Vacation Sunday (Aug 14): on the boat

 It took us a bit to get to sleep, even though it was late and we were super tired. Of course, we also
woke up early due to the time change. We lazed around for a while, got a muffin from the lobby,
pretended to take a nap, and were finally on our way.

Our Uber driver was a bit scary. If I had been the drivers around us I would have been rather upset.
That being said, he got us there safely and easily on time. We drove through the port area of Seattle
and while it was a whirl wind and poor tour, it was still fun to see. Coming up from the south Ben and I
were both surprised at how small the Sky Needle looked compared to the other buildings, but once we
were on the boat we saw that it was much farther north and that looking at it from the west made it
look set apart and taller.

Check-in went so smoothly. The only small issue was that an airport agent had ripped off a luggage tag
and the signage for getting new luggage tags wasn’t great. Then Ben had to go through two staplers
because the first didn’t actually have any staples. We had preordered our medallions that let them track
our every movement, and so got to skip a ton of lines.

Now, the app that they use is terrible. I’ll return to this later, but it wouldn’t let me (or Ben) upload my
vaccination card or proof of negative test. Ben was able to upload his stuff. Anyway, that put us in the
“blue” lane instead of the “green” lane. Well, this actually worked out to our advantage because the
blue lane had two groups of people and the green lane looked like it would take about a half-hour. So in
this case the bad app helped us. They verified all our info and said we could get on the boat!

We had lunch right away. I had a calzone with half an apple tart. They were both good, but not
amazing. We tried to watch our safety video through the app but it wouldn’t load. We finally got to our
room (in the very front of the boat) and the beds were twins because the app didn’t submit our
preference for a queen. (Now, we knew this could easily be changed, but again, the dumb app.)
We dropped off the backpack and went to explore. We were both surprised (quite literally) to see Mt.
Rainer. We weren’t expecting to see mountains and then there one was! We enjoyed finding other
mountains around the boat after that.

I ended up taking a nap after our tour. It’s also when Ben realized that our dinner reservations hadn’t
been saved and the person on the phone was very unhelpful. We decided to walk to guest services, and
a nice lady there found us a table at our desired time and we were able to get a reservation at one of
the nice restaurants, which had been completely booked when Ben talked to the person on the phone.
While we wouldn’t have gone hungry, it’s nice to have a reservation.

Dinner…was a bit interesting. The couple two tables down from us was obnoxious. As we sat down they were bickering with each other and then a manager came over and they complained about the wine for twenty minutes. A couple finally sat down between us and things got back to normal. The four of them talked about a lot of things but it was normal conversation topics. The food itself was delicious. A cold pineapple soup and some cod with mashed potatoes, carrots and green beans.

We found a place to play a game while watching the coastline and sunset and headed back to our room
to read. We fell asleep fairly quickly…it had been a long day and we weren’t used to the time
change yet.

Friday: sort of last day of summer vacation

...then school comes along just to end it.  (We're watching Phineas and Ferb and there's no way I can say "of summer vacation" without singing more of the theme song.)

Anyway, we still have a weekend left but it's still kind of the last day of summer.  It was an excellent summer.  There were a lot of vacations and a lot of games and more time with friends than previous summers.  Definitely the best summer in a while, although the last two summers were completely empty or scaled back due to COVID.  This also meant that I did a lot of packing and unpacking, but since I ignored most chores (besides food, kitchen stuff, and laundry) it worked out.

So today.  We took a bike ride to a donut shop.  It was 1.5 miles from home which isn't that far, but Joshua isn't solid on his bike yet.  We did it anyway.  He did fall on the way home, but we had two Band-Aids and the fall wasn't really that bad.  He thought he wanted to walk the rest of the way, but we were still a ways out so I told him to get back on his bike and he could do it!  I wasn't sure what I'd do if he decided to refuse, but luckily he didn't.  He was pretty much back to normal a few minutes later.

I also played more games with both kids today than in a normal day.  They asked, I said yes.  It worked well.

Thursday: errands

 We had several errands today, but they didn't take up too much time.

*Get more kitty food because I had a great coupon.  The boys pretty much spent the coupon on a new cat toy.

*Get a new drain spout and garbage can with a step at Lowes.  Both boys wanted to try the garbage can.  Isaac did it; no problem.  Joshua tried, and it wouldn't work.  It turned out every time it needed a weird jiggle before it'd work again.  I moved up to the slightly more expensive model.  Joshua tried it; no problem.  Isaac tried it; it wouldn't work.  Needless to say, I wouldn't recommend a Rubbermaid step-opening garbage can right now.  We left without one.

*Peanut store.  What more can I say?

*Scrapyard, which is the rock climbing place Isaac's about to start lessons at.  We went so that Joshua could see it and maybe change his mind about lessons.  As we were looking, someone says hi to me...we know each other a bit from Hope and see each other in the most random places.  Well, it turns out he's actually the owner and therefore once I told him the purpose of the trip let the kids climb for a few minutes.  Joshua had a great time and changed his mind to yes, so we signed him up right away.  The kids talked my ear off on the way home about the different holds and the small amount that they learned in the ten minutes that they climbed.

*Meet the teacher night.  It was not really that fun.  It was too crowded.  However, both kids successfully met and interacted with their teachers and found their classrooms which I guess was the main point.  By the time we got out it was on the late side.  I was planning on picking up dinner anyway, but by the time we were done with dinner it was almost 7:30pm.

In other news, while we were prepping the school supplies Joshua cut open the clorox wipes wrapping and had me put it on my head.  It was a pretty good fit, so I was just wearing it around.  I stepped outside to shake something out, only to realize there were people walking by while I was wearing this awesome hat.  The kids got a kick out of my embarrassment. :s

Wednesday: empty calendar

There was nothing on the calendar today!  Not even a birthday or a bill to pay or anything.

The boys wanted a stay-at-home day and I kind of gave in.  I made them go on a bike ride with me.  This is the first bike ride that we've taken as a trio and I though it was going to be a disaster, honestly.  Joshua's bike is rather slow and he still isn't a great rider.  I was afraid Isaac would go way ahead of us and that Joshua would fall down and give up due to a scrape.

But it went really well!  Isaac didn't go too fast and Joshua, while a bit unstable at times, didn't fall down.  Both of their bike seats were too low, but they've now been adjusted for the next ride.

Joshua built with Legos most of the day.  He finished his X-wing and started on a golden dragon.  I got to make the neck and part of the wings for it.

Birthday

I forgot to post a little bit about my birthday!  I got my presents on Monday when we were home.

The kids were super cute.  Joshua got me a gift (with his own money) about four months ago and has been anxiously waiting to give it to me.  Both of them also got stuff last week that they chose to give me - a sea glass rock and some stroopwaffles.  Isaac pulled me aside later to make sure I realized those where his stroopwaffles that he could have eaten but chose to give them to me.

Ben also gave me some Lego sets.  They're ones I've been wanting, but they've also been sitting in the closet for several months and so they weren't exactly a surprise. :)

Tuesday: home again

It took me forever to get to sleep last night.  I thought that with the travel day I had maybe beat jet-lag, but it was apparent that I hadn't.  The morning went better than expected though, and I was able to get my afternoon nap.

We went to the library and went to the store for a few groceries and school supplies.  There were plenty of school supplies still, but at the same time they had been well picked over and a few things were missing.  Isaac's list had an optional stapler on it and we found the mini staplers.  Joshua was so excited about them that he got one for home too.  Also, as a whole, I was impressed with the prices.  The most expensive things were the tissues and wipes by far.

I biked to karate by myself because this is the last month for Isaac (at least for a bit) and he is done.  It really was a good choice in the end because we worked on forms for the whole time and it's something you need to care about a little bit.

Monday: home

We're home!  We got home late last night...I blogged during the vacation but couldn't add pictures, so they'll slowly be coming through.

In the meantime, Isaac and Joshua came home this morning.  Oh, it was wonderful to see them.  It was wonderful to be kid-free too, but I did miss them.  Joshua told me tonight that seeing me again was the best part of his day.

We all talked for a while and then went to Urban Air with one of Joshua's friends.  On the way in Joshua called me "Grandma."  Oops!  It was silly.

The rest of the day we relaxed and did some work.  Slowly getting back to normal.