Cruisemas Eve in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico - Day 3

Since our boat (the ms Amsterdam) left so late from LA (after 10:00 pm instead of the scheduled 5:00 PM) it made us very late for our first port, Cabo San Lucas. Instead of arriving at 11:00 AM, we arrived at 3:00 PM so we had some time to kill on the boat that morning.

Although the ship seemed mammoth at first, we quickly explored every crevice in search of entertainment for Lucy.

We made ourselves at home in the empty Queen's Lounge which was just a huge assembly hall for performances and comedy routines at night. Not much going on there during the day except huge windows to look out of...

We then made our way to the Explorer's Lounge where we found Natalie working on a puzzle.


I had to take a picture of the puzzle she was working on because if you look close, you can see Lucy's tiny little feet prints in the dust of the box.

I have no idea what we were all doing here - goofing around or on our way to lunch.


This is a sample of how we ate - often, dessert first (or only). The Lido deck was where the giant buffet was which was open almost all day long. I preferred the fancy restaurant because I have no self control and at least you got to order and have some level of portion control (and the food was better) but at the buffet, it was a lot of really good looking, but somewhat mediocre tasting food that I ate way too much of. However, the buffet was so much more convenient and family friendly. Do they have cruises where you can practice some portion control and not eat so much?

We finally made it off the boat but it was just me, Brandon, Lucy, Adrian, Natalie, and Taylor. Damian, Cameron, Ethan, and their parents stayed on the boat. Since we were so late arriving at port, we didn't have much time to explore - only about 3 hours. We decided to do what anyone would do when they are on vacation - hit up Walmart! This ended up being kind of ridiculous because we had to get a taxi and spend all that time getting there and it was horribly busy with the locals and tourists. But Brandon and I did forget our sunglasses and we also wanted some walkie talkies and some watches because there were NO clocks on the ship and we never had any idea what time it was (I'm so used to checking the time on my cell phone). We also stocked up on a few beach toys for the kids and some bubbles and snacks.

We finally made it to the beach but by that time, the sun was already setting and it was pretty chilly. Certainly no weather for swimming but I think that the kids had fun.




The sand was pretty rough but Lucy couldn't get enough of it and the bubbles.





But the bubbles managed to get in her eye and that was no fun trying to clean her up. She had also started a nasty cold which started on the ship (or the plane) and took forever to get over.







We got a recommendation from our taxi driver for a restaurant a quick walk from the beach and ate some yummy tacos. But then before we knew it, it was back on to the ship to leave again.

It wasn't until we got back on the boat and it had left that we found out that Brandon's parents and two of his brothers, Cameron and Damian had left the cruise to check into a Mexican hospital. Brandon's mom, whose cancer relapsed in April of 2010, had been undergoing cancer treatment through much of the year and was not taking fluids or eating since arriving on the cruise. When the ship's doctor was called to give her an IV to keep her fluids up, they also tested her blood and saw that her white blood cell count was extremely low, leaving her with practically no immune function which made the cruise with all of its germs, very dangerous for her. So we were stuck on the cruise for the next couple of days - it became a waiting game to figure out where we had to fly to meet them.

Cruisemas - Day 1 & 2

It seems that Christmas was forever ago but I thought I would post some pictures from our Christmas cruise. My camera is always a little wonky but I took more pictures than I realized.

We start off on the plane on our way from Salt Lake City to LA on Wednesday, December 22nd.
I have very few pictures of Lucy with Brandon so I am glad I could get a few on this trip.

And Lucy adores her Uncle Damian so we of course, had to get one of them. Ethan was with us as well if you can seen him in the bottom left corner of the above photo. Fortunately, our flight was direct but unfortunately, we had to spend quite a chunk of change to change flights since I had no idea how much time we needed to give ourselves to get to the cruise and we were getting worried that we might be late. As it ended up, we had plenty of time and the cruise left very late so we would have been fine but I guess the peace of mind was worth it. We also got to have a family breakfast at the hotel where the other half of the family stayed the night after coming in from Buffalo.

A cruise is the perfect vacation for our family since we can all go off and do our own thing. So here Brandon, Lucy and I are on Day 2, eating lunch in the fancier restaurant on the ship since we couldn't find anyone. Next cruise, we will remember to take walkie talkies since our cell phones don't work.
Brandon was obviously very excited to eat...

Lucy was loving the bread. She was quite well behaved for the meal and got lots of smiles and "Awws" from other passengers and the crew since the majority of the passengers were older and there weren't many toddlers around (or kids of any age for that matter).

Lucy spent a lot of time with her cousin, Taylor on the trip since they were the only grandkids on the trip and Lucy absolutely adores her cousin. Kid-friendly distractions were scarce on the boat. The weather was too chilly the first couple of days to go swimming and Lucy wasn't old enough to go the daycare (although Taylor was - lucky Adrian & Natalie). They amused themselves a bit with the nativity set:

Then went on to a kids' cooking class...
...which consisted of a lot of waiting in a cold, cold room...

...and finally, a little sugar cookie making (and don't worry, Mom - we all washed our hands before).

I have to admit, I was really disappointed in all the kids activities (or lack of). They were very poorly planned and executed. I guess we should have expected that from Holland America since they cater more to older people. I think out of the 12,000 passengers, only about 20 were children. And we didn't stay on the for the whole cruise so we didn't get to experience all of them. I guess that they assumed that the excursions at port would make up for the boring-ness of the cruise days for a parent with their kid. But since I had never been on a cruise before, I had no idea what to expect.

But you soon get into the swing of cruise life. Here we are, eating fancy dinner sans Brandon's parents who ate in their room since his mom wasn't feeling well:Damian, as always, provided much of the comic relief.

Despite the small size of our rooms, much entertainment was had in there:
Lucy got a kick out of the fake window we had. At the head of the bed, there were curtains all across the wall but if you looked behind them, it was just a wall. They might as well have painted a picture of the sea there.

Lucy loved the phone too since she didn't have our cell phones to play with. Despite the tight sleeping quarters, Lucy slept pretty well. She made it into our bed a couple of nights but it wasn't so bad because the bed was a lot bigger than our bed at home. We were pretty lax with her bedtime and schedule overall, so she was probably exhausted from all the days activities and the excitement of being in a new place. We ended up having a lot of quiet, dark time with her since we couldn't really leave her alone so one of us had to stay with her while she napped or went to bed early (although she did have a couple really late nights - staying up and singing karaoke).

All in all, it was pretty amazing to be on a mini-city floating on the water.

Angel Strikes Again!

The Perpetrator:

The Victim:
Motives:
Lucy was whipping her lovey in Angel's face while she was lounging on the couch. To Angel's credit, she got up and moved but Lucy followed continued her whipping and before I could intervene, Angel had done the damage. It looks worse than it is - I don't think it will scar or anything. And Lucy seems okay (well after a delayed reaction then some serious crying, she was okay).

So I did this post a year ago - how history tends to repeat itself. Hope Lucy will remember her lesson this time.

Oh yeah, and the black stuff on her face is mascara. We are still trying to teach her that lesson of not getting into Auntie's make-up bag.

Sunday Afternoon Fun

This is what we do to entertain the little one (and wear her out) on Sunday afternoons...

Lucy's Ear Tubes

Well - it's been a while and I have been meaning to post in forever and have so much catching up to do. My house is an absolute mess and it seems like I have a million other things to do but I finally dug up my camera from the move (cause that is one of the HUGE things that happened since I've been away) and took some pictures! I originally hadn't been taking pictures because I accidentally deleted a bunch from my camera and had meant to try to retrieve them using some computer software or program and you aren't supposed to take new pictures that would take up the old memory but that never happened and I couldn't even remember what I lost so I just decided to forget about.

Anyway, life has been eventful. Today especially. Lucy got a tympanostomy (aka ear tubes). We thought that she might need an adenoidectomy but it ended up that her adenoids were fine. We woke up at 5:00 AM so we could leave by 5:30 AM to get to Riverton Hospital at 6:15 AM to check in for her 7:30 AM surgery. It would have been much more convenient to have had the surgery done at Primary Children's which is much closer to where we live but the ENT surgeon we chose (the father-in-law of Brandon's cousin) practices at different hospitals and we wanted to get it done as soon as possible since Lucy got her seventh ear infection this past Saturday.

So, here is the little patient, all cute in her hospital gown:

She knew something was going on since we were in this new place with all these new people and was very clingy. She was on my lap for this picture, hence, the closeness.

Here she is looking warily at the bed's remote control...

...but she decided it was safe to play with - as long as she had her lovey and blanket.

Look at that giant head of hers!

The nurses left a cute little doll on her bed which had no face but then they gave Lucy markers so she could draw a face on it. She ended up drawing all over herself and had blue marker all over her hands and legs by the time she was going in.

We mostly did a lot of waiting. Lucy got some Tylenol and some Versed to calm her down and they swept her right away from me. I was under the impression that I would be able to carry her into the surgery room and be by her side while they put her mask on with the anesthesia and then when she came out but it was all so fast. Before I knew it, they told me she was coming in and I could hear her hysterical cries coming down the hallway. I couldn't believe how difficult she was to calm down - I thought she would be kinda loopy from the meds but I guess waking up in an unfamiliar place without mom can be a little traumatizing. I was finally able to get her to calm down after several attempts to nurse her. Once comforted, she was back to her cute self, saying "dank uuu" to the nurses with her mouth full of boob. The nurses could barely get enough of her saying thank you and bye bye, in the middle of nursing, no less. I could barely get her to pull away when it was time to leave and had to ask if she wanted to see Angel or George (our cats) or Jiji (her favorite movie, Kiki's Delivery Service). Excitedly, she pulled away and said, "Andel, Doe, Jiji? Opaii (Japanese for breast), aww dun!"

Then the rest of the day, it's as if the surgery didn't even happen - she was just her happy self. Just a little more tired. The surgeon told me that her middle ear was just full of gooey mucus and that her hearing will be much more sensitive because she was probably hearing all muffled before with the mucus affecting 20-30% of her hearing. The downfall of all this is that I need to plug up her ears when she goes swimming or has a bath which is really hard to do and she can still get ear infections, but they just shouldn't be as painful because the pressure will be relieved by the tubes and we can give her a topical antibiotic instead of one that she has to take orally.

Thank goodness for modern medicine and insurance! What in the world did they do in the old days - just let their kids suffer? I've been wary of doing the surgery but after so many sleepless nights (and a Christmas cruise coming up) it was definitely time to do something. Maybe we can actually get a good night of sleep when we are on vacation...

MoCCA, New York: April 10-11th

So what were Brandon and I doing in New York City - MoCCA Festival! No, it is not one of the neighborhoods that you have never heard of but an event. MoCCA stands for Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art which is an organization that hosts a big two day convention for artists and comic book writers to sell their stuff.

I posted last year that Brandon had finished his first comic book and he has been selling it (as well as other art and prints) at conventions and expos all over the country to promote it (and hopefully land a publisher for the next one). Green Monk was self published (with my help, might I add, in scouring local printers for the best price and of course, taking care of our daughter at night so he could work).

We flew out on a Saturday morning on a quick one hour flight from Buffalo to New York City. Of course, one of our bags was lost on JetBlue (don't ask me how - it was a direct flight with no layovers) but fortunately, it was not the bag that had all of our inventory and booth display stuff because that would have been disastrous and made the trip pretty pointless. Unfortunately, the bag that was lost had my breast pump in it. So imagine going from 4 nursings a day to nada. Yeah - you breastfeeding moms can feel me on that. Halfway through the day, I had to go to the bathroom and bend over the toilet and try to hand express for relief so you can imagine how fun that was. There was this cute little couple a few tables down from us exhibiting where the girl was half-Japanese and her husband was white and they had a darling little baby who I was pretty tempted to nurse. They let me hold him but I don't think they would have dug me nursing him...

But anyway, because of the whole luggage issue, we were late for the show. And the subway line that we needed to take to get to where the show was was not running for some reason so we had to take a long way there. It was also freezing that morning. But I got to experience my first geeky comic-y show. I don't think it could compare to something like San Diego Comic-Con (which I have never been to but hear is the ultimate geek-fest where people totally dress up like Star Wars and everything in between) but it was fun.

I have been to New York City several times before but this was such a whirlwind that I didn't really get to enjoy it. I may have hastily judged it because of this in thinking that although I wasn't very intimidated by it, NYC is kinda overwhelming and a little dirty. Maybe because Salt Lake City is such a small, clean city. But it certainly is interesting - just walking down the streets and seeing the variety of people there and different fashions (not all high fashion either like portrayed on television or movies) and different languages and every restaurant imaginable. It's not quite as glamorous as Sex and the City would have you believe, but still fun.

The second day we were there (after having our lost luggage with all our clothes and toiletries delivered at 3 am at our hotel) was the most gorgeous weather ever! The show was right down the street from this park that we walked by and there were these beautiful trees in bloom. My camera doesn't do it much justice but it literally took my breath away in person.
And this time, I even managed to take some pictures from the show.

Here is Brandon at our tiny little table. To save on exhibitor costs, we signed up for only half a table so that gave us a whopping 3 feet to display our wares and one chair to share.

And here I am, giving Brandon a break so he could go to the bathroom or check out other tables and booths. I was glad to be there to help and Brandon hoped that the presence of a pretty girl might help out with the sales to the geeky boys but we really had no way to measure the effectiveness of that.

Here is a picture of our table mate, Thomas Baehr, who is originally from Germany but lives in New York. Really nice guy, but really depressing book. You might guess what it is about by its title, The End is Here. Not exactly my cup of tea but there seemed like there were plenty of people there who really dug it. But his next work sounds really interesting, a collaboration about a Jew that is hiding during the Nazi occupation.

I actually spent way more time browsing around the show to check out all the other stuff than really helping Brandon. I was surprised at how many crappy artists there were there trying to disguise and sell their bad art with what I assumed they hoped was some clever story or humor. Not sure how those people did in terms of revenue but I tell you, even with a husband who is a legitimate artist, it is hard to be profitable at these things. I met some really good artists who just do their art at night while they have some whatever day job to make money and support themselves and families. Those people are passionate. Not that Brandon is not passionate - I think that sometimes he forgets how lucky he is to have a job where he actually gets to do art and improve his artistic skill even though he doesn't have full autonomy since he works for a company. But I know that some of those artists were pretty envious of his position.

I stopped by one table that caught my eye, mostly because the subject matter was Japanese in nature (and Brandon accuses me of being a Japanophile but my defense is that I am allowed because it is my culture). The artist was David Mack and his comic is called Kabuki which has a pretty big following. I guess he is kinda a big deal and has won all sorts of awards including the Eisner Award which is equivalent to the Academy or Grammy Award for comics. I had no idea at the time when I was just perusing all his books at his table and a total fanboy was talking his ear off. But I got pretty embarrassed when this fanboy pointed out that I totally looked like I could be one of his characters in his comic and that I should model and started asking me to take my hair down! It was pretty awkward and I just blushed, not really sure what I should do because my vanity was telling me that this might be my chance to be some awesome comic book heroine (or villain, whatever)! But Mr. Mack was pretty gracious even though that fanboy seemed pretty obnoxious to me and then gave me a bunch of his books for free. So I brought him a copy of Green Monk as a thank you (it's pretty common for artists to just trade work at these shows instead of buying each other's stuff) and then he gave me a bunch more of his books for free! It wasn't until I got home and googled him that I realized he was kinda a big deal. I'm mostly glad that I got one of Brandon's books into his hands (in case it gets passes on to some publisher) but I guess it was cool to get some of his books for free (cause everyone knows that I like free!).

But pretty much, these shows are a tiny bit boring. I'm mostly glad to spend time with my husband but it's pretty exhausting. And when you are trying to be profitable by keeping your expenses low, it doesn't give you a ton of freedom to do the touristy things and eat at yummy restaurants (I will admit to eating at McDonalds but only because we were so hungry and on a budget and too tired to think of another place to eat).

The timing of our flight home required us to leave the show a little bit early but packing up everything from our table took more time than anticipated. And trying to be as frugal as possible, we took the subway instead of a taxi but that same stupid line that was not running from the day before to and from the airport still wasn't running. So we got off at some random stop and this really nice Puerto Rican guy called a cab for us so we wouldn't be late for our flight. I just forget that when you are asking for directions to the airport in NYC, you can't just say, "How do I get to the airport?" because they immediately question back, "Which one?" So weird being in a city with two airports. But we made it to the right airport, on time and made our way back to Buffalo.

But it would be just a few short weeks until I was back in the Big Apple...