Cruise Departure and Sea Day 1 & 2

Instead of posting a very lengthy story of our cruise, I plan to write small installments, both to help me get it done, and to not wear you all out from all the fun we had!

Jacqui, Kayla and Grandad #1 flew into San Diego on Saturday even after a bumpy ride down from a very snowy Washington. The airport in Spokane actually was shut down for over an hour with us all in the plane on the runway waiting to take off because of the snow. Grandma was worried :) but we made it without a problem. In San Diego it was gorgeous around 50, the natives were VERY bundled up in coats, gloves, scarves, boots, etc and we were loving the warm sunshine! We walked around Old Town that evening and retired to our room, where to Jacqui's delight there was a full wall mirror... She made the most of the evening talking to herself and performing in front of the mirror, it was a great show!

Sunday we headed down to the bay and the cruise ship and boarded before Levi, G & G got there. It was a gorgeous ship and we were all amazed at how beautiful it was on the inside, as well as how big. The Atrium

G & G and Levi boarded and we were so excited to see them all! We spent some time on the Lido deck eating lunch and waiting for the rooms to be ready for the next guests... At the appropriate time, we found our rooms, cozy and very nice and met our room attendant Joseph, what a great guy he was! We walked around the ship and explored some, and watched the loading of the ship, what a process to get ready to be at sea for a week! Finally the ship left port, we danced on the deck to the YMCA party music, and we went and had dinner in the Empire Room. Our waiter was a guy named Arman from the Philippines and was such a fun spirited and genuine guy. We were amazed at the food choices and made the most of it, trying a little something of everything!
After an eventful day, we went to bed with the ship rolling pretty good because of some strong head winds...
Sea Day #1 was quite eventful. We of course had breakfast on the Lido Deck and set out to further explore the ship. We played a round of mini golf on deck 11 that was quite entertaining. Jacqui was introduced to Camp Carnival and had a blast making her own cruise shirt, making friends with other kids, and working on arts and crafts. I absolutely LOVE that the ship has free babysitting during daytime hours and offers lots of fun things for kids to do... what a blessing and a breather for all the parents on board! Jacqui loved hanging out with them, and was very proud to show off what she had worked on during the day. While she was away playing on Camp Carnival, the adults had a chance to find some fun games and played various games of trivia as a team all over the ship. We had so much fun trying to come up with answers to Trivial Pursuit, TV show trivia, and other trivia...
Sea Day 1 had our first elegant evening formal wear. We got all gussied up to head off to dinner. Might I say our family cleans up very nicely! Grandad #1 even had bought a jacket for the special occasion and Levi got a couple of really nice new suits! We looked sharp and really enjoyed dressing up just for fun. We also took many pictures with the ninja photographers all around the ship. After our fine dining experience we went to our first Carnival show, 'Jazz Hot'; and it was amazing! There was singing and dancing, and all with the ship of course rolling with the waves. The cast put on a great show that evening and we were exhausted by the end of the day. We returned to our cabin to sleep and found a cute little surprise waiting for us wishing us a good night's rest...
We all slept hard and in the morning got up and headed to breakfast on the Lido Deck. We planned out a day full of trivia and Jacqui swam her little heart out all day. She also got to play on the water slide on board as I worked on my tan and worked on homework... In the afternoon we all had a special British tea time which was quite lovely.
And again to the Empire Dining Room for dinner with a twist. A magician showed up to our table and put on quite a show for Jacqui, pulling balls and candy out of her ears. We were all laughing so hard at her amazement and then her belief that she was indeed magical. She was making items disappear and reappear the rest of the trip! During dinner we also were surprised to see our waiter come out of his shell... They put on some music and he hopped on a table and danced for the entire room. It was GREAT and so memorable!~ After dinner we went to a hypnotist show that was a hoot, and then back to bed for a good night's rest...

Cruisin' Crosses

On deck of the CARNIVAL SPIRIT... What a trip!
Our first dress up night... Our family cleans up pretty good!
Well, Hello all! We just debarked from our family cruise with the grand'rents. It was fantastic. What a fun family and special, memorable time!. I will be posting some of our stories over the next few weeks, but wanted to put a few pics up for everyone to enjoy. The rest of you all were absolutely right... it was a fun and wonderful trip. Beautiful Acapulco with our Taxi Driver Alexandro
I think one of the best parts was that there was no internet or phones, so there wasn't the opportunities for distractions for those of us attached to our work (dad!). Anyways we had a great trip and are dreading returning to the freezing conditions in Washington at the end of this week... Bah Humbug! Hope you enjoy the pics. Love you all!
The last dress up night with our Amazing waiter Arman

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you all are enjoying our snow across the state! We are having 'almost' record lows on the eastern side of the state with -5 this morning taking Jacqui to school Brrrr! We've got about 4-5 inches of snow right now, with expectations of more all through the weekend. Hope you all have a safe, happy, and healthy Thanksgiving. We have you all in our thoughts and our prayers. Please pray for us that we have a safe trip with all this inclement weather, and you will hear from us and get pics when we get back! :) Love you all!

Happy Veteran's Day

Once again it is that time of year. Please thank every veteran you know for their service and sacrifice for our country.

Thank you Grandad and Granpa Spence for your service, and thank you Hank for yours... Our nation is made great by the sacrifice offered by so many for the rest of us to live in freedom. Once again, thank a vet and appreciate everything they have fought for that we often take for granted. Thank you Veterans!

Coach of the Week ~ Sean!!!

Just thought you might be able to put this up on the Cross Blog. We are so proud of Sean. And we will miss him...a lot. Sometimes he becomes the actual glue that holds some of us together. We love him. Anyway...here is the link. What a cool picture! Maybe they can get to the play offs again and can play Will Smith's son, Wayne Gretsky's son, and Joe Montana's son. :) They have a play off game tonight at home. But tickets are of course unavailable. Matt and I wanted to go so badly. Vic

Check out the link below to see Sean's team and him as Coach of the Week. Way to go Sean!

http://www.skylinegridiron.com/index.php

Coach Sean

http://www.skylinegridiron.com/index.php
Here is the link about Sean!

STOMP

Hey all, just had to post a quick note. Hank and I went to STOMP last night and it was phenomenal! I absoluetely loved it. If you ever have the opportunity to watch this show, take it! It is an 18 year old Broadway production created in Britain from a street percussionist. Working and living on the street you use anything you can find to 'beat on' to get the rhythym going and this show combines different random objects to put on a heckuva show; garbage cans, sinks, lighters, match boxes, plastic buckets, paint cans, innertubes, etc. Just wanted to sing its praises and encourage you all to see it if you can. NEAT!

Check out the link if you'd like to see a brief video of them in action...
http://www.stomponline.com/tickets.php

Trick or Treat

We had a pretty fun day. I took Hank and Jacqui to a surprise date at the FOX theater to see Bugs Bunny and the Symphony. It was a fun show and lots of the audience were dressed up for Halloween. Jacqui chose to dress up as Hannah Montana this year, complete with long blond hair and sparkle boots. After the show we picked up Lyrik, Jacqui's friend and went to the Gonzaga dorms to go Trick or Treating. Lyrik was a cat, and soon into the evening turned into 'Hannah Montana's cat' and that is why she had the gloves and feather boa ~ MEOW! I love that Gonzaga provides trick-or-treating for the kids inside the dorm. It is safe, warm, indoors, and there is not so much walking around outside. The girls loved it and came home with a haul of candy... As usual. They also got to make their own cookies in one of the girls' dorms. What a treat! Jacqui started out with her long blond wig, but tired of it quickly as it was itchy to her neck. It was a fun evening and we enjoyed the family time. They were both worn out by the time we finished going to just 3 different dorms. They sure were cute explaining how they are Hannah Montana and her cat and how they are both 6, and all the other things only 6 year olds can explain to undergrad college students.

Also, just for fun I encouraged a bunch of my coworkers to dress up in Star Trek theme with me on Friday and included a pic of 2 of us. We had all kinds of fun running around with phasers, communicators, and tricorders. We have a great crew and now the ongoing joke is that they all tease me as the 'Captain of our Starship' and I assign out 'the Con' when I'm off. FUN!

Fun fall days

Sorry we haven't posted anything in awhile. It has been busy busy busy here! We finished installing windows in our house, as well as the rental up here... 16 new windows total. It was a fun project and interesting to install. We took out all the old ones and had to figure out how to make the new ones fit! The rental house at over 100 years old, is not quite square, so despite our measurements to buy windows that would fit; it was not necessarily that easy... What a learning process!

Jacqui has been doing wonderfully in school. She had a presentation this week that her whole class worked on about the Day of the Dead and celebrations in Mexican culture. She is learning a lot and really getting into reading now as she becomes more sure of herself. She has been excited about getting to have music class and PE. She is super excited to pick out a book from the library every 2 weeks. She doesn't have much to say about school but "I just learn reading and writing and math, that's it" but she's happy and enjoying it so I count my blessings!

She has taken on learning to roller skate as we have 'skate days' at school and her friends from her old school and new school love skating. She is getting a little more comfortable walking on wheels, but it is a process :) She is finally brave enough to keep trying when she falls though, and for that I am grateful! We took Hank with us the last time, and it was HIS first time skating also. So we all had a ton of fun!

Hank and I went to watch the Broadway South Pacific show. It was fantastic and a great show! We had sushi that was delicious and got to have a grown-up night out. I love the old musicals and Hank liked the show since it had military stuff. I'm getting him into some of the 'finer arts' type shows that come to Spokane, he's not crazy about it, but he tolerates going with me and is a good sport.

We've been blessed to have friends and family up to visit us now that we are not traveling around the state with school back in session. Grandma Quack Quack came up and spent her birthday with us. We went to Green Bluff to have cider, pumpkin donuts, and caramel apples. It was a gorgeous day and we had so much fun Jacqui has wanted to go back every weekend I have off. So the next time we took Lyrik up to the corn maze and her and Jacqui played around for a couple of hours and of course had caramel apples. Then this weekend Hank and I were craving a nice Green Bluff grilled cheese sandwich, so we headed out in the wet, rainy weather; only to find out they didn't stock bread this weekend. :( So we had some of their homemade chili and of course Jacqui had another caramel apple. :) It was wet and cold, but it was a fun day and we enjoyed spending family time together.

I finished my 1st class back for my Master's and ended up getting 101% out of the class ~ not bad! My new class is a little more challenging, but there are some great assignments and I'm excited about some of the books we have to read.

Jacqui, Hank, and I are going to Gonzaga to go trick-or-treating at the dorms tomorrow, so I will post some pics for you guys of this year's Halloween.

Love you all and hope all is well and you have a safe Halloween!

This free digital slideshow generated with Smilebox

Sacramento Training...

Hey all! Well most of you know I am in Sacramento this week doing training for work that is going great! I am super passionate about this new program and bringing it to the staff of the VA. It is called Mental Health First Aid and I have proposed to my superiors to bring it to the VA and teach it. They have given me the funding and support to initiate this program, and so I am STOKED!

On a separate and more extraterrestrial note ;) I got out of class today early to practice for my presentation on Friday and I chose to utilize my time wisely... by going to the California Aerospace Museum - obviously a mental health worthy use of my time.
Starship hallway to connect exhibits and bridge and telepad...

They currently are hosting a Star Trek Exhibition and to Hank's dismay I spent the afternoon on the Enterprise Bridge and transporter pad! It was AWESOME!!! A couple of pics for you guys to enjoy ( even though I'm sure none of you are nearly as impressed as I was -- well maybe Hank ).

The Bridge

Space the Final Frontier... These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before... Live Long and Prosper! First Officer Spock's station

I even got to sit in Captain Kirk's chair (like the best thing EVER! Anyway, it was a neat and exciting experience and I loved it. Captain Kayla!!!

It is amazing how much of today's technology came from the ingenuity and random ideas of this small little show from the 60's. Some day we will explore 'outer-space' and "Go where no man has gone before". AWESOME!!!The Telepad -- Beam me up Scotty!

San Juans Labor Day 2010

Personalize a digital scrapbooking design

Tara's Summer Wedding

The other exciting thing that Jacqui and I were involved in during August was our good friend Tara's wedding. She had it planned and personalized down to the flip flops for the reception! She hand made nearly everything, including toothpicks with flowers on top for the dessert table. In her fashion, and with her vision, Tara created an amazing and beautiful wedding. She was married in her parent's back yard, and they really presented their house and yard in an amazing fashion. The yard was perfectly manicured. Once we (I) got all the chairs (165) set up and all the 100 something yards of fabric draped around... it was time for the ceremony. It was lovely and went off without a hitch. I don't have all the pics from the wedding, just a few that I took with my own camera and they happen to be all of the girls... Jacqui was the flower girl and Alex's (the groom) step-brother was the ring bearer. I was one of the 4 bridesmaids. Tara had a gorgeous gown with a removable insert to enhance the bling! The colors were black, white, and fuchsia. It was beautiful and turned out to be a perfect day, even though we were pretty worried that morning because of the 30% chance of rain. What an event and what a gorgeous setting!

Scrapbook design generated with Smilebox

First Day of School...

Well, since we are a family of teachers... I know this is super busy time of the year for everyone, getting the classrooms ready, meeting the kids, and assembling some kind of order in a chaotic classroom :) I am not a teacher (thank goodness!) but now have my baby in 1st grade! I can't believe she is already in 1st grade and all day school... She is SO excited to start; and this year will hold many firsts for both of us... She is going to a new school from last year, has a new teacher (of course) and will have all new kids in her class since she changed schools. She is also changing programs, which I am super excited about and will be in the Spokane Montessori program. We were able to meet her teacher early this week and check out the classroom. They have a turtle and some other little creatures that the kids take care of. Jacqui is stoked to be in all day school and is so far LOVING it! She did mention on Friday that the 2nd day of school was "way more complicated that the first day, I actually had to work on stuff today mom!" It was great!
Since I'm working day shift now, Hank and I are juggling schedules to try to get her to and from school... Jacqui opted to be in the before school program at the school. It is a great program, and I can drop her off before I go to work, since we don't start school here until 9am. They will feed her, help her with her homework if needed, and generally just hang out with other kids in the mornings before school for working parents. It is a neat program that Spokane offers, and Jacqui wanted to be AT school, not at day care, so it worked out well :)
These are her pics of her posing for her first day of school:) She is excited as you can see... Love the colors this year, the 80's are coming back! She has her 'Twinkle Toe' shoes on, apparently a hot commodity for her age group (gotta love TV marketing!). She loves her teacher, loves her class and is already making friends. She said she is the tallest person in her class. I'm not sure if this is accurate as she is in a 1-3 grade classroom, but I do know she had a few inches on many of the kids we saw at orientation... she's growing and will pass me up quite soon I'm sure!
Miss you all and hope the beginning of your school year is going well and settling down!

Grandkids Weekend 2010

Well August has flown by and I haven't had the chance to catch up the blog with pics... So I'm going to try to get some posts in, in the next few weeks of what has been happening!
Earlier in August was our annual 'Cousins Only' weekend with Grandad and Grandma and it was a perfect weekend in Walla Walla for us to all spend time together. The weather was beautiful, and we made the decision to take our pics earlier in the day, instead of in the scorching sun and dusk of the evening -- which has been a challenge in past years :) We all shared stories, laughed, and cried, and generally just had a good time being TOGETHER. We also had a great surprise with Levi showing up from Arizona... Grandma cried :) It was a great weekend! A small slide show of some of our great pics... We are an entertaining, performing family!

Digital slideshow customized with Smilebox

Some of our favorite Priest Lake Pics

The explorers discover Upper Priest Lake!

Christa & Kayla enjoying the boat ride to Upper Priest Lake.

The future Olympic gold medal swimmer.

Jacqui on Uncle Jim's boat!

Kayla, Katie, Jim, Diana, Christa & Jacqui at Elkins with Chimney Rock in the background.

Thanks for having all of us over for a great time Dad and Diana! Great memories!

Priest Lake

AAAHHHHHH! The serenity of the lake and a hot summer day... Jacqui and I were thrilled to be invited back to spend a week with the Fied's and stay at Uncle Jim's new AWESOME cabin! This year we had a special treat and we had our own Huckleberry Loft that we got to 'camp out' in. It was a perfect size for Jacqui and we loved our little area:)We spent at least an hour, sometimes over 4 hours every day swimming in the lake. Jacqui is a little fish and Lucy even got in on the swimming this year. We all dipped in the lake and enjoyed the refreshing cool water. I loved getting up and going directly to the lake for a few hours just to relax and swim (I don't know where Jacqui gets her love of the water!). We also took some great boat rides with Uncle Jim. Mike, Sean, Uncle Jim, and Kayla attempted to wakeboard... they were all pretty successful, except Kayla who flew right out of the bindings for the board. I will totally be ready for an encore next year though! I will be working on it! Jacqui and Kayla sang karaoke at Elkins, Jacqui picked "Beautiful Girls" to sing, which is a hip hop song about a girl leaving a boy and he is suicidal -- not probably the most appropriate song, but she loved it and has been waiting ALL year to sing that song and there was NO talking her out of it! She was tickled and is working on figuring out what song she will sing next year... I loved having 5 days completely away from work. My cell phone barely worked up there (which was actually great!) and we had absolutely no schedule except to play hard and enjoy the scenery and the lake attitude and atmosphere. We both got some new sweatshirts for school this year. It was a much needed vacation, and a perfect break for our busy summer.

One other thing, Jacqui LOVED spending so much time with the cousins and Uncle Jim. All that attention had her performing her heart out. With the encouragement from Katie and Christa she has become quite the drama queen and quite the story teller... So if we see you, ask her about her trip, or about s'mores, or swimming with Lucy, or learning to play 'Oh Heck!' and she ought to have a great story for you :) We really loved seeing everyone and can't wait to see everyone for our cousin's weekend coming up. Love you guys and thanks for the great and memorable week for the summer of 2010~!