The Last Day

One last day at sea.

I don't know about the rest of my family, but when I woke up that last day of the cruise, I felt quite sad. Sad to have to go home to the cold. Sad to not have my bathroom cleaned for me a couple of times a day. Sad to have to cook my own food. Sad to say goodbye to the good times with my family.

I decided I didn't want to be in the sun at all. Hubby and I had breakfast with my mom and dad, then found places around the ship to read. We even tried to win a five carat sapphire. Grin. (We didn't win, of course. I never win anything.) We saw the movie Argo in the big theater on the ship.  (Missed the first fifteen minutes because of the aforementioned effort to win jewelry.) We both enjoyed the movie. We were college students when those events (American hostages in Iran) unfolded. We remembered bits and pieces of it, but mostly we were oblivious college students.

At our last dinner together, the wait staff honored my mom and dad's anniversary with a yummy piece of cake. (Mom and Dad passed it around for us all to get a taste.)

I just loved the smiles on my parents' face all week long!

Allan, our waiter, posing for a picture.

The fancy dessert for that night was Baked Alaska. The waitstaff made a big production of bringing the Baked Alaskas into the dining room. (I didn't get a decent photo of that so I won't subject you to the blurriness.) (Your welcome.)

Hubby joked about getting the half a cake that was left over and Allan, the waiter, jokingly put the serving plate in front of him. We had a good laugh.

After dinner we all went to the show in the big theater. The entertainer was an impressionist and was quite funny.

Most of us spent the rest of the evening getting our bags repacked. The cruise people collected the luggage from the hallway overnight so we didn't have to drag them off the ship. We claimed them in a warehouse after we disembarked. We were given colored-coded tags to put on the luggage. The luggage is then arranged in the warehouse according to color. Makes it pretty simple to find the luggage!

Once off the ship and through customs, we waited for a shuttle to take us to the airport. It was sunny and pretty warm (hello Florida). I was dressed in jeans (because I knew what I was flying back to) and wanted to wait in the shade. Hubby stood in the sun and motioned for me when the shuttle came.

Once off the shuttle came the usual: find the right line at the airport, get your boarding pass, pay a stupid amount for luggage (Hello -- who would travel with no luggage? I find that fee ridiculous), hold you breath as they weigh your luggage (we sneaked by with only two or three pounds to spare), figure out where the security check point is, stand in line, undress (well almost) to go through the metal detector, be annoyed with TSA, find your gate, then wait.

(Good grief! No wonder flying stresses me out!)

I sat down to drink some (stupidly expensive) water and call my son and Hubby went to get us some pizza. As I was talking, I saw my brother-in-law walk by! He and my sister were flying back to central Illinois. We sat and talked with them until it was time for us to board.

Once at the proper altitude, I plugged into my iPod and listened to one of my favorites: Christy Nockles. Hubby was laughing at me because I was lip-syncing to beat the band. ;) (At least I wasn't singing out loud!)

I had the shade on my window down most of the flight but opened it as I felt the plane descending into Minneapolis. Hubby and I looked out and groaned. We saw snow everywhere. What a let down!

We had a fabulous week and have both stated that we think my parents' were genius to come up with this idea of all of us helping them celebrate their 60 years of marriage by inviting all of us to go on a cruise with them.

THANKS MOM AND DAD!