Santa Pics

Rebecca and I are going to be celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary this year and we decided that to celebrate we should go on a cruise.  Since our actual anniversary is in December we took an early victory lap to avoid the cold of winter.  We had taken our honeymoon in San Diego and the misery of the soggy and cold clothes we got when sitting in the splash zone at Sea World still resonated after all these years.

We booked our cruise with Royal Caribbean.  Not that we have much of anything to compare them to, but we think they are great!  Service was exceptional.

I find it mind blowing that they are able to have so much stuff on a ship and not have it drop to the bottom of the ocean.  We learned that the ship we were on is one of the smaller ones.  I read that a new ship that will be launching next year weights 250,800 tons.  What a monster!  We may have to go on another cruise just to witness that size of ship.

Our original itinerary was to go to Cabo, Mazatlan, then Puerto Vallarta, but as we were leaving LA the captain announced that they were looking at a low pressure system near Puerto Vallarta that had the possibility of becoming a hurricane.  It did…  Here’s the captain explaining the hurricane.

The new plan would be to go to Cabo, a short day at Mazatlan, then book it out of there back heading north ahead of the hurricane.

In Cabo, you have to tender to shore; there is nowhere to actually dock. When we got to Cabo the crew was able to get one group off the ship onto the tender without incident, but because of the swells they were having issues being able to get others onto the boat for shore, so they cancelled all the rest of the trips ashore.  As a result this is all that we got to see of Cabo.

Looks quite nice right?  We we a bit disappointed, but the crew organized additional entertainment and activities for us to enjoy.

We later learned at dinner from our table-mates who made it ashore with the first group that Cabo wasn’t very much fun at all. They had a miserable time on shore.  The beaches we all closed and there was feces all over the streets.  They weren’t able to get back onto the boat until the end of the day when the tender boat made only one trip hoping to be able to get the people back on the cruise ship.  We watched them come back and it looked a bit precarious.

Our next stop at Mazatlan went a lot better because the cruise ship was able to tie up to the dock.

After a taxi ride straight from Grand Theft Auto, we arrived at the tourism area of Mazatlan.

Our first stop was to a Catholic church.  This picture best shows just how hot it was there.  When Rebecca checked the weather prior to our trip, she didn’t understand how it could be 80° but feel like 115°.  We now understand!  It was boiling hot.

We stopped by a flea market to pick up some trinkets for the kids.  It was interesting to see.  The restroom situation is entire story in itself.

The meat in the market was… questionable.  There was no way those open air refrigerators were keeping the meat cool enough in the stifling heat of that building.  It even smelt like food poison.

No visit to Mazatlan would be complete without a pilgrimage to Abbey Road to pay homage to Mazatlan’s native boys: Los Beatles.

We spent much of our afternoon walking along the coastline.  The beaches were closed due to the high waves caused by the hurricane.

Sure OSHA is an American thing, but this company needs to have their business license revoked.  Tree limbs instead of 2X4’s?  Really?

The heat ultimately did us in and we returned to the ship early.  There is a blue line in the ground and if you didn’t follow the blue line that leads from the port to the downtown, you were likely to be murdered.  We chose to risk death by murder over auto accident, so we walked.

Our next stop was Ensenada.

People were hitting us up at every step trying to convince us to buy their souveniers.

Enjoying the Cabo sunset

Most mornings I was up much earlier than Rebecca, so I’d slip out and wander the ship with my camera.

We ate ice cream.. Lots of it.

One of our favorite things was to watch the ocean.

Formal night at dinner.

The piano player liked riding up and down the elevator.

We enjoyed all of the performances in the theater.

Our new friends and dinner mates.  I’m kind of sad we didn’t get their contact info.

Our cruise director was a lot of fun.

I had the opportunity to try escargot since the kids are expecting us to eat it when we go to France. Now that I’ve tried it, I don’t need to eat it again. Ever.

The crew sang happy anniversary to us and we enjoyed a slice of desert.

Adele has some new fans after we saw the Adele tribute concert.

These icons are all over the ship.  It took me almost all week to figure out that is a the symbol of a firehose.

All in all it was a great trip despite the hurricane and missed ports. I sure do love my wife of 20 years!

I’ve been storing up kid artwork for a while, so here’s a post dedicated to our aspiring artists/graphic novelists.

Brooke’s school papers continue to be used (for better or for worse) as her sketch pad:

Holidays bring out her creativity:

She saw our bananas and couldn’t resist giving them a little personality:

And then we have the endless doodles and comics she draws on every scrap of paper she can find:

Caroline isn’t quite as prolific of an artist, but she does do cute drawings as well:

Spencer enjoys drawing also. Here we have a self portrait:

Another child who can’t resist doodling at school:

Spencer went through a phase where he was really into flags. He’d look up pictures of different flags and recreate them in miniature:

Lately Madison has been joining the artistic ranks.

Madison drew this one in church. Her friend Norah is sad, so she’s giving Norah a doll to make her happy:

This princess got caught in a rainstorm and wasn’t happy:

Madison brought this paper home from preschool. I was shocked at the adorableness of that zebra and had to text her preschool teacher to see if Madison actually drew that. Turns out she did draw it all by herself. It’s especially surprising how good her zebra is when you compare it to the other two animal blobs beside it.

One day we played Pictionary as a family. We told Madison she could draw whatever she wanted. The category was “animal.” She drew this:

After guessing every animal we could think of we finally asked Madison what it was. Her response? A giraffe. I continue to chuckle to myself every time I think of her neckless giraffe.

This is the story of how two of the most undeserving people scored some of the hottest tickets in town three times…mostly through sheer dumb luck.

Act I

Have you ever heard of the TV show Psych? Dallas and I used to love that show years ago. At the time, we never knew of anyone else who watched it. I got out of the habit of seeing it, but Dallas still kept up with it, and I’d catch him watching episodes here and there.

Fast forward to the end of last year. My friend posted on Facebook that Psych: The Movie was about to be released and there was to be a movie tour with a stop in Salt Lake. Also, tickets were free. I had no idea that a movie was even in the works, but I thought, “Huh. Dallas loves that show. I should try to get tickets and surprise him.” I hopped online and nabbed a couple of tickets without any trouble.

What I didn’t realize at the time was Psych had gained a very devoted cult following in the years since it first aired. In fact, this movie tour was part of a fan contest. I can’t remember all the details, but it was something like the city with the most social media engagement would be selected as one of the cities where the movie tour would stop. Salt Lake fans (through no help from me, obviously) had blown the competition out of the water, thus giving us one of the coveted tour stops. This meant that I had gotten tickets that probably should have gone to someone who, you know, actually participated in the contest and helped Salt Lake win.

I didn’t really realize any of this at the time. I just knew we were going to see the movie, and it would be a fun date night. And I was right about that!

On the appointed day Dallas and I joined many other Psych-Os and took our seats…but not before we took a picture with the pineapple glasses they gave everyone:

(For those not in the know, they hide pineapples in all the episodes of Psych, so pineapples have become a symbol of the show.)

I was already suffering a bit from impostor syndrome as I found myself amongst some of the biggest Psych-Os in the country knowing that I hadn’t even been bothered to keep up with all the seasons of the show. That feeling was made worse when they began the evening with a trivia game. They asked what I thought seemed like very obscure questions about the show, and people knew not only the answers, but there was one girl who could answer the question AND state the episode name and number in which the answer could be found.

After the trivia game they showed the movie. We enjoyed our complimentary popcorn and drinks as we watched the show. The movie was fun to watch, but the best part was seeing how much everyone around me was loving every second of the film. The audience laughed, cheered, and clapped throughout the show. It was so fun to watch the movie with people who you knew were appreciating every minute of it.

After the screening they had a couple of the actors and a writer or producer come out, and they chatted about the film and answered questions.

All in all it was a really fun night for the die-hards and even the fair-weather fans in attendance.

Act II

Our next story starts much like the previous one. I was on social media again (Instagram this time) and saw that a friend had posted that Hamilton tickets were going on sale that morning. She had several computers already booted up and on the website waiting for 10:00 when the tickets would be available. “Huh,” I thought. “I’ve been wanting to see that play. Maybe I should try to get tickets.”

I hadn’t even heard that Hamilton was coming to town. I assumed I was too late and wouldn’t have a chance to get tickets, but I realized I could log on right then and still have a shot, so I decided to just try. Before I knew it my computer alerted me that I was in and could buy tickets. Yay! I was excited for my good fortune, but again felt a bit undeserving that I got the tickets…especially when I learned that my friend whose Instagram post was the catalyst to my getting tickets didn’t get tickets herself.  Bummer!

Nonetheless, Dallas and I had a great time at the show. Much like our Psych experience, everyone around us was so excited to be in the crowd. We were sitting by a teenager who knew every word to every song and was on the edge of his seat the entire time. The enthusiasm of the crowd added to the whole experience.

The play was energetic and impressive. The cast did a great job and Dallas and I were amazed with the insanely clever rhymes and word play in the songs.

Act III

In those previous two performances, we were the oblivious idiots who had no idea what was in store. We were the ones who felt slightly out of place amongst the zealous fans we found ourselves rubbing elbows with. However, for the third show, the tables had turned. I was the extreme fanatic.

I caught wind that the Hale Centre Theatre was doing The Scarlet Pimpernel. I grew up watching the Jane Seymour movie. In college I committed the words of the music to heart and saw the play a couple of times. This may be my favorite musical of all time. I knew this would be a show I couldn’t miss.

I bought tickets a year in advance. I marked the day on our calendar. As each month passed I did a happy dance and told Dallas how much time we had until the big day. Finally, the time came to head over to the Hale Centre Theatre’s beautiful new facility. We took our seats and this time I was the crazy person on the edge of my seat with unbridled excitement causing leg twitches and bursts of loud, happy sighs as I took in the stage and the scenery. No, I would not play the role of impostor this time.

In fact, I realized I might be in the running for the biggest fan in attendance as I leaned over to Dallas and said, “Do you think I’m the only person in this theater who has a Scarlet Pimpernel song as her ring tone?”

The Scarlet Pimpernel was amazing. The Hale Centre Theatre always does a fantastic job with every production they do and this was no exception.

We loved our theater experiences this past year! I’m definitely going to have to work on sliming my way into some more performances this year!