Nine-Day Date-Day 4

Prior to our arrival in Samana, Dominican Republic, Chris and I had waffled back and forth about what excursion we planned to go on. Some of our group were going on a horseback riding and culture excursion to El Limon Waterfalls. Neither Chris nor I really wanted to go on this one. Monday night we finally decided on the Hike, Bike and Kayak excursion, but when we went to the excursion desk to request it, the desk was closed for the evening. Tuesday morning we tried to add it to our itinerary and it had already been filled. We decided just to take a tender (boat transfer) in to Samana and check the area out on our own.





Fortunately, we met Scot and Lisa who also were just going in to Samana to explore. It was nice to have another couple to spend the day with. And we happened to meet up with Justin and Susan who decided to join us as well.





We walked around the main area of town for a short time and then decided to walk around the bay to a cool looking bridge that connected two small islands with the mainland. It was called the Bridge to Nowhere. History suggests that the bridge was originally built to develop the area but when political agendas changed an attempt to build a restaurant on one of the islands stopped.







Before stepping on to the bridge, we came upon a private beach for the Gran Bahía Príncipe Cayacoa (Hotel). Chris took off his sandals and waded out into the water. His surprise came when the beach dropped off sharply. The sand was not very soft and was filled with broken sea shells. As Chris stepped off the ledge, one of the shells cut the bottom of his toe. That didn't stop him from putting his sandals back on and wading out again. I found a few cool shells to take home. I think I could do a little relaxing here.





A small vendor was set up just off the beach. We couldn't say no to the pineapple drinks.



Chris mentioned a number of times how much Samana reminded him of the Philippines, minus the open sewer smell. (We were all grateful for that). Even the rickshaw-type vehicles that sped around the island were reminiscent of the Philippines. We opted to keep our feet on land and ended up walking about 4 1/2 miles. It was a great way to see the island. Our return tender sped us back to the boat where we ate a quick lunch in the cafeteria followed by a trip to the swimming pool and hot tub with Lisa and Scot. Lisa and I were both of the same mind as neither of us thought the pool was overly warm. We stuck to the hot tub while Scot and Chris jumped in the pool and then sped down the water slide with all of the kids.







After our swim, we showered and then slept. Oh the life of a cruiser. For dinner Chris and I headed down to the Indigo Dining room and ran into Laura and Kevin and Laura and Jamon. It was a dinner full of laughs, followed by the most entertaining night on the ship--Sharkbait and then the Not-So-Newlywed Game.

Nine-Day Date-Day 5

Call me sentimental, but I was so excited to talk to my girls on Wednesday morning. I missed my girls. We pulled in to port before 9 am, however, we were 3 hours ahead. St. Thomas was a US port, so Chris had cell phone service. I kindly waited until I knew Amy would be up around 6:30 getting ready for school before we talked. By then Chris and I had already been up to the Fitness Center to exercise, we had eaten, and gotten ready to go shopping in St. Thomas.



It was so good to hear Amy's voice. Her talking woke up her sisters a little early, but I was happy to talk to both of them as well. I also talked to my mom who seemed to be doing just fine. She still offered glowing reports about how wonderful my girls were.

After talking, we didn't have quite as much time as we had originally planned to be in town. When one of the bus drivers told us that the walk into St. Thomas was 2 1/2 miles, we should have believed him. Oh well, we were fast walkers. Our first exciting find in St. Thomas was Chris' mojo. I saw this restaurant and commented, "Chris, it's your mojo. We found it!" (Click on the picture to enlarge it.)



We found some fun gifts for the girls. For our return trip, we opted for the ride back to the pier in order to get lunch and meet our group at 1:05.





We boarded a mid-size boat to tender to St. John island about 45 minutes away. Chris and I began by sitting on a bench along the railing. Not too long after leaving, we were drenched with the spray from the waves. Some opted to stay outside, but Chris and I headed inside with the rest of the group. After arriving on St. John, we had to transfer to open-air buses to get to the beach. A lot of time spent getting there and not so much actual time on the beach. Chris and I brought our own snorkel equipment and were given quick instruction on the fine art of snorkeling. The basics suggest that you forget about breathing through your nose. Forget about the small amount of water gathering around your nostrils. Certainly don't breath that water in. Concentrate on breathing through your mouth. Don't smile or you'll break the seal around your mouth. Chris was a natural and was off exploring in no time. I was too aware of the water gathering around my nose. Practice makes perfect right? I was better at it the next day for sure.





Before leaving for our cruise, I suggested to Chris that we should buy an underwater camera. Since I had just received a new camera for Christmas, he scoffed at me. But he ordered it through an employee incentive program anyway after a little encouragement. It was so cool for taking underwater pictures and movies. He loved it. I loved it. I highly, highly, highly recommend the Canon Powershot D10.





By the end of our time at St. John, I was getting the hang of breathing through the snorkel, but it was still disappointing to have so little time there. We loaded back on to the buses and began the return trip to the boat. Chris with Nathan and Polly.



After showering, we had dinner on our own, but followed that by meeting with others from our group for "Oh What A Night! Tribute to Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons." It was okay. The older crowd loved it, but after a few songs, they all started to sound the same.

Nine-Day Date-Day 6

Isn't it crazy how time can fly by so quickly when you are having a fabulous time? We were. It did. On Thursday, February 10th, we woke to a slight drizzling rain. I was up early to exercise and while walking Poolside to get to the Fitness Center, I heard the song, "I Haven't Got Time for The Pain," by Carly Simon. I'd never really listened to the song before, but I thought she was saying, "I Haven't Got Time for the Rain" and thought it apropos that they were playing this song. I didn't realize my goof until I looked it up at home. My version was a lot more fitting for the day.

Anyway, we needed to be ready to board our tender to Virgin Gorda by 7:50 am. The island was about 30 minutes away followed by another 10 to 15 minute bus ride to Devil's Bay and The Baths. Our guide, Kim, chose to take us down to Devil's Bay first because it was usually a little less crowded.



Somehow I was just so much more confident in my snorkeling abilities today. I got in the water, forgot about the water pooling around my noise, and just learned to listen to myself breathe. However, I did learn very quickly that the direction to spit out your gum wasn't just a whim of our instructor. I forgot to spit mine out, and it quickly attached itself to the mouthpiece of my snorkel.





Is that a cool camera or what?



We stayed at Devil's Bay for awhile until Kim decided to guide us over to The Baths. I wish that we had just stayed at Devil's Bay the whole time. The snorkeling was so much better. Listen to me talking like I am a pro at snorkeling. Well, it was. The beach was nicer too, but we didn't know. I had fun watching two little blue fish chase each around and around a rock. By the time Chris had returned with the camera, they had stopped.

The little excursion to The Baths took about fifteen minutes when you had to wait for other people to come and go through narrow passageways. By the way, that's not me in the picture.



I ventured out quite far with Chris and Scot and Lisa. It was all going quite well and dandy until I was treading water for a minute and didn't realize that a huge boulder was right under me. I gave it a good sound kick and thought I had broken my toe! O-u-c-h! We got some cool pictures though, and thoroughly loved snorkeling. We are already thinking about where we can go to try it again. Somewhere warm.



Time to go! Departure time came far too quickly. We arrived back at the pier in Tortola and decided to check out the vendors just a short distance away. They all sold the same kind of stuff, but we still needed something for Kristen and me. I usually talk myself out of buying anything as a memento for myself, but found a cute tote bag with Tortola splashed all over it. I tried to get Chris to find something for himself, but he opted out. (He now wishes that he had gotten something.)

Lunch, lunch, lunch. We were quite hungry by the time we finally returned to the ship and made our way up to the Garden Cafe before they closed it to prepare for dinner. Chris opted to stay up on one of the decks after lunch, while I went back to the cabin for a nice, long hot shower and some rest. He got to watch the crazy antics of one of the evening show performers. If you were on the ship you might recall the too-full-of-himself performer with the rattail. Let's just say he was sunning all of his cheeks.

We met with our group for another dinner in the Summer Palace. We caught the early show of Second City, a comedy troupe, in the Stardust Theatre. Follow that up with a rousing game of Hearts (which Chris and I were both new to and sucked at) with Nathan and Polly and our evening should have been complete. Really, though, we were on a cruise ship where food was always available. We went in search of desserts. Instead we found ourselves at the White Hot Hot White Hot Party in the Spinnaker Lounge where we thought for sure we could find something to snack on. We could have if we had wanted jell-o. We got snared in to a picture with scantily clothed cast members and decided to find a quieter venue. We ended up calling it a night. I mean, really, if you can't have your dessert, you might as well just go to bed.

Nine-Day Date-Day 7

This was our second At Sea day, and a morning full of another seminar. We talked about the Five Love Languages. I had heard of the book and know a lot of people who have read it, but this was the first I'd really focused on the idea. I'm still not sure I know in which category I would put myself. I'm on the waiting list to read it. I'll keep you posted.

For lunch, Chris and I tried out something new--the Blue Lagoon. The menu was a little different, but the service was slow. When our food finally arrived, we had to ask for everything to be brought quickly in order to make it back in time for afternoon activities with our group. Around three we were free to do whatever. Chris and I chose to watch a movie on his iPad and both started to fall asleep shortly after it started. So nice to have naps whenever.

We met with our group for another fun evening meal. Paula Fellingham provided some conversation starter cards and we "conversated" in a variety of different directions. I must say, meeting so many new people was one of the things I was looking forward to on this cruise, and I was not disappointed.






We skipped the entertainment in the Stardust Theatre and chose to watch the Family Feud game in the Spinnaker Lounge instead. Our group gradually grew and some were prepared to participate in the game as a "family' when all of a sudden it was over. We stuck around though because Soul was about to perform Dancing Through the Decades, and others in our group said they were one of the better bands on board. They didn't disappoint. Looking back, we should have stuck around a little longer because I was enjoying dancing with my sweetheart, but we chose instead to leave for the...(a moment of silence)...Chocolate Buffet. Laura and Kevin B. were dancing in the Spinnaker too, but didn't hesitate to join us for the...Chocolate Buffet.







I'm not a big chocolate fan. I tried a few desserts but opted for a bowl of Rocky Road Ice Cream instead. It was a blast just talking with a big group of friends. Scot had put together a slide show of some of his pictures and offered to give us a little preview. Impressive skills dude but can you fold a towel elephant?

Nine-Day Date-Day 8

Saturday. We were so excited for another full day of snorkeling. Chris had spread out his exposure to the sun throughout the week so that he could end it with a great amount of sun today. Norwegian Cruise Lines owns a island--Great Stirrup Cay (pronounced key), Bahamas--and it was to be our last stop for the week. "Was" being the key word of that sentence. As the time for tendering drew closer, the clouds grew darker, the rain started to fall intermittently, and the temperature dropped. Boo. Look at all those empty beach chairs. The captain made the decision to cancel our excursion for the day.



The staff on the Norwegian Pearl began scrambling to pull together activities and meals for another day at sea. Chris and I walked around for a bit hoping to see someone from our group. We found a bunch of our friends in the Star Bar getting ready to play some games. Scot and Lisa pulled together a fun morning that could have otherwise been quite boring. Since the weather wasn't great, people weren't hanging around poolside, nor was there much activity on any of the decks. After the games, we headed for lunch. The menu in the Summer Palace was different for lunch, so a group of us chose to eat there and talk.

After lunch, there was a not-so-interesting presentation about medical conditions and supplements in the main lobby that we quickly bypassed. A lot of the stores onboard were offering specials, and there were tables set up in the lobby offering jewelry, watches, ties, etc at discounted prices. We caught the beginning of Unstoppable and watched it until we reached the point we had started from earlier in the week. I believe we followed that with another nap.



Our closing social for our Couple's Valentine's Cruise was held in the Bliss Ultra Lounge at 4:45. We played more fun games, watched a slide show of the week's pictures taken by different photographers in our group, and then posed for a group picture. Crazy how such a fun week flew by so quickly. We had a fabulous time. We met for dinner again in the Summer Palace and then headed for some evening entertainment. The Stardust Theater was a lot more busy, maybe everyone was looking for a little excitement in their impromptu day at sea, and it was little more difficult finding a bunch of seats together for our group. Let's just say that there was an old lady who didn't like the idea of us saving seats for our friends and threatened to sit on my lap!

The entertainment was a farewell show combination of Sharkbait and "Oh What a Night" again. Neither group was a lot different than earlier in the week, but still, it was entertaining. Following this performance, we hurried up to the Spinnaker Lounge for Second City's (comedy troupe) "Scriptless" improv show. We attended the early show which was approved for all ages and quite funny. Such a fun week coming to a close.

My posts would not be complete without giving mention to Kristin and Julie. They were the life of the group, no doubt. Kristin had originally planned to come with her husband. He works for Apple and about a month earlier he found out that the launch of the new Apple and Verizon partnership coincided unhappily with the cruise. Julie got to come along for the fun instead. Kristin took pictures of our group all week long, and if Julie and Kristin were around, there was a lot of laughter too. We were so glad to have met them both. Even their craziness was perfectly choreographed.

Nine-Day Date-Day 9

Chris and I opted for the Easy Walk-0ff Disembarkation on Sunday morning. It meant we didn't have to set our luggage outside our room Saturday night and that we would carry all of our luggage off with us. That option gave us until 10 am to leave the ship which meant an unstressed, leisure morning for packing and having breakfast. We ate once again in the Garden Cafe: we had our last "Washy, Washy, Happy, Happy" alcohol spray as we entered, Chris' enjoyed his last day of unlimited bacon, and we bid farewell to Kevin, Laura, Kristin and Julie.

One last check of our room before we disembarked and joined the masses once again in the port. We got through customs and made our way to the pick up for Hertz rentals. Since our flight wasn't until 5:20 pm, we had a full day to spend in Miami. The shuttle picked us up and transferred us downtown to the Hertz rental car office. After making note of the big scratch on the side of the Chevy Traverse, we were off. It is comforting to my direction-handicapped little heart that my husband input the address for the church building into his GPS wrong. It was something I would so do. We still had plenty of time to make it to the 11:30 am Sacrament Meeting in the Hollywood Ward after correcting the address. Along the way, we were able to talk to our girls once again. They were excited to see us and asked maybe a dozen times what time we would be home and would we please wake them up if they were sleeping. We assured them that we would wake them up.



After Sacrament Meeting, Chris changed clothes and we headed back up Florida State Road A1A to South Beach, Miami. We spent the afternoon walking the beach, collecting some sand and shells, and taking pictures.



Every so often we came across a Portuguese man-of-war. They had been blowing ashore the past couple of days. Turns out they can still sting you even when they've been dead on the beach for a day or so.



I stopped to take a picture of a wind surfer and wondered why he was just sitting on the beach and not catching some waves and wind. Turns out he wanted to talk to me. No, really. I didn't understand him at first when he began speaking in French, but then he changed to passable English. He had seen me taking pictures and wondered if I wouldn't mind sending them to his friend in France who has never seen him windsurfing before. He wrote down an email address, thanked me, and Chris and I kept on walking.



We waited a little while to have lunch in an attempt to get back on our MST schedule, and finally stopped at Chef Vincent's for lunch.



Chris and I both ordered Mahi Mahi fish tacos. They weren't quite what I hoped for, more like crisp tacos shells swimming in grease, but by this point the kitchen had taken so long to make them, we were in a big hurry. In fact, we were bordering a little on late getting to the airport. If we had been flying out of Miami, the drive to the airport would have been no big deal, but we were almost a half an hour away from Ft. Lauderdale and really had to scoot.

We finally made it to Hollywood International Airport, checked in our rental car (which sadly we did not have time to refuel and got charged an extra $50), and raced to the SWA check-in. Their first comment to us, "You're cutting it a little close aren't you?" as they slapped late check-in stickers on our luggage while I was also shuffling a snorkel set around because it made my suitcase too heavy. We found our gate number and took off again thinking they would already be boarding.

And who did we see as we came running around the corner, totally out of breath and disheveled? Jen and Guy Foutz. They were on the same flight. We chatted for just a few moments before we lined up to board. Chris had a low boarding number again--A20. This time he handed both boarding passes to the agent with his on top and then we boarded. We didn't give them a chance to tell me to wait. Jen and Guy's passes were C-something. I said I would save them some seats. It wasn't until the end when the plane was filling up that a guy got on my case for saving a seat for a friend. People get pretty uptight about that. Ah well, I was happy to see Guy's face as he walked on to the plane, and I could move over by Christopher.



We watched an amazing sunset that lasted well over an hour because we kept moving West into it.



We didn't have a chance to change in Florida into Colorado-type clothes and were still in flip flops when we landed at DIA. Fortunately, the weather was much improved over the minus something degrees it had been earlier in the week. We stopped for a couple final pictures with Foutzes and then headed to Baggage Claim.



Chris took the shuttle out to the Pikes Peak parking lot to pick up the car and I managed to collect ALL of our luggage. No lost bags this time. I waited for a couple minutes at the curb for him to arrive and we were off.

Amy and Misha were still awake when we arrived home around 9:20 pm. I tried to wake up Kristen, but she was sleeping too soundly. The girls were as thrilled to see us as we were to see them. I peeked in on my mom and dad to let them know we were home. When we walked upstairs, Chris was already showing the girls some of the cool underwater pictures we had taken. We finally shooed them off to bed again and fell in to our bed. So great to get away, so good to be home.

This Week from Kristen

When we were at the BYU vs CSU basketball game a couple of weeks ago, Kristen was happy to chant along when the BYU (and sometimes the CSU) fans were saying, "Defense." Today as we were driving home from school, she starting chanting, "Defects, defects." "What?" I inquire as I chuckle. "You know--defects--it's what you say when you are at a basketball game."

After lunch Kristen was explaining to me that Amy had a job helping some kid at school make jewelry. She then asked, "Do I have a job?" My response, "Oh, you have plenty of jobs." I was thinking of the chores she gets to do. She wasn't. She was thinking of her dancing job and her painting job and... "Oh, Mom, those are my talents."

The other night, she was getting ready for bed and asked if I would brush her teeth for her. "Why?" I asked. "Because I never see a sparkle. I must not be a good brusher." Sometimes TV ads do us all a disservice.

Robins

These birds are seriously confused this year. I have seen so many robins about all Winter long. What is up with that? How are we supposed to know when Spring arrives?

A Cold Day

Since today was a Cold/Snow Day and my girls were home from school, I took them shopping in the afternoon to break up the monotony. There's not a lot of snow on the ground but the temperatures are frigid. The weatherman described it as an arctic blast from the tundras of Canada, or something cold-sounding like that. I felt badly when Amy told me that the buses were slow Monday morning and she had to wait in the cold for ten minutes. I'm glad they are staying home. I'd rather they be warm and safe at home.

Before shopping, there was cleaning. I had this epiphany on Sunday while I had to shower in my daughters' bathroom (Chris had recaulked our shower on Saturday and it needed 24 hours to cure).



Back to the shower. They are SUPPOSED to clean it every Saturday, taking turns. When I say to them, "You need to clean... (insert whatever you want)", they always tell me, "Well, Misha (or Amy) never cleaned it last week." So after having to use their facilities my epiphany was that we would ALL clean the bathroom together, top to bottom. They were a little more agreeable than if I was to simply say, "Go clean your bathroom better." I think they'll still do a slapstick job of it every week, but now it has a very clean starting point to go downhill from.

Back to shopping, Amy and Misha ditched Kristen and I as soon as we got in the store. It wasn't very busy which was fortunate. I wouldn't have been surprised though if I had heard over the store speaker, "Would the mother of the two girls putting on all the wrong colors of makeup please come and get them!" I didn't hear it, but I wouldn't have been surprised either. I snagged a couple of "search and find" books from the toy section for Kristen and had her follow me throughout the store while I shopped. I am not finding a lot of capris this time of year. Normally I wouldn't even be thinking capris this time of year, but since I am leaving on a cruise soon, I'm interested in their arrival in the stores.

And since tomorrow is another Cold Day (the temperature will be something crazy like -20* over night), we'll have to find more to occupy our time. I can see clean bedrooms in our future.

ABCs

Yesterday, when my kids actually had school, I went to help out at the elementary school. My first stop was Kristen's kinder class. Her teacher was sick so she had a "Guest Teacher"--Mr.G. And because it was so cold outside, the kids stayed inside for recess. Kristen had pulled out an ABC puzzle and was working it with about four of her friends. A piece was missing and Mom, always the finder of lost things, saved the day. Once the puzzle was put together, the girls putting the puzzle together started to sing the ABC song. I thought it was pretty cute that by the end of the song, the entire class was singing while still continuing on with what they were doing. I don't think they even realized that it had happened.

Kristen then sang the sounds of the ABC's and then ended with an upside down version. That's not backwards from Z, but actually upside down.

Brussel Sprouts

Kristen was watching Olivia at lunch today. They talked about Brussel sprouts for one of the girl's school projects. Kristen immediately piped in, "Brussel sprouts. Ew. Yuck." I replied, "You've never even had Brussel sprouts, so how do you know if they are yucky?" She responded with another round of "ews" and "yucks" while I countered with, "You don't even know." She finished with "They're yucky so don't get the recipe!"

Later in the day (and it has nothing to do with Brussel sprouts), Kristen and I were driving home from the store. She asked, "So, what are we going to do when we get home?" I responded, "Well, we'll probably put all the groceries away." She replied, "Put the groceries away ....seriously, that's all you've got?"

Kristen

The other day I was talking to my mom. Kristen whispered,"Who is it?" wanting to know with whom I was talking. I mouthed back, "Grandma." She thought for a moment and inquired, "What kind of Grandma?" (Wanting to know, of course, if it was my mom or Chris' mom.)

Kristen

"It's just not fair. You get to do the stuff you want to do, and I get to do the stuff you want me to do." Kristen lamenting the sad state of affairs in her life.

Zeus

Zeus. Misha's fish. Someday I'll need to take a picture of him. He seems rather lethargic lately. I hope that having Misha change his water makes a difference. He's a betta fish if any of you have any ideas.

Amy just said to Misha, "Mish, you know what would be fun? When Zeus dies, you could take your catapult and launch him in to the toilet. Zeushi." I don't think Misha appreciated the suggestion.

Misha

Misha's crazy question on the way home from the ball game, "Do your cheeks take up most of your face?"

Sharing a Straw

Last night at the basketball game, our tickets included drinks and pretzels. I was sharing some of Kristen's Sprite until she announced, "Look, Mom, I can make the Sprite go back into the straw!"

BYU Basketball

Jimmer. What kind of name is that? Jimmer. Apparently it doesn't matter so much 'cause he can play basketball. We took the girls to a BYU vs CSU game in Ft Collins on Saturday evening. It was a sellout. We were in the nosebleed section, but still it was fun with friends surrounding us.



My hair looks crazy here because I had just tried on about ten to twelve dresses.

Another Birthday...

I'll admit, birthdays don't have quite the luster as when I was, oh say, a pre-teen. Perhaps that is why my five-year old was pretty disappointed with my birthday this year. She tearfully exclaimed when she found out that we were going to a BYU basketball game and not celebrating in the style she wanted, "That's just not what I had planned." In her mind we were going to stay home, play games, have a party, eat cake, sing "Happy Birthday", and open presents. None of that happened.



(Can you tell that I am having fun playing with the features on my camera?)

For starters, Chris arrived home from his work trip in SLC with a cold on Friday evening. He did earn bonus points for bringing two dozen red roses and...peas? Yes, sugar snap peas. He indicated that a husband might normally buy his wife chocolates but that his wife wouldn't eat them. I liked the peas. We had originally planned to go out to dinner with a few friends at the Melting Pot. Each one of them had to cancel because of sick kids or babysitter issues.

Chris wasn't feeling any better when he woke up on Saturday morning and slept most of the morning and afternoon. Kristen wanted to go to the store and get balloons and party supplies to decorate. We told Kristen we could just use the balloon from Amy's birthday six weeks ago. Kristen bought her a balloon, but while playing with it, the string detached and it soared to the corner of the living room. It was beginning to migrate from the corner of the room for my birthday.



I should be grateful that she was thinking of me. When you're the mom who usually takes care of birthday planning, it is nice to have someone follow through on your birthday. Kristen wanted to, and I convinced Chris that he should take her to the store and let her pick out a few things. She wasn't too happy about waiting till Sunday to celebrate however.



So Sunday morning, my girls sang "Happy Birthday" to me while lighting a candle and putting it in Kristen's donut, which, by the way, I don't eat, but which she bought for a special birthday breakfast. None of us in the house are big cake fans, so Amy made brownies for me instead. Like I said, birthdays just aren't what they used to be. I'm okay with it...my kids aren't.

Seriously...at 5?

This morning Kristen had on a tank top under a sweater that had only three buttons at the top. I told her that she had to keep at least one of the buttons done up to be modest and because it is too cold outside to be baring her shoulders. When I reiterated to Kristen that she needed to have at least one button buttoned, she immediately jumped into drama-girl mode, "What, you want me to be the ugly girl? If it is buttoned up, no one can see the sparkles on my tank top." Give me a break.

Handy Manny

Kristen was watching Handy Manny the other day. Out of the blue she commented, "It is kind of crazy that his tools come to life. That never happens."

Customer Service

A couple of months ago, Chris purchased a laptop bag from the Samsonite store. After a couple of months of use, the stitching on the leather strap began to pull away from the body of the bag. We had originally paid for the bag with a Visa gift card. Sadly, when we returned the laptop bag, they would only give us a store gift card. We figured we'd find some reason to use it in the future.

So we're in the future now and going on a cruise soon. We thought it would be a good idea to get a really big suitcase to hold our snorkel gear and for all the fun stuff I was going to buy while on vacation. We looked online and found an appropriate suitcase but when we went to purchase it, there was nowhere for us to input the gift card number. Frustrating. Well, we then decided to take a trip to Colorado Mills to visit the Samsonite store. Sadly, we weren't able to find the suitcase we wanted, nor were the deals as good as online. The store clerk had only worked there for a short time and was not very helpful. She gave us a customer service number to call. We walked out of the store without a suitcase.

Monday morning I tried online one more time hoping for an updated site, but nothing had changed. I noted another number where it said you could purchase items online. "Ah ha!" I thought, "I'll call that number." Although Becky was completely polite, I was met with another roadblock and couldn't use the gift card over the phone either.

I hung up with her and went back to the website to find an email to send an unhappy gram. I ended my email with:

What kind of customer service are you hoping for? You certainly didn't win me over with your stellar ability to meet a customer's needs.

A couple of hours later, I got a response. Amy wanted to know which suitcase I was hoping for, asked for my mailing address, and requested the # on the gift card. I was expecting an email back asking for my credit card number to make up the difference that the gift card lacked. Instead I received this email this morning.

Hi Jolayne,

I just wanted to send you an email to let you know that we sent out the
30" Solar Rose last night via FedEx. We want you to keep your gift card
for a rainy day, when you might need something else! The xSpace 30" is on
us.

Please let me know if you need any further assistance.

I was totally impressed. I said "Wow" out loud. Now that is the customer service response I am sure they were hoping for.

New Camera

After much research, I finally settled on a camera and Chris was kind enough to give it to me for Christmas. It is a Canon G12. It does a lot more than I know how to do at this point, but I want to learn. It has been fun reading about all the digital features and then taking pictures of my girls. They aren't always appreciative. In fact, it has a feature that gives the picture a fish-eye effect which means that if you are taking a picture of a person's face, their nose looks enormous. Kristen was so totally offended when I took one of her, "Why would you even take a picture of me like that?" I laughed, but to protect her dignity, I will not post it on here.