I had an absolutely fabulous time on the Cruise and in San Diego with Kelly. I am so grateful to the Kleinz's for their generosity in providing me with this trip and wonderful memories!
We left Phoenix Thursday, July 10th in the evening. The weather reports said Phoenix was expecting a huge monsoon storm starting that evening lasting through the weekend (
just in time for me to leave town...darn it!) . While we were still in AZ, along the I-10 West, we encountered the storm that would soon drown Phoenix. We were going a steady pace of 75mph and were in this storm for at least 1 hour. That tells you how massively large this storm cloud was. There was tons of rain and lightening that repeatedly touched the ground. I tried to take a picture of the rain and lightening, but this was the best I could get...no lightening.
We drove to Long Beach
where we would spend the night in a hotel (incidentally, we were told we will depart out of Long Beach, when in fact, we were departing from San Pedro...totally not cool). Little did we know that Long Beach is quite the ghetto of L.A. and we could feel it immediately. Right outside the lobby of the Days Inn, there was a traffic stop in which the officers instructed the driver, via megaphone, "Driver-drop your keys on the ground next to the vehicle. Driver-get out of the car with your hands up. Driver-put your hands on the top of the car with your legs spread." Then, they proceeded to handcuff him and question him. Did I mention there were about 10 policemen? What a lovely way to begin our vacation, eh? Well, regaurdless of that incident, we slept pretty good in our affordable motel room.
We left Long Beach around 9am and were given horrible directions by a few different people. So, after wasting time going the wrong way, we finally arrived in San Pedro around 10:45am. We boarded the ship around 11:30 after going through all of the check in and security processes. We were told there was a lunch buffett at the Windjammer Cafe on deck 11. Since we hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch yet, we high-tailed it to the buffett.
Our first vision of the Monarch of the Seas.
The San Pedro dock...not very pretty, unfortunately.
After we had lunch at the buffett, we relaxed by the pool for a few hours.
All Aboard was at 4pm and at 4:30 all cruise-goers had a mandatory safety demonstration where we had to put on our life preservers and line up on deck 7. It lasted 20 minutes, but those life preserves sure did make us sweat...they were hot! While standing on deck 7, the life boats are right above your head! You can see the life boats in the photo below.
Our cozy stateroom (above & below) ...good thing we didn't spend too much time in here, space was limited! The good thing is they have awesome movie channels on the tv in each room. The channels had newly released movies sorta like pay-per-view, but free! This came in handy since Kelly experience a little sea sickness. I, on the otherhand, had those pressure point wristbands and was good to go!
Above is a photo of our litte bathroom and below is the adjoining shower. The postitive thing about the shower is the shower head detaches, so you don't have to move around too much. The other nice thing is they have a vanity in the stateroom, so you really don't spend much time in the bathroom at all.
Our one and only port-of-call was in Ensenada, Mexico. We definitely did a little shopping there and made sure to have some delicious Mexican grub. Mmmm, yummy!
Arriving back to the ship after a fun day in Mexico, I took this picture of the Monarch. What a nice ship, I think. 
Saturday evening was the
formal dinner in which we had to dress up for. Compared to a lot of the other people, we were totally underdressed. Some people looked like they were attending a wedding! Here Kelly and I are right before we went to the Claude's dining room. This is the dining room where we ate our breakfasts and dinners.
We were out to sea all day on Sunday, so it was pool day for almost everyone. We got a couple chaise lounges on the 2nd pool deck.
Since most people were out by the pool, they had quite a few activities going on at or around the pool. One of those activites was the International Men's Belly-Flopping Contest. After each man tried his best to flop, all of us onlookers would stick up our hands and vote using our fingers...5 fingers being the best.
This guy below has pretty good form.
However, it was this guy who made the biggest and best splashes and he took home the gold.
Everytime I see this photo, I whince. I totally fried out at the pool on Sunday. I neglected to continuously apply sunscreen and boy did I pay for it. Even my lips got burned and swollen. Later they broke out in fever blisters...yuck! Clothing was kept to a necessary minimum since
everything killed my shoulders/neck/chest/back.
During the final dinner on Sunday, our entire waitstaff sang to everyone in the dining room. How sweet, huh?!
Our awesome Jamaican stateroom attendant's name was Errol. Both Saturday and Sunday evenings we were surprised with these towel animals. The elephant (above) was our surprise on Saturday, he is wearing Kelly's sunglasses...we got a chuckle out of that. Sunday evening, we were given the bunny. Pretty cute and it put a smile on our faces :)
Sunday evening was all about relaxing and getting our rest for the early departure of the ship the following morning. Thus, Kelly and I walked around the ship and took a few peaceful photos of our surroundings. Here I captured another cruise ship off in the distance.
This sunset is the lasting memory I have of the cruise. I took it the final night on the ship and it's magnifique!
This is the only photo I took of San Diego. Kelly's grandparents have rented the same beach house for the last 35 years. This is the view out of the window of the 2nd story pad/division of the beach house were we resided. What a great way to wake up the final 2 mornings of my getaway from my responsibilities.
All in all, I had a wonderful time. I couldn't wait for this trip to come along and it finally did. After a couple days, though, I missed my kids and husband dearly. I was so happy to see everyone when they picked me up from the airport the night of Wednesday, July 16th. This trip helped me to appreciate what I have here at home, everyday, so much more. For that, I am eternally grateful.
After many patient months, Marley's pleas were finally satisfied when she returned to Preschool this afternoon. I'm pretty confidant in assuming that she would be a happy clam to have year-round school. So, her teacher this year is Sara and Marley seems to like her...she gave Sara a hug the second she saw her. Sara was a teacher from last year, but she wasn't Marley's teacher until this year. Although Marley's teacher last year was Katie, Marley is so social that she gets to know everyone during the occasional integrated class with all 3 classes.
Christopher showing us how it's done. 
Marley only likes to slide on her knees. I guess she is still timid of sliding on her belly.
Jaxon just loves to push his Lightening McQueen toy around the slip n' slide.
Catching some rays...and saying cheese! 
DirecTV makes viewing even more facsinating with their interactive menu. You can go to channels 350-356 and you will see this prompt to push the red remote button. When you do so, this mini-menu pops up as shown above. 
Here is the guide for the Medal Count selection. Pretty cool, I think.
ESPN magazine calls him Aquaman. Boy is he! 
With 9 Gold Medals he is tied for having the most, EVER! He can easily break that tie this year and maybe even set the bar so unattainably high in future Olympics to come. 
Javier and I got to watch the Men's 100 X 4 M Freestyle Relay last night LIVE and it was probably the most excited either of us have ever been while watching the Olympics! I mean, talk about an upset!
The French had their lips flapping the whole time leading up to the race, but it was 
Who needs words at a time like that?! Enough said... except...
There he was snuggled in/on the massive amount of pillows on our bed and neither one of us saw him initially since he was sort of hidden. 
Poor little guy was tuckered out and we got the biggest chuckle out of him falling asleep there. I mean, where is a nappy boy suppose to sleep when both 
It makes sense he would sleep there...probably one of the most comfy places in our house! Ever since then, he will come into our room and 
