Serenade

A couple of weeks ago, I posted our vacation pictures on Facebook.  My Aunt Vicki was quick to point out that I didn't include a picture of my feet.  She couldn't believe that I didn't take one, and she was right.  I took one.  I don't know why I have all of these feet pictures, but for some reason I find them interesting.  I was saving this particular picture for this blog, which I intended to post about a day or two after the pictures.  Now that some time has passed, I will probably have to give you the short version.  It goes like this.

The last week of September, we took a cruise.  Specifically, we took a Southern Carribean cruise on the Serenade of the Seas.  In addition to myself, Tiffany, and Ethan, were my sister, her husband, and their baby, and my grandmother and her best friend Patsy.  We all flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico and spent the night before getting on the big ship the next day.  I would have liked to have spent a little more time there, but I guess we will have to do that another time.  Fun fact:  We took a cruise in 2008 that was supposed to stop in San Juan, but we didn't make that particular port of call due to a hurricane.  Including my planned trip to New Orleans in 2005, that brings the total number of times hurricanes have screwed up my vacation to two.  This was our fourth time on a cruise ship, and also the fourth time with Royal Carribean.  It was the first time that we had to take a two year old with us.  This presents a whole new set of experiences.  The ship itself was gorgeous.  It wasn't the biggest ship we have been on, nor was it the smallest.  They layout was great, and getting around the ship required minimal effort.  The staff was extremely tolerant of the children.  While many people thought Ethan was cute, his cousin Murray practically had a fan club.  I thought eating in the dining room was going to be a disaster, but overall Ethan did extremely well.  He got to test out his tastebuds on things like lobster, prime rib, and leg of lamb.  Kids menus are for girls.  He ate extremely well the entire trip.  If memory serves, the itinerary was something like this: sea day, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Maarten, St. Croix USVI.  As we were somewhat limited on what we could do with the kids, we spent a lot of time at the beach.  Although I don't generally consider myself a beach person, we did have a pretty good time.  Ethan loved being in the water.  We took the kids to the zoo while we were in St. Maarten.  I think they used the term zoo a little freely.  It was a few chain link fences with some Carribean wildlife.  It was kind of fun though, and it was a nice break from the beach.  We also got to eat some pretty interesting island food in a few places, including something called fish wings.  I just did a quick google search on fish wings and came up with nothing, but I swear I didn't make it up.  They were delicious.  I know it has something to do with a fish that is native to that island.  I also bought a bottle of banana ketchup, which I intend to try soon.  I'll let you know.  At the end of the week, we were all exhausted.  It was a fun time, but it is always good to be home for a few days.  Tiffany was home for about 12 hours before she had to get up and get ready for work again.  I took two extra days off just for good measure.  I will also note that we had a ton of laundry after this trip, and after two loads the washing machine stopped working.  We had to order a new pump, so we lived around our piles of laundry for about a week.  We are now having trouble with the ice maker, and the fan in the wine fridge.  Apparently appliances are only made to last three and a half years.  Thanks to the washing machine incident, I now know a good appliance guy.  This past weekend was Granny's birthday.  I will discuss that in a future blog (probably).