So our second week on our cruise, was a lot more of the same, fun!! But halfway through the cruise, a crew was at our house filming a video for a scholarship admission. The woman is a friend of one of our missionaries, and she needed a historic house. Elder Bartholomew, as was, will send a copy of the finished product.
And here we are on ship .... Somehow my pics got mixed up and out of order, some from Barb, some from Scott and some of my own. So just trust that all of these pics represent things we did on our cruise, even some from last week, and I will just caption them.
This is me eating sushi with two forks, as I was shown by a crew member, as they don't provide chop sticks.
Here I am getting my lesson a day previously.
The large theater on board was home to several types of events. There were EXC events, where the cruise director gave programs, mostly historic, about subjects related to the Caribbean. There were dance programs, and music programs, a movie, and we even gathered here for our tours on shore days.
Just a cute picture that I borrowed from Charlie's Insta page.
The two photos above are of cooking classes done by the ever entertaining cruise director and one of the chefs on board. We attended two of these.
These dancers were two of four who were called The Mexican Ambassadors.
These three pictures are from one of the tours when we stopped at Huatulco, Mexico. A family shears, dyes, makes yarn and weaves rugs. The first two pictures show how dyes are made. The woman shown in the third picture is showing how they are woven.
At another stop on the same country side entrepreneurs tour, a man showed us his cactus farm, and we saw all the various ways that cactus can be eaten. I'm about to bit into fried cactus leaves, cactus scrambled eggs, and cactus salsa in a home made tortilla. I just took a bite, but Dad ate the rest.
Another stop on the same tour had this woman showing us the traditional way to make and fry tortillas, then we all got to eat ...
A tamale she had just made. They were delicious, and just had a simple black bean filling.
Here were are back at the ship.
Our last stop was in Puerto Vallarta. We got off the ship and first went to Walmart. There was a small area that was essentially a dollar store or 20 peso store.
Crazy eh. Here I am at the flea market which was just a few feet from where the ship was docked. It reminded me of the flea market in Helsinki that is on the dock where cruise ships dock there.
Dad found a pirate friend.
Maybe he is from the pirate ship we'd seen earlier.
Here's a pretty sunset we enjoyed that evening.
We played shuffle board several times on board.
and dined in the dining room every night.
These gentlemen are Miguel and Jonny, both of whom have two daughters and a wife at home. Miguel would end his 6 month contract and be able to go home when we did. He was so excited to see his family. Fortunately they both face time daily with their children.
This is the cake Dad got on his birthday.
This is the collage that Trevor posted of Dad on line, along with a lovely testimonial for his birthday.
These are the chairs that sat on the landing of the elevators on our floor. I thought they were fun, and had Barb take a picture of them the last day.
This is another one that I thought was fun.
As we disembarked we happened to be next to one of the singers in a performing group called Jukebox Rogues that sang lots of vintage tunes. They were very good, and we loved them. We especially liked this young man, because we thought he looked like and had similar moves to Trevor's. He and his cohorts are all from Britain, and we were so surprised that he was so short. We never caught that vibe on stage. He is only 23, which was also surprising.
Now I'll show you some great pictures from the cruise, many of them from last week, that I downloaded from Barb's phone in the airport in San Diego today. This one is from the port in Ft. Lauderdale.
An earlier picture at dinner, on a formal evening.
Hot tubbing.
In the Sauna.
In the Crows Nest.
In the Panama Canal.
Going through one of the lock.
This is a picture Dad took in Puerto Vallarta
The Panama Temple,
All of us in Panama City.
Games at Dinner.
Pickle Ball on board.
We loved this picture of us at our final formal night with the outfits we had bought in Puerto Villarta at the flea market. Randy took it. Did he do a good job?
After leaving the ship in San Diego, we walked over to the Hyatt to see Randy's cousin, Nick and is Lori's son, who works there. That was fun.
A quote that spoke to me this week, I thought I'd share ... as I finish up we are in the airport, soon to board our plane home. We had a wonderful time, but are ready to get back to real life. I know others of you have cruises planned this year, and I hope you all love them as much as we have.
