On the last day of school before the Christmas break, we had to get covid tests to make sure we were negative before being able to travel on our cruise. The girls and I all got our tests as soon as school was out, and then we drove over to the east side to meet up with Tyler before heading out of town. We stopped by another Walgreens for Tyler to get tested, and then we ate lunch at Chico's Tacos. It's a famous restaurant in El Paso because it was featured on a Food Network Channel show, but the girls and I had never tried it, so we were excited to taste it. Their signature dish is taquitos in a tomato base soup covered in cheese. I imagined it would be like plain tomato sauce, but it was more flavorful than I thought and tasted more like a yummy salsa. It was really good. I'd eat there again. Tessa and I grabbed a picture outside the restaurant before we headed on our way.
We stayed in a hotel outside of Fort Worth on our way over to Louisiana for the BYU bowl game. We decided we had enough time to take the side trip to Shreveport for the game since it was scheduled for the day before we had to be in Galveston for our cruise. We met up with my parents, John and McKaye, and McKaye's family for a lunch before going to the stadium for the game. We ate at a seafood restaurant called Crawdaddy's. We tried crawdads for the first time. They were a little spicy, but tasty and all of the girls tried them. It was a lot of work for very little meat, but it was fun to say we tried it. Here's Abby showing off the crawdads. We also tried fried alligator at that restaurant.
After lunch, we headed to the stadium. BYU played UAB and ended up losing 31-28, but it was fun to watch them play in person. There were not a lot of fans in the stands, but we were there with my parents, John and McKaye and her family, and the Kasallis family. The weather was not great. It was rainy and wet and freezing.
We actually found a Walmart to buy ponchos on our way to the game, but we were still cold and wet. We did get to see them score some touchdowns which was fun. Baylor Romney was the quarterback for this game, so that was exciting. The Romneys used to live across the street from us when their boys were still in high school, so we've loved watching him and his brother, Gunner, play together at BYU.
Even though the kids were cold and wet, they were happy to be there and being with friends helped too. Tessa was excited to see the BYU marching band. They sat in the end zone section, but were close enough for us to see them from where our seats were. John used to be the drumline instructor at BYU, so he's really good friends with the director, so he promised to take Tessa over there sometime during the game.
It was seriously so wet, but all the BYU fans were sitting near each other, so we all cheered our team on together.
During the 3rd quarter of the game, John walked some of us over to the band. He and McKaye talked to the band director and introduced us to them. The piccolo section was on the front row, so we told them that Aubrey just started playing the flute. They were so nice and happy to take a picture with her. They even let her hold a piccolo for the picture. Aubrey thought it was the best thing ever. Tessa and I walked up towards the drumline and she thought it was so cool that two of the quad players were girls. One of those girls came over and talked to Tessa for a minute and then took her back over by the section when they played their next song. She gave Tessa a stick to play along, but she didn't know what to do so she just stood there and watched them play. Two of the quad players gave her their broken sticks that she got to keep as souvenirs. They were so nice to her. It made her even more excited to try for quads next year in her drumline.
We watched the halftime show and cheered on the band. They did a great job considering they had to march in their ponchos in the rainy downpour. It was just so cool to hear the sheer volume of a college marching band. Tessa and I thought it was so cool.
We were able to go under the stands to try and get a little dry during halftime after the bands performed. We met up with Jeni Romney and got to chat with her for a few minutes. She's been at the majority of the football games and she was telling us that they didn't even know that Baylor would be starting the game until a few days before the game. We were happy to get to see her and to see the BYU team play. We are all definite die-hard BYU fans.
As soon as the football game was over, we said our goodbyes to everyone and headed straight to Galveston. My parents and the Kasallis family took their time driving to Galveston and stayed in hotels outside of the city and drove the final way Sunday morning. We drove all the way into Galveston so that we wouldn't have to do any extra driving on Sunday because that was Abby's birthday. We spent her birthday morning exploring Galveston. We drove around downtown and tried a couple of museums, which were closed. We also tried a couple restaurants for lunch, but lines were long. We finally made it to a Mexican restaurant that everyone loved. The food was delicious and they were very nice to accommodate everyone since my parents and the Kasallis family met up with us to eat. As we walked around their downtown area and neighborhoods, I took some pictures of the girls. We walked through a couple of souvenir shops, but just browsed. Our favorite was a store full of stuff that had been salvaged from shipwrecks in the ocean, lots of ship parts and old ship flags. It was pretty cool.
I also took this picture of Abby by a house she liked. A lot of the houses were painted with such bright colors, it was fun to see them all. We walked through the downtown streets while we waited for the restaurant to be ready for our party. This was the picture I used to post about Abby on her 17th birthday. She was a little sad that we were traveling on her birthday again, but since she was going on a cruise for her birthday, she couldn't complain too much. After we got home from the cruise, my coworker Dora dropped off a chocolate flan cake for Abby because she requested it for her birthday after she tried it earlier in the year. It was so nice of Dora to remember and to bring it by. Abby was super excited and was nice enough to share it with the rest of us. It was pretty much the only birthday cake she got this year, so I was very appreciative of Dora for saving the day on that one even though we celebrated with cake a week after her actual birthday.
After lunch, we parked and walked to the port where we boarded our cruise ship. Everything was decorated for Christmas, so we thought that was pretty cool. It was our first time on a cruise and the inside looked just like a hotel. Our room was on the 6th deck and the 5th deck was the main promenade, so I took a picture of the girls looking down the center aisle of the cruise ship. They also had a huge, decorated Christmas tree at the end of the promenade, right at the entrance to the front part of the ship where our room was. We took a lot of pictures in front of the tree. I had to get one of just me and Tyler.
There were so many fun things to do on the cruise. Because the weather was a little choppy, they changed our schedule so we ended up cruising for the first two days. However, the weather was so bad, that the boat was rocking almost the entire time. Everyone we were with who had been on a cruise before kept telling us you wouldn't be able to feel the ocean since the ship is so big; but this storm must have been one of the worst because you could definitely feel it. A couple people in our group got seasick and we all felt a little queasy off and on. Our family used the patches behind our ears and took medicine for motion sickness and luckily we were all fine, but it was definitely rocky. We made the best of it and still enjoyed the time we were on the boat. Part of the time even the swimming pools were closed because the weather was so windy, but once the sun came out on day two, we were able to explore a little more. Aubrey and her friends found a lady who was doing face painting for free. They each took their turn and got their faces painted.
Besides our family, the Kasallis family, and my parents, the Esplins, Hausmans, and Scotts were all on the cruise too. The Esplins are from El Paso and the Hausmans used to live in El Paso, but now live in Houston where they met the Scotts who knew the Kasallises when they lived in Houston. Aubrey's group of kids that she hung out with (and are in this picture) were Sam, Claire, Caroline, and Afton. They had a rock climbing wall on the ship. Taryn took a turn a couple of times during the week. Tyler and I both tried it too, but your arms get really tired really fast when you're not used to climbing. Taryn did a great job and did better than both of us.
A favorite activity on the ship was karaoke. The kids headed to karaoke night multiple times throughout the week. The first night they did it, Taryn was so fast getting there that by the time I got there, she had already sung and I missed it. I was surprised that she was brave enough to get up there and sing by herself, but she did and I was so proud of her. I was just sad that I had missed it. Audrey took a video of her, but no pictures. Abby and Tessa sang a song together and sounded awesome. Aubrey even got up there with Caroline and sang a song. The crowd was very supportive and it was fun to hear everyone sing.
One of the top decks on the ship had a running track. It also looked down over the swimming pools. Taryn and I took a picture together one of the times we were up there. You can see all of the clouds that kept the weather unpredictable, but once the sun came out, it was beautiful weather. Abby and I used the gym multiple times during the week and ran on the treadmill and lifted weights. Tessa and AJ met up with us occasionally too. We all did a run around the track one morning. Abby just walked since she had already run on the treadmill. When Tessa lapped me for the third time, we figured we had been running long enough. It was a fun workout.
Some of the nights were "formal" nights so everyone dressed up. Some people went all out and were wearing very formal clothes, but we just wore some church dresses. That was definitely fancy enough for me.
The kids just ran around with their friends and we'd see them in passing maybe at the elevators or at the food stops or swimming pools. They had free ice cream during certain times of the day and Taryn and her friends, Ellie and Kate, would ask for two so they'd double fist their ice cream cones. It was one of their favorite treats.
We had scheduled a set time dinner for the week, so every night at 5:30 we'd head to the dining hall to a specific table for dinner. We had four tables between all five families, so it worked out that the different ages sat together. Here's Aubrey and Taryn with the pre-teens and the second one is the teenager table where they always sat.
The younger kids moved around a bit more and were at different tables each night, but the food never disappointed. We had the same servers each night at our table and the servers would give us a menu for the night. There were food selections that were available every night and then there were selections that were only available for that one day. And you could eat anything you wanted! We always ordered an appetizer, a main dish, and a dessert; and sometimes we'd order more than one of something if we couldn't decide. My favorites were the soups and the yummy desserts like cheesecake and key lime pie and an apple tart. Their eggplant parmesan was delicious and I even tried a lot of seafood dishes like calamari and escargot. We looked forward to the dinners every day.
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