Cruise

Jack and I had a great and relaxing cruise. Our boat traveled to Key West, Cozumel and Belize. We actually decided to relax and didn't even get off the boat in Cozumel. It was great being one of the few people on the boat that day- we had our pick of the lawn chairs and no lines for food!

The most interesting/funny things about our cruise was our table mates. For those of you that have cruised before, you know you get to decide before you go how big your table will be, ie how many strangers you will sit with. This is actually one of my favorite parts of a cruise- getting to sit with people you would never normally meet or spend time with from across the country. We asked to be at a table of 6 or 8 people so we were surprised when they sat us at a four person table. And usually they put you with people of like ages, so we were very surprised to learn our table mates were a 91 year old woman celebrating her birthday that week and her caregiver who we guess was about 65. We weren't really sure what to think when we sat down- this wasn't what we were imagining our new friends would look like. After about two minutes, Marilyn, the caregiver said "well, look at that woman, I hope she's part of the show." As I glanced at the inappropriately scantly clad woman passing by, I knew we were all going to get along fine. Our table mates proved to be constant entertainment with their non-stop chatter, the 91 year old's storytelling of the same stories every night with at least one crucial fact changing every night, their dancing at every opportunity and the drinking/shots they were doing. The only little problem was they wanted us to try all their food. Literally, all of it- even the soups. And it didn't matter if we had ordered the exact same thing, they wanted us to try theirs anyway. Most of you know Jack has many allergies but suddenly he was allergic to everything they had so he didn't have to try it. They didn't seem to notice he would eat the same thing he was "allergic" to the night before on the next day. I did take some for the team on that one because they weren't going to stop until one of us tried it all. Other than the food, it really was a good time and I've included their pictures, even the one of Ms. Ellie dancing at the 70s party on her 91st birthday. We asked them to take our picture but since Marilyn was insistent that our feet be included in the picture....the top of Jack's head didn't quite make the pictures (for the record, when I saw their only photography experience was with a CVS disposable camera I didn't think it was a good idea- Jack as usual had faith- misplaced this time).