they helped. anyways the end question was close, but thanks to a little more detail on my part i pulled out the win! asking what Aunt Marge's occupation was the other girl said she breeds dogs. which is true. but i put that she breeds bulldogs. Huzzah! I won! i got a cool trophy and the pride of knowing im the biggest harry potter nerd on the boat. once i was no longer in front of a lot of strangers i was very proud of my knowledge and new title of harry potter champ. haha. i dont mind showing off my trophy now. :)

That night was formal night so we all dressed up for dinner and still ordered like 2 apps, 3 entres, and 4 desserts. no shame! after dinner there was a fun comedy show. there were a few different ones. later in the night were ones not family rated, so we decided to go to the cleaner ones right after dinner. after that we headed out to play some cards and eat some late night snacks. carlee brought a mobile joker game so we played that quite a bit. we got some crazy looks. people thought we were insane. but it was so fun.

come sunday morning justin and i got up early to watch us dock at ensenada. unfortunately our awesome fun dune buggy adventure was canceled because of rain so we were trying to figure out what else to do. our housekeeper asked what we were up to that day and we shared our woes of not knowing anything fun now that our adventure was cancelled. he gave us a great idea what there is a zipline sky tour in town that would be fun. heck ya! that sounded awesome! so we did a quick search and found the place with the sky tour. it had 5 ziplines and 5 hanging bridges. it sounded amazing and a great second choice. he said they dont offer it through the boat excursions because of insurance issues. we gathered everyone together and we were all in! so we got off the boat and rented a car. Justin did great driving in Mexico. their roads are horrible by the way. most of the time we were not totally in our lane just to avoid potholes.

we had a great time and we all accomplished all ziplines and bridges. it was so great. then we quickly got back to port to do a little shopping then back on the boat! we had a really good burger for a late lunch and then still had some great dinner choices. i cant remember a lot of the food we had, but i remember a shrimp stirfry, beef tenderloin, molten lava cake for every dessert. i had this geat strawberry bisque one night it was yummy.

monday was full of debarking. we had to be out of our rooms by 830am but didnt debark the boat till after 10. so we played in the buffet area playing games and eating leftovers till we got to debark. we spent the rest of the morning doing more touristy things. we walked hollywood blvd. it was not as exciting as i remember from a few years ago, but i think we started at the wrong end. we did see lots of places that we want to come back to. there were lots of museums i want to try again. the ripleys believe it or not odditorium, the hollywood wax museum, the guinness world record museum. the museum of psychology (or psychiatry? i cant remember) and the museum of death i want to go back to all of them. save for later!

after that was the long drive to phoenix again. we got in around 830 ish and justin and i were going to meet my cousin lindsay and her hubby josh for dinner at chipotle while carlee returned the rental car. on our way out poor alyssa missed a step and tripped and broke her ankle! it was crazy. her foot had twisted all weird and was pointing in the very wrong direction. like stuff you only see in the movies! luckily nothing broke through the skin and there was an ER nurse that happened to be in the parkinglot. justin and another man helped get her into the car and melissa and carlee took her to the ER. what a way to end your vacation! at least it didnt happen before. hope you feel better alyssa! last i heard she was just out of her first surgery and so far things look good, but to plan on more later. ugh. i still feel bad.

next day we had an early flight from phoenix to denver, another 4 hr layover, and then made it back to bismark where we met grandma and the kids. she briefly told us some fun stories about how every time ryker saw a plane he would exclaim that hey! thats the plane my mom and dad are on! close buddy, but yes we did go on a plane. He even tried to tell the kids at the school behind our house, hey friends! look its my mom and dad! do you see them?

it was good to be back. the trip was awesome. we came home just as tired because we did so much with so little time there was tons of fun! but not a lot of relaxing involved. still awesome though.