I’ve never been one to want to go crazy dressing up for Halloween. Then I became a schoolteacher and realized that even though I was an adult with a grown-up job, I would still be needing to find a costume each October.
My second year as a teacher I had the idea to dress up as Viola Swamp from the Miss Nelson books. Miss Swamp is the evil substitute teacher who whips Miss Nelson’s class into shape when Miss Nelson is absent. It turns out that Miss Nelson was really Viola Swamp and acted mean to teach her naughty class a lesson. I had so much fun pretending to be Miss Swamp. My first graders were almost positive that it was still me dressed up as Miss Swamp…but there was still a tiny element of uncertainty. Months later my students would occasionally bring up Halloween and say things like, “We know it was really you. It was. It was really you…wasn’t it…?”
And so a tradition was born. Once a month my Grandma hosts a dinner for all of her children and their families. My Mom and Grandma had heard all about my costume and wanted to see it in action so they made the October family dinner a dress-up affair and it’s been that way ever since. Everyone really got into it:
I think you can pretty much tell what everyone is supposed to be except maybe Dallas who is Nephi and Sarah who is Sonic the Hedgehog.
Here are some other family members in costume at the dinner:
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!
For Spring Break we knew we wanted to work in our annual trip to Goblin Valley. Dallas was able to get the day off so our day of fun was on!
When we went to Zion, we were grateful for the cacti that captivated Brooke’s attention and helped her have fun. We hoped she would find something in Goblin Valley to similarly keep her engaged with the hiking during the day.
Luckily, we didn’t have to wait long. Brooke found a scurrying lizard and very easily caught it. I’m still impressed she was able to grab it because those things are fast!
Before long, Brooke had completely tamed the lizard and it didn’t even try to escape.
Meet Elizard, the lizard:
Brooke found the lizard probably in the first thirty minutes of our day. She kept the lizard for the next 4-5 hours as we hiked. Somehow she was able to scale all the rocks and climb up and down all the hills and mounds one-handed. An impressive feat, to be sure.
I had the great idea to climb straight up one of the rock walls. Halfway up we realized we would probably not be able to make it down the same way we came up. Thankfully, after a few treacherous moments, we all made it to the top.
We had a great view of everything down below. The kids were not able to enjoy the view because they were stressing about how we were going to get down.
After a few failed attempts at descending, we finally found a safe way down.
We also finally found some shade and had to rest for a bit.
Once again, I must thank Elizard for keeping Brooke happy and occupied.
Who am I kidding? The lizard kept everyone entranced:
All right. I’ll hold Elizard, too:
Spencer got some sticks…
And Brooke built a play pen for Elizard.
After spending the day with us, we returned Elizard to a spot close to where we found him. Thank you, Elizard for allowing yourself to be the object of a family’s affection for an afternoon. We may not have been able to have a successful day without you.
Goblin Valley keeps its spot in my heart as one of my favorite places ever.
For President’s Day, we decided to take advantage of the days off school to explore Zion National Park a little bit. We were hoping southern Utah would give us beautiful weather and gorgeous views.
Unfortunately, the further south we drove, the worse the weather got. We ended up driving through a blizzard, but finally made it to Zion in one piece.
The weather was too rainy for hiking, so we drove around a bit to take in the mountains.
The only other thing we could do was head to our hotel and enjoy the indoor pool. The kids loved having the pool almost to themselves.
After swimming we got all tucked into our beds and fell right to sleep. Unfortunately Madison didn’t STAY tucked into her bed. She fell out of the bed at least a half dozen times and I had to keep putting her back. Silly girl.
The next day was everything we hoped for! The weather was perfect. The skies were blue. Zion was ready to be explored.
We hiked Canyon Overlook Trail first. That was a nice, easy hike and Madison loved being able to scamper on rocks.
Vacationing with a teenager can be…challenging. We’re never quite sure what mood our resident teen will grace us with each day. Luckily finding a cactus was just the diversion Brooke needed to keep her mind busy and happy as she hiked.
We made it to the overlook!
I had been warning people to watch out for puddles and ended up stepping in one myself. Brooke thought that was hilarious, so she made me reenact the scene.
We planned to catch the shuttle to take it further up the canyon, but we didn’t get a spot. We decided to hike Watchman Trail instead. This was a three-mile hike. The kids’ legs were already tired from the first hike, so there was a bit more grumbling this time around, but we all hiked to the top, enjoyed the view, and made it back down in one piece.
After their long day hiking, the kids were itching to get back into the hotel pool for another evening of swimming.
The next day was our last day at Zion, so we had to be sure to get a picture by the sign:
We drove up the canyon a little bit, but most of the kid-friendly hikes were closed, so we stayed in the car and just took in the beauty and grandeur of the mountains.
We drove through Kolob Canyon and were amazed at the beauty of the snow-flecked mountains.
And so a tradition was born. Once a month my Grandma hosts a dinner for all of her children and their families. My Mom and Grandma had heard all about my costume and wanted to see it in action so they made the October family dinner a dress-up affair and it’s been that way ever since. Everyone really got into it:
