VoaL #3

Good morning! Welcome to Day #3! Today is a sailing day which means we have nothing better to do than rest and relax on the ship. We had no goals other than to write postcards to the boys!

Dave and I started off the day hanging out on the deck and writing those cards which presented quite a challenge because writing 5 unique postcards when you have been on the ship for less than 24 hours is not an easy feat. There is only so much you can say about the ocean and they really didn't need to know their parents were hanging out in a bar in toga's all night! We didn't see the first class passengers for a while. Apparently they were flown off in the NCL helicopter to see the first class islands that the rest of us didn't know about. Where they have a luau and Flash Gordon (the ships shopping Guru) would give them the chance to buy diamonds and emeralds because apparently that is what first class people go on a cruise to do. Buy jewelry.
That is not really what they did. I saw their pictures. They played chess (so cerebral) and shuffle board (so cruisy) We did see the other steerage passengers and we had a good laugh at Brandon's expense. Poor man is married to a sun worshiper who wanted to hang out on deck in the heat of the sun. He decided to go get some soft serve ice cream. Unfortunately the soft serve was 2 decks down. By the time he came back up the ice cream was dripping down his arm and he was a sticky mess. He thrust the ice cream out to Tricia breathlessly saying "hurry eat this!" Only to be told she didn't want any! You know he is suffering when every time he passed us (sitting in the shade, writing postcards) he would ask how much longer until church starts! It was Sunday you see and when you have Cherie as your mom she is not going to let you forget who you are or why you are here. (not really why you are here on the cruise but why you are here on the earth) So at 1:00 we all met for "church" in Brad's suite. It reminded me of all the past Family Home Evenings from 20 years ago. The same cast of characters with a few new crazy characters added to the mix. It was a great and short lesson that Mom gave but I left a bit discouraged because I realized that all of those dreams I have of my kids maturing and actually sitting around and participating in a deep gospel discussion and will NEVER HAPPEN! Maybe it is all in that word maturing! hee-hee! Must they always complain or crack a joke? Sheesh. Kids these days. Sorry Mom!

After church we took off to the rock climbing wall.Here am I not climbing because of my crippling fear of harnesses that make me feel like I am wearing a very unflattering diaper that may or may not give me a permanent wedgie. Or maybe it was my fear of heights. Both work for me. Fearless Folks! Dave.Here is someone who apparently is planning on giving Tricia a run for her money in the next Best Family Legs Contest! I wonder who it could be?It's Andrew! Good luck with the contest Andrew! We will be rooting for you. Tricia has held that title all too long. (She puts the whole thing on and judges it without telling any of the rest of us)
Jenn's first climb.
Haley!And Mitch!

After rock climbing the girls took off to the Spinnaker Lounge for our Salsa class! The boys went to participate in the Basketball Tournament. The class was hilarious! When we got there there were about 30 women and 15 men. So we learned the basic steps and then they told us to partner up. I partnered up with a woman who was honestly doing her best to not wear a stitch of clothing over her very large bosoms. I know it is actually correct to just say bosom but with something this size it has to be plural! I was DYING! And I am a girl. I am pretty sure I was the only one in the room not watching my feet because in order to look down I would have to look past those!
Thanks goodness the B-ball tournament was lame so the boys showed up! They tried hard to catch up with our amazing steps but it was difficult because with the couple teaching us it was not overly obvious which one was the man so they didn't know which person to follow! Obviously I was the only one taking pictures because Dave and I are not in the pictures but we were out there making Salsa! At least that is what Dave thought we were going to be doing!
Mom and Alli watching us dance. Laughing. Not a good sign.

Here are Andrew and Jenn. No dancing for them because apparently they can't wait to get to the SLIDE!You remember the first day that we all stood in front of the slide to get our pictures taken. (still don't know why) Well it was time to get a little bit more up close and personal!

Here it is in all its majesty! Wow.

Here we have Andrew and Jenn. Discussing their plans for the slide. "So what do you think? Do we want to do this?"
Jenn "Well, I don't know let's see if we can figure this out. It looks like you start way up there..." and you go around and around and end up way over there." "What do you think?"Andrew "Goody. I gotta try that! Where's Mitch? I wanna tell him about this!"Mitch "I don't know Andrew. It's awfully high my goodness I'm so nervous my heart is going to jump out of my chest! Let's have Brandon go first !"Brave Brandon. Actually Brandon was the first to experience how you could sit facing down a steep slope with slippery water pushing at your back and not move at all! So for the next hour everyone tried to perfect the best approach to actually sliding quickly down the slide! Here they are discussing their different techniques. Haley, Mitch, Andrew, Dave, Brandon and Jenn tried many different methods. This we call the Classic. Really slow. The Pike. Not much better. This is called the Twist. Pathetic.

Finally Dave stumbled upon "The Ball" Mainly you grab hold of your knees and try to make a tight ball and most important don't let your swimsuit touch the slide. Needless to say the girls never got it and the boys got their backs rubbed raw. Not the most flattering position but they sure had a lot of fun. You could tell when Dave finally was successful because he finally managed to make a big enough splash at the end of the slide to soak the family sitting at a nearby table.As you can tell Dave was not having any fun at all! Silly slide.
Meanwhile up on the deck Tricia and I had a real shock. We were up sitting in our deck chairs watching the "kids" play on the slide when Tricia gasped. Something horrible had occurred. I don't want you to panic. But a lady died. Right by us! It was horrible. Here is a picture that we took to help Horatio Caine and the CSI Miami team out with their investigation. Please scan forward if you are faint-hearted.
SEE ! Dead I tell you. I have no idea how long Dead Lady had been there but they were both beet red! She did eventually get up and leave so you will be relieved to know she wasn't all the way dead. However every time we saw her we would whisper. Dead Woman Walking! Also if you ever fall asleep with your mouth open we will yell at you DEAD LADY! Well after we conquered the slide Mitch and Dave discovered the ping pong table and attempted to play. It was hilarious. Whoever thought that it would be a good idea to put the tables on the open deck on a ship traveling at 40 knots was not the best planner. Mitch was hitting into the wind and he would honestly hit the ball as hard as he could and it would go up and curve back toward him. Dave on the other hand would barely touch it and it would fly over Mitch's head. It looked very frustrating but they kept it up for quite a while. There was a gorgeous sunset that night! We headed off to the show for that night. There is a strange phenomenon that happened every time we went to the show. I would look down the row and everyone would be holding their cameras and would be perusing through their pictures from that day. It was quite a shock when Dave was glancing through our pictures and came upon Dead Lady for the first time! The show that night was great! It was a tribute to Frankie Valle and the Four Seasons. These 4 men sang the Four Seasons songs! They sounded fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Mitch and Haley! They enjoyed the show also. Mitch especially appreciated their dancing in the song "Walk Like a Man" where they didn't actually walk like men. Haley ran down and had her picture taken with them all! We had a few minutes to kill before our dinner reservation so we stopped by Bar City to participate in the Name that Broadway Tune Game! We totally rocked the house! But then we had to leave for dinner. We would have taken the grand prize which I think was alcohol of some sort. Bummer.This night also was a hallmark of sorts because we broke out the outfits! Remember we had given each other gifts to be worn on the cruise. Well Mom got to wear hers first so here she is in her lovely knitted dress! We were thrilled when she matched the decor so well at the restaurant that night!We ate at the Indigo Room and we had a delightful time! I remember laughing until I almost cried but I stopped myself because B. Rad would have mocked me hard for doing that again! After dinner Jenn went and prepared for her big night! Here she is decked out in the choir dress heading into the Bliss Lounge for KARAOKE NIGHT! Now this is our first experience with a Karaoke night and now any other Karaoke night will pale in comparison. Let me tell you a few highlights before I get to the Higher Highlights! First song I think we heard was from a man called Digger. We learned his name well because we heard from him a lot! The first song we heard him sing was "Sweet Caroline" which you may recall was the one B. Rad sang at the Bon Voyage party. I think B. Rad may have been a bit disappointed that he would not be able to do an encore performance but being the great sport he is he gave a very loud shout out as Digger was announced. Digger walked passed us and Brad yelled out "Bring it home, Digger!" That sent us cascading into a bout of laughter that did not stop until we fell asleep. And I am pretty certain that I giggled a few times in my sleep remembering some things we saw and heard!
So B. Rad told us all that we had to perform a song! I don't know why we listen to him but we all eagerly flipped through the playlist for a song that we would recognize. We picked a song for Jenn. Bust a Move. I cannot begin to express in words how she ROCKED this song. In a prom dress. Getting down. People were shrieking with delight! It was funnier than the dead lady.
Next up was Mitch! We had him do "If I Were a Rich Man" He was fantastic also. He had the shimmy shake of Tevye's down! He also had the old ladies swooning! Next up was Dave! He did "Any Dream Will Do" from Joseph. What can I say we are a musical family! He did the most dramatic, soulful, mocking version that has ever been done. He was dipping the microphone stand for goodness sakes. Next up the girls sang "I Will Survive" Holy toledo that is a long song. Afterward we asked the boys how we did and they said we looked like we were singing at a missionary farewell. Although I have never heard that song sung at a mission farewell. In between all of our songs were other people from all over. Digger being a favorite! Shelly from Miami was actually pretty good. Then there were the Hoochies from Minnesota. They were just wrong in every possible way! One of our absolute favorites was Mary Kate from Montreal! She sang songs that I had never heard and now I can't get them out of my head. "I go walking after midnight". I can guarantee that after reading that everyone who was there is now singing that song! She sang it every night.
One song that she sang sounded vaguely familiar and as I read the words I realized that it was Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up"! I love that song but she was singing it 2 full octaves higher and not quite on the right pitch! Hilarious!
Finally it was getting late and DJ Patrick! (Yep we totally know his name!) was calling for the last entries. We were all yelling at B. Rad because he made us all sing and hadn't done anything himself. So he hurried and wrote down "Private Eyes". He told Andrew to come sing it with him. So he gets up there and the song starts and he realizes that he has no clue what the melody is except on the chorus. So he just stands there for the entire verse and tells everyone he is just waiting for the chorus. The best was his "helper" Andrew goes up to help him and realizes he does not know this song at all so he just stands in the background with his arms folded. I think he looked like B. Rad's bodyguard. He did do a great job on the chorus though! hilarious. It was a great note to end on! With so many memorable performances we became rather well known on the ship. For the rest of the week people would come up to us and ask if we were "Utah" from the Bliss Lounge. The funniest was when one of the hoochies who Dave called Shemale because she looks and dresses like a man but isn't. Anyway Shemale came up to Jenn the next morning and said she was great. Then she turned to B. Rad and told him he was a train wreck! I can kind of see the similarities. All it needs is a brother in the background "helping"! So after these fun moments we left the bliss lounge and started heading to our staterooms. On the way we walked past this big porthole window. Jenn sat down so we could take her picture and we told Andrew to jump in there! What started out as a nice shot turned into one of those awkward prom photos! Andrew's tilting of the head kills me! Under the Sea Dance '10