martinzoo

Today was a fun day at sea. We spent the day lazing it up at the pool, reading, eating and in the boys’ case hitting the casino. They really loved the casino. J ended the week by earning several hundred dollars. Jabem started the week with $6. and at various points in the week he had gone up a couple hundred dollars and down to breaking even. By the end of the week he had broken even, but since he’d had a whole week of gambling and fun, he felt like it was totally worth it. J, on the other hand, was made for poker. He was a shark (!) and ended up buying all his family’s souvenirs with his earnings (several hundred dollars worth) and still keeping a couple hundred for himself.

Before the dinner preparations came underway, dh and I went down to the dining room (see pic below) and made reservations for the supper club for our anniversary dinner. The dining room is spectacularly opulent, and I could tell that my parents and the kids were really impressed with the surroundings and the unbelievable food. But the supper club is a level above even the dining room. I’ll post more about that later.

This is a picture of our room before we had messed it up. One of the cool things about cruising is how clean everything is. They clean your room at least twice a day and they are ALWAYS cleaning the public areas. Because let’s face it, people can be quite pig-like at times. Give them an unlimited buffet and they pile it on like they’ve been starving for weeks. If I were an employee of the ship that would gross me out. Since I was a patron of the ship, I took advantage of it! ……………LOL!

This was the view from the tippy top of the ship. You can see the water slide and a little bit of the pool down below. I never made use of the pool or the hot tub because there were just too many bodies in the water. But laying on a deck chair and reading a book with the ‘tropical breeze blowing through my hair’ (name that song) is my kind of paradise!

GB came shooting down that slide so fast than none of my action photos came out. But I love this photo of him getting off the slide.

This is my brother’s youngest son, B-man. He was loving the slide too.

After our fun in the sun, we came back to the room and went for dinner and the show. I liked this show a lot better. GB went with Aquagirl and Gymbabe to the arcade while we watched the show. This one was a ‘Rocking through the Ages’ theme. So there were lots of songs that I could sing along with.

When we came back to the cabin we were greeted by this little guy. And GB got a cookie from Camp Carnival. He went there for a couple of hours earlier in the day because they were having a video game tournament. But he deemed it quite lame because the only games they had were racing games. He likes war and action games. So he never partook of that service again on the cruise.

We began this day early by heading over to the Kennedy Space Center. We couldn’t board the ship until after noon, so we thought we could spend a few hours learning about space travel.

Our kids with the Kennedy Rocket Garden in the background.

My dh and GB stand in front of a full-sized NASA Space Shuttle replica -The Explorer. We saw this as we came out of the mock space shuttle launch. It was a very cool simulation, but not nearly as cool as the one at Disney World. I thought it was going to be the same thing because when we went to Disney a few years ago they said there was another one at Kennedy. But this one was a much tamer version, which suited my dh much better. He has problems with spinning rides, they give him head aches. But GB really enjoyed it, and it set the mood for the visit.

Here I am in front of the Mercury rocket.

You will see Gymbabe and Aquagirl in lots of photos, not because of them, or me, but because GB was being anti-photo, and Jabem and J oftentimes went off to do their own thing. So, here are the girls in the Gemini rocket.

………And the Apollo rocket.

Dh was a little freaked unexpectedly by this dude………..LOL!

Sometimes I work my camera to get maximum effect.

And here the girls were viewing a full-size Space Shuttle from the inside.

This is a very excited dh embarking on the Carnival Glory. Doesn’t he look thrilled?

Here is Aquagirl with passport and cruise documents in hand.

Jabem embarking. I like this photo. Doesn’t he have great eyebrows? I love good eyebrows. I don’t know why people would want to make them smaller. He’s a little camera shy too. But I could just kiss that face!

Ah! Jabem’s friend, J. For someone who doesn’t show much excitement, he looks pretty excited.

This was the lifeboat drill that is mandatory for all guests on the first day. Oh Lord! We were squished! If I had claustrophobia I’d have had a fit.

GB doesn’t do discomfort well. He just wanted to go explore the ship.

What a beautiful shot this turned out to be. That’s Cape Canaveral in the background, and we are sailing away. This was during the sail away party.

J is the only happy camper in this picture. See that storm in the background? Well, we left it in Florida! We had great weather the whole trip!

Gramma and Grampa came with us, along with my brother and his family, and my aunt and uncle. Here Grampa and I are having some fun with the cameras……….LOL!

The first day of our cruise happened to coincide with Gymbabe’s 21st birthday. So this was her first ‘legal’ alcoholic drink. Aren’t they cute?

This was my first meal on board ship. I know it’s cheesy to take pictures of food, but it wa so yummy. My steak was a perfect medium rare, and that is mac and cheese in the little dish; best darn mac and cheese I ever had. Even those peas were delish! I’m not sure what was in them, they were a tiny bit spicy, but mmmm!

Here, our waiters, Anthony and Zosimo are surprising Gymbabe with a cake and a song for her birthday. Can you see how red her face is? Oh, we all had so much fun with that!

Our dinner seating was at 8:15, so right after dinner dh took GB out to explore the ship and I went off with the family to see the nightly show. No pictures, because of copywrite laws you can’t take photos during the show. I really liked the lead girl singer, but the lead male singer was too weird for me to like. And the dancers were pretty good. One or two of them really stood out.

After the show, I was pretty tuckered and went back to our cabin to fall into bed. Dh was there with GB and they were watching the Olympics. Each night we managed to squeeze in a bit of Olympic viewing. I love the Olympics, especially the swimming and gymnastics.

We started our trip EARLY on Friday, August 8th……8/8/08……..It had to be a good omen right? Well, it was. We had an awesome trip!

In our car we had my three kiddos, Aquagirl and her best friend, Gymbabe. Jabem brought his friend, J, who was very quiet and tolerant of our car antics. GB was in the center seat, and my dh and I were up front taking turns driving. The kids played all kinds of car games. But the highlight of the trip was my secret learning activity. I made outlines of each state that we were going through, and got a picture of our van from the Toyota web site, and put velcro on the back of all the pieces and stuck it to the inside roof of our van. And for every state that we went through I had one person open an envelope that had cool info on that particular state; the name, capital, state bird, state animal, and state flower, all with velcro so that they would stick to the roof of our van near the state we were going through. Surprisingly, they were ALL excited about this, and they all couldn’t wait for the states to pass so they could open a new envelope. See! You’re never too old for learning games!

This next photo was taken next to the gas station that we stopped at. They had these HUGE elephants out in the parking lot and Aquagirl and Gymbabe thought they were quite funny.

We got to the Radisson Resort in Port Canaveral, Florida around 9:00 pm, which left plenty of time for the kids to check out the pool. I’m not very good at night photos, but the pool at this hotel is truly amazing. It has a hot tub, a waterfall, little rocky alcoves and amazing scenery. The cool thing about this hotel is that you can stay one night and then leave your car for the week while you cruise. They even provide a shuttle that will take you to and from your ship….for no extra $$!

Jabem and J in the hot tub. I know, it’s a terrible picture. I’m sorry…….

Aquagirl and Gymbabe with kilowatt smiles!

This is my dh and GB in one of the little alcoves of the pool. Dh likes to toss GB across pools. I don’t know why… they just think it’s great fun! And since GB only weights 60 pounds, he gets quite a bit of air! Check out that amazing waterfall that separates the alcoves. And I’m up on this cool bridge that overlooks the alcove.

GB was enjoying the sleep number beds that the hotel uses. I had never heard of such a thing. But underneath the typical mattress there is an air chamber that will inflate/deflate to your own firmness desires. GB enjoyed a 65 firmness, while we employed an 85 firmness. I would have preferred it to be a bit softer, but dh likes it firmer.

After driving for 12 and 1/2 hours, and then frolicking in the pool for a couple of hours we were SO ready for bed. The next day we would board the cruise ship after a little trip to the Kennedy Space Center.

Well, it’s Tuesday, August 19th………….. And we’ve been back since REALLY late on Saturday night……..try 1:45 am. Ok, technically that’s Sunday morning, but you knew what I meant. We had a rough car ride back from Florida, so we spent ALL of Sunday vegetating. Is there such a thing as “ship lag”? Well, if there isn’t, there should be. Because we all felt it. In fact, when I went to bed on Saturday night (Sunday morning), I could swear that the bed was slightly rocking me to sleep, just like on the ship. I loved it.

Yesterday was Monday, and we spent all morning and afternoon getting Jabem ready to go back to college. His other room mates moved in at the beginning of August, but Jabem had to wait until yesterday because of the cruise. Awww! Poor baby! We were supposed to move all his stuff in to the house on the 3rd of August, but when we got ready to go, we were informed by the landlord that the house wasn’t ready yet. What the heck? The boys paid for ALL of August. Why is it not ready? When we went to check it out, it was a royal mess! There were lots of broken railings, doors, floors, appliances. Good grief, I’m scared. Anyway, we got all his stuff packed up yesterday, arrived in the city of Richmond with furniture, clothes, all-valuable computer, and many personal items to turn this crazy all-guy five bedroom house into a home for Jabem and his room mates. And guess what we discovered when we got there? NO ELECTRICITY! The power company couldn’t turn on the electricity because the landlord had the keys to the back yard, where the meter gets read. So these boys had been struggling to coordinate between landlord, Realtor, and power company since the beginning of August! I only ask ONE question……. Where are these boys parents? I would never let my child live in the middle of the city with NO electricity, windows WIDE open, and the freakin’ doors are still broken! Two of the room mates live hundreds of miles from here, so they had no choice but to stay in these primitive conditions. So I told them all that they should gather their stuff and come back to our place last night, which they did. And today my dh is going to raise a little hell on the telephone! Pardon my french!

After we left the boys’ house we went to see my favorite rocker, Bruce Springsteen, at the Richmond Coliseum. We had unbelievable seats, and I was so psyched to be so close and see my fave. There was NOT ONE single person between my seat and the stage (except stage roadies)! That’s how good my seats were. We were a little behind him, as you can see from the pictures, but he came over to our side of the stage several times. And he even nodded at me. Yes he did! Everybody else was doing the fist-pumping move in the air to the beat of his music, but when he came over to us, I was the only one who gave him a real wave…. a very energetic wave…. yes it was….. but that’s why he noticed. And then ….. he nodded…………. Sigh!

And it WAS really cool, but the Coliseum had to screw us over somehow, and they did it with the sound. My man was muddy all night. The bass on the drums was so over amped that I felt my heart booming along with it. The lyrics were so hard to discern, even if you knew most of the songs. And I’m telling you that the Boss was really in the house last night. He worked that crowd like a master! He brought three kids out of the audience to hug and sing along with him. He gave high fives and palm slaps to just about everyone on the front row, and he took signs from audience members who had suggestions for the next songs. Bruce even trusted the audience with his life and crowd surfed a bit! Jealous? Oh yes! I would have loved to have been right there when he lay on those audience members hands…….. Wow! We heard lots of his oldies, but goodies, and all his new stuff too. He had an eight song encore (who else does that!?). And even brought up another local legend from the audience to sing along with him, Robbin Thompson.

Here are my favorite pictures from the night. Shhhhhhhh! Don’t tell! We weren’t supposed to take pictures. And from my vantage point I was in double danger. Especially when the local cops decided to camp out right by our seats to watch the show themselves.

This was towards the end of the show when we were all idolizing him……… sigh! I borrowed this picture from our newspaper’s website.

This was my view from my seat. Dh and I figured he was about 25-30 feet away.

I love this picture. Look at the standard Bruce grimace on his face. Such fierceness!!

Great night!

Now, I’ll get started on my cruise posts. They are gonna take a while because the cruise was just that awesome and I want to do it justice. So, it may take a few days to get my posts finished. But it will be worth it. Because in the end, you can say that you came right along with us. Ok?