Day 6—At Sea again, headed south

This post will be short and to the point. For some reason I awoke today (August 7, not the day I am writing about August 1) at 12:35 and could not get back to sleep so I am writing this quickly before I fall asleep.

Forgot to mention when I finished last night’s post that last Wednesday, the day of the glacier, July 30 was also my daughter Jenna and her husband Joel’s 14th wedding anniversary. Way back on Christmas when we had surprised the whole family with the cruise, Kathleen had also purchased a special dinner for just the two of them at Jamie’s Italian, one of Ovation’s specialty restaurants. We picked up the kids from their stateroom at 4:45 and they went to the dining room with us. We had an AWESOME time with just kids and Bob, Judy and their family at the next table. Then we took the kids to see the evening show, the comedian/juggler. Even though (thankfully) many of his jokes went over their heads, they loved him and we found him pretty funny as well. He’s a typical cruise ship entertainer and he says so and is proud of it. After the show we took the kids back to our stateroom for a little television before Mom and Dad picked them up. Jenna and Joel loved Jamie’s Italian and we loved having the kids to ourselves.

The next morning was a sea day. The kids slept in and we went to breakfast by ourselves. Joel was coming down with a cold so the morning was pretty quiet. I took the kids up to play another round of foosball and air hockey and do some arcade game. This was the first cruise we have ever taken where we spent more on air hockey and arcade games that on adult beverages for us. That’s a huge first.

We did lunch at Fish and Ships, Ovations fish and chips restaurant where they have a grand total of seven items on the menu. Three (fish and chips, chicken strips and chips and a fish sandwich and chips) are free and three (halibut and chips, popcorn shrimp and chips and lobster and chips) are available for an added cost. The seventh item on the list was a deep-fried candy bar for dessert. We stuck to the free stuff which was good and of course the kids had to try a deep-fried candy bar which only costs $1.

The afternoon was spent watching M1 and M2 surf on the Flowrider. (Explanation here: M1 is Mason, Bob’s grandson. He is 13 and we have known him since he was three. When our grandson was born eight years ago, he became M1 because our grandson is Mason as well, thus he is M2. And the Flowrider is RCI’s surfing simulator at the back of the ship.) M1 had been using it all week. He had started with the boogie board on his knees and by the end of the week he was doing stand-up surfing. We had gone to watch M1 surf a couple of days before as something to do with the kids one afternoon and M2 became convinced he wanted to surf too, if only on the boogie board. I will be totally honest here, I was not sure if he was going to be able to do it. He’s not the athlete M1 is but he blew me away when he just jumped in and kicked butt. By the end of the cruise he had gotten to where he could get up on his knees and surf with his hands up off the board. What an awesome kid. I am sure that Maylee would have been right there with them if she had been four inches taller and a year older.

After surfing, we headed off to formal night (not that formal) but the kids dressed up in what they had worn to one of their Dad’s work banquets and looked great. Mason and I split some escargot and Maylee spent dinner poking Grandma K and talking her ear off. All-in-all, it was one of my favorite days on board.

Here’s some pics with captions that are mostly Mason.