Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Alaska Cruise with the In-Laws

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Okay. Jonah is the best. He let me leave for nine whole days to go on a cruise with my sisters-in-law (two of the three girls married to Jonah’s brothers came) and parents-in-law, to ALASKA!

I had to fly in the night before and sleep in the airport, which is a whole story in itself (for example, there is only one bench without armrests in the whole airport and I found it, but another dude stole it when I got up at 6 am to use the bathroom), but the next morning I took the train into downtown Seattle and walked uphill to the nearest Value Village (which is 3 miles away) to get some closed-toe shoes, since I haven’t owned any since I moved to Maui. Here I am on the walk back down to the ocean front, where I walked another three miles to the cruise port (it was a warm sunny day, I couldn’t resist… but 8 miles pulling a rolly bag is a little excessive… don’t worry, I recovered nicely thanks to the cruise food).

 

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I felt so bad for leaving Jonah, but he has always told me cool stories from his Alaska cruise with his parents in 199?, so I pretended like he was there with me and talking me into doing crazy stuff that no one else was doing, like swimming in the pool as we cast off from Seattle.

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I called my friend in Sequim, and she took a photo from her house as we floated by. Cool, huh?!

 

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Every single one of the 30 hallways on the ship look exactly alike. So yes, we got lots of exercise and I think by the very last day I could walk straight to our room without getting lost.

 

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The food was mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm delicious. And lots of it too. I ate as much as I possible could.

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Trying to channel Jonah again—I ordered nearly everything on the menu during English Pub lunch, including bangers and mash. I think I lost my momentum after my third dish, but I still tried everything.

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Blowdrying my hair during one of our many “hurry and get dressed for dinner after being in the hot tub all day” moments. BTW, I shared a room with Kristi (Noah’s wife) and Julie (Eli’s wife). My mother and father-in-law had their own room.

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Here I am practicing the mustering and emergency dismount. Notice that I am about 40 years younger than the rest of the sailors, which I loved because…

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It meant we got the hot tub all to ourselves!

Notice Linda’s attempts at keeping her hair dry and warm.

 

I was incredibly sea sick the first night and next day as we were crossing some rough rough water, so I just lived in the hot tub all day and most of the night, and I was much better. I never ever got sea sick until I had kids, btw.

 

We loved the shore excursions. We had some fun times. Rick and Linda were the speakers for a group of LDS tourists, so we did the excursions with the same people each time and it was fun to get to know some great people from around the country while seeing some of southern Alaska.

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This is Juneau. … we had a hilarious bus driver and saw many bears.

 

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Kristi and Rick at the fish hatchery.

 

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Our first glacier.

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Beautiful Alaska!

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Our ship.

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Dinner time.

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Our next stop in Skagway, which was my favorite of all of our shore excursions.

 

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We were a little cold…

 

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Canadian/Alaskan border on the trail to the Klondike.

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There’s a train behind us travelling in a day what used to take men and dog sleds month to do, but then again, it isn’t winter yet… I bet even the train has a hard time with 50 below.

 

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I just read Call of the Wild last week, and I really regret that I didn’t read it before the cruise, because it would have given me much more history and meaning to think about, but it was still fun to read and have a real crisp photo in my mind of where it was meant to take place.

 

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We also cruised up the Tracy Arm Fjord and saw some mini icebergs the color of Windex.

 

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Awesome Julie was pregnant, but she still stayed with me up at the hot tub to view the glaciers, even though she could only get her legs in.

 

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We had the hardest time getting someone to take our photo on Formal Night, and then they took this blurry one. Oops! Here we all are though…

 

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And another shore excursion in Ketchikan.

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Loved the lumber jack show!

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Awesome snow plow train engine.

 

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Awesome attempts at staying warm and dry.

 

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Couldn’t get enough salmon!

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Our last shore excursion was Victoria, and Julie, Kristi and I just did a fast walking tour of Victoria and saw a hilarious street performer, and bought some treats to take home to our husbands.

 

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The cruise was so much fun. It was all that I’d hoped and more. It was just a total delight to be with my sisters-in-law… we are all married to Eyre boys, so we share an especially special bond. It was also so fantastic to have Rick and Linda all to ourselves and get lots of advice and love from them. I have the best in-laws ever!

 

The morning we disembarked was totally crazy, but we eventually made it to the airport and I said goodbye and rented a car since I wasn’t leaving until Sunday. It gave me a chance to visit an old college friend Dan Rawson, who had recently moved his family to Mercer Island, and to spend some good long time with my Aunt Julie and cousins Bryn and Lyndsi. Bryn has the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen (I’m not exaggerating), so it was good to snuggle her since I was finally starting to miss my kids.

Made it home safe and sound. Thank you everyone!

1 comment:

mom said...

Did we have fun or what?