I love it when we're crusin' together

Now for the moment you've all been waiting for...I WENT ON A LDS SINGLES CRUISE!!!!! Yes I did and I really can't believe I went either. I had been feeling restless and I really wanted to travel. This year was going to be my and Clint's 9yr wedding anniversary and he promised me that this was the year we would go on a cruise to celebrate. I thought long and hard and decided that dang it, I am still going on a cruise with or without him and since it was most definitely without him that I was pretty sure that he would be going along with me in spirit. On facebook I noticed an ad for the 1,000 Saints at Sea. So I checked it out and found out that it was a LDS singles cruise for 5 days to Cabo San Lucas Mexico. It sounded perfect, so I talked to my BFF/fellow widow/soul sista Jami and we decided that we were so going together.

I had lots to figure out before the cruise but the most important thing on my plate was finding people to watch the kids, people that I trusted 100% and would take care of my kids as if they were their own. The answer was pretty obvious...my sisters!!! Val already lives with me so she could watch them but someone else would need to watch them while she was at work. I called my sister Robin and asked if she would come out and I would pay for her airplane ticket. She talked with her boyfriend and got ready to come spend 2 weeks at my house watching the kids and hanging out with Val and me once I got back. I was totally excited and nervous!!

I think the day came faster than I thought it would but I had my passport and I was so ready to travel. My flight took me to Las Vegas and then onward to San Diego where our ship was docked. Jami and I made sure that our flights got to San Diego around the same time so we could go to the ship together. We ended up in two totally different sections of the airport and we had no idea how to get to each other and to the cruise ship. Luckily she saw a guy in a red hat that said "Carnival" on it and found out that there was a bus taking people to the cruise ship. She called me and told me to find a red hat guy and with some luck I found him and they were able to get us on the same bus. We were of course totally giddy and excited when we found each other and we were on our way to the cruise ship.

There is so much to write about this trip and how it really changed me so it might take a few posts to get it all in so sit back and enjoy the ride...I mean...sit back and cruise on through these next few posts...OK that was LAME!! Ha ha I am a dork sometimes, just enjoy and if you are lucky I might post a few pics :)

Once we got to the dock I was shocked at how many people there were. It felt like we were a bunch of cattle slowly being led to the final destination. We had to go through this long line to get through security and then to finally check in and get to the right ship. It was all very boring and exciting at the same time. (Hey it was my first cruise!) On the way up into the ship I swear there were tons of workers waiting to take your picture, that is how it was the whole cruise, every where you looked there was the "paparazzi" now I know how the celebrities feel!!

It didn't take us long to find our room because we were on the first floor of rooms once you get on the ship...in other words...the farthest away from where all the activities were. We seriously had to walk up 100 stairs to get to dinner and where all the activities were. I got bored one day so I counted For some reason when I counted I only counted 80 stairs but then an awesome guy named Todd was walking down to his room when I was walking to mine and he counted 100 stairs, so I counted again and sure enough it was 100, my poor children are really going to need math tutors. Anyways...

We got to our room and there was only one, single bed.We had no idea what we were going to do about the sleeping arrangements but we would figure them out later. There was a whole group of widows and widowers that we knew from Utah on the ship and we really wanted to find them. We found the girls pretty quick there were three of them in a room and three beds. Then we looked at one of the beds and realized it was screwed into the wall and somehow you could close it up and it looks like a big box on the wall and guess what...we had a big box on our wall...so thankfully we had two beds in our room, problem solved. We hung out with them for a while and went back to our room to get our cameras and go up to the Lido deck and have our safety drill and wait for the ship to set sail.



Finally after what seemed like an ETERNITY our ship set sail. It was the coolest thing except for the fact that you have to learn to walk all over again it is a good thing I don't drink because some of the drunks on the ship were worse of than I was when it came to walking. We went back to our room to check the schedule and get ready for dinner. We had early dinner and our tables were assigned to us so I was pretty excited to meet who were going to be our dinner companions for the rest of the cruise. We got all dolled up and went down there and low and behold our table had 1 older lady (who is the world's biggest angel and my new "aunt") and 3 good looking guys...SWEET!! I had a feeling we were going to be enjoying our dinners!!

Clean up in aisle 3

So I have this AMAZING friend and her name is Tera, I met her through the Mid-Singles group there in Boise she is my wing girl and one of my most favorite people. We were talking one day and decided that the guys there just don't ask people on dates and it was up to us to start something. Our original idea was to do a progressive dinner...we would get a couple of other girls on board and have appetizers and one place, dinner at another, dessert at the next one and end at mine for games and other fun stuff. We kinda had it planned but we needed to find a good day to do it. She was getting ready to go to a boot camp for teachers and I had my cruise coming up. So we picked the first weekend in April and then we realized that it was Easter and Conference weekend. So we changed our plan to do a scavenger hunt after the Priesthood Session on Saturday night. 

While Tera was at her boot camp it was up to me and the other girls to finalize everything. We decided on a scavenger hunt at walmart, we had a list of things that each couple had to find and take pictures of. Then each of the teams had 5 dollars and had to buy a specific item to share after for the game we were going to play at Tera's house. The biggest surprise of this all was that we had no idea who our dates were going to be. We ended up inviting 4 guys that we thought were pretty cool, made envelopes with each of our names in one and they had to pick an envelope. Who ever they chose was their date for the night, which made it nice since it took off the pressure of "who do I ask out on a date and what if he says no!!" 

We told the guys which walmart to meet us at and what time, we were so very excited. On the way over there I kept thinking there are two guys that I would have a blast with tonight I hope I get one of them but there is a third guy who just rubs me the wrong way I really hope I don't get him...well guess what...I DID!!! I was kinda shocked  when he read my name but I was determined to make the best of it so let's call him BMW3.

We explained all the rules to every couple and off we went. It was so much fun, we didn't really have a strategy so we just went from the top of the list and worked our way down. He had to put a bra on so he got a pink bra and put it on his head, that picture is priceless!!! I had to put on boxers and so forth. We would occasionally see the other teams and just laugh and wave as we went by. Some of them we had to get creative with...one of them said to kiss in front of the fish. So we weren't going to kiss so we found two kissing frogs and held them up in front of the Flounder toy fish from Ariel and took the picture. It was so much fun running amuck in walmart as grownups! There were times that he complained about the scavenger hunt, didn't talk to me and other things but I tried to not let it bother me.

We were coming to the end of our list and we couldn't find any Mary Kate and Ashley stuff anywhere. So thankfully my sisters work at walmart and I knew that there was a kiosk in electronics that you can look stuff up on the walmart website if you couldn't find it in the store. So we ran back to electronics and typed it in and found TONS of Mary Kate and Ashley stuff so we took a pic of the screen and ran off to do the last thing...buy snacks for the games afterward. We bought our snacks and started calling people and we realized that we were the first ones done so WE WON!!! We were pretty excited about winning so we drove back to Tera's house and waited for everyone else to show up. Once they got there they were trying to say that we didn't win because some of our pics didn't follow the rules exactly BUT we were the only couple who didn't get approached and told off by management so I think that has to count for something!

Once everyone got there we ate ice cream and played battle of the sexes. It was hilarious...I think the boys cards were so much easier than our cards...we didn't know much about the guy things. So they ended up winning that. It was weird the whole time we were playing afterwards BMW3 was pretty cold to me. He didn't talk to me at all I didn't know what his deal was. Apparently everyone else was having a great time and noticed how he was acting. The very next day the girls called me and apologized for how he was acting towards me, they were determined to get to the bottom of it.

Then out of the blue BMW3 calls me to APOLOGIZE!!! I was pretty embarrassed that he called to apologize, I was just going to act like nothing happened. He said that it was a year ago that night that his wife did some pretty hurtful things that ended up on their divorce. I completely and totally understood. It seems like you can be chugging along doing great and then all of a sudden something happens that triggers a memory and can really affect how you feel. I told him I understood and that it was alright, he said that he really did have fun, thanked me for putting up with him and he hoped I didn't think he was a jerk.

All in all I think our planned group date was so much fun and I got to know other people pretty well and I DEFINITELY made some life long friends out of it. Now I wonder if we still want to have our progressive dinner...I guess we will just have to wait and see!