Pirate Night!

Pirates night is taken seriously on a Disney Cruise. I’d forgotten all about it in the years since our first visit (just like I’d forgotten about the tradition of decorating your stateroom door), but it all came back in a hurry. People – children, adults, the elderly – walk around in full pirate get-up, and a rash of “Rrrrrr’s” echo around the ship. 

If it wasn’t so much  fun, it’d be crazy. 

We all went for dinner and had a great time. The night before Junie had talked the ears off an elderly gentleman at the table next to us, and so I’d moved her over a seat that night. The elderly man was disappointed, saying he enjoyed her company and that she reminded him of the mischievous character “Eloise”. 

After dinner we dispersed as normal. Say it with me: Smiley to the club, YaYa and LuLu to The Edge, Lisa, Junie and I to the nightly musical. Only that night it wasn’t a musical, but a comedy performance by juggler Max Winfrey. It’s not normally my cup of tea but the guy was HILARIOUS and I’d love to see him again. We had good seats too, sneaking our way down into sole possession of the box seats in the balcony. 

Before the show we’d spent some time on Deck 4 enjoying the sights and sounds of the ocean as Lauren played on the deck. Even by then it was obvious LK was pooped, and by the time the comedy show was over our plans to put her in The Club and go out for some adult time were zapped by the zzz’s of our littlest Slap. 

Meanwhile, Lisa had earlier located the launderette, and so around 11 I picked Smiley up as usual from the club and enlisted his help in doing nearly a weeks worth of dirty, stinking underwear and socks for Team Slap We also took our WDW mugs up to the 11th deck to fill them with soda, which is where I found a midnight showing of Pirates of the Caribbean on the big screen by the pool.  Smiley and I took a seat in some lounge chairs and lo and behold, here came my two oldest and some of their friends to occupy the rest of the row.

 Eventually YaYa signed off and went to bed, then Smiley petered out and I took him to the stateroom. OJ and I stayed until the end of the movie, then headed back down to bed. 

What a great, great day! Top 100, easy!

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Sunday up North

Sunday morning dawned with yet another early wake up call from Lump. I took her outside to the gazebo at 6:30 and let her crawl around while I read some of The Dante Club and enjoyed the sight of cardinals in the backyard.

Eventually, after an hour or so, she tuckered out and I returned her to bed. No one else was up yet so I took advantage of the morning to do some fishing. Unfortunately we were out of bait and the fish weren't interested in the least in the artificial lures. So I started hunting under rocks and logs for a grub or worm to do the trick, and wound up coming across a huge honeybee that had stung something and dropped dead.

I was going to use it on the hook but then realized the kids would like to see it so I held on to it. And yeah, the kids loved it. In fact, we took the bee home with us.

Soon enough all the kids were up and joined me in the water.

 

The husband made a trip for bait and returned with wax worms, which the fish just couldn't refuse. Within only a few minutes I had caught three (and wound end up with six on the day). All the kids started clamoring to join me and by the end of the adventure YaYa caught two fish

Smiley one

,

and LuLu three.

 

And I mean they caught them. All you had to do once the fish were fired up was drop the hook in the water and pull up, they were biting like mad.

[sidenote: one time I was ready to cast when I checked behind me to make sure the kids wereclear. There was Smiley and his 3 year old female counterpart buck naked and swimming. Heathens! I sent them both out to put their swimsuits on.]

Speaking of biting, here's some pics of LuLu's bites, which covered her from head to toe. Like me she's allergic, although thankfully not as bad. Most of the pics fail to show the majority of the bites, but you'll get the idea. The kid looked like she had the pox.

And yes, duh, we used Deep Woods Off, but the damn skeeters up there are nasty and indifferent to it.

Well, soon after it was time to pack up and head out. On the road we stopped back at the Pamida to clean them out of the cheap diapers, and picked up some sandals at Family Dollar. We got lost on the way home, going an hour out of our way, but aside from a stop at McDonald's it was a straight shot once we found the highway.

The only argument on the way back was with YaYa. She'd received a scrapbook from the 11 year old to document the trip and she'd wanted the McDonald's receipt to put inside. I'd thrown it away and she broke down into tears.

Such is life with four kids.

Ah well, a fine and enjoyable weekend. In closing, here's some more pics of the fun we had.