HAPPY HALLOWEEEEEN!!!!

Mom and Dad hosted their annual Halloween dinner party.

There were some great costumes.

Take Nani, for instance...

When I walked in, it was like seeing a blast from the past. She had dug deep in her closet to pull out the old bridesmaid dress that she wore at MY wedding.

I immediately recognized the dress and had a gigantic belly laugh over it and how well she had accessorized. In fact, I'm still laughing over it whenever I think about it.

As per several requests, I am now posting pictures of Nani in that very same dress she wore 33 years ago. For some reason, I don't remember laughing my head off when I first saw her on that day.

Sam and Kathy's family:

Mike and Lorene's family:

I can see why the temple hired this chef. She looks lovely and she's prepared for everything!

Andy and Amanda's family:

Rachel made quite an entrance in her mummy costume.

Dallas and Rebecca's family:

Here we are:

Caroline LOVES necklaces.

She runs to the toy box and puts on the white necklace as soon as she gets to Grandma Ward's house (note the white necklace on the kangaroo in a previous picture).

She kept looking at my green necklace and I could tell she liked it and was probably wishing I would give it to her. She said, "Look Grandma! We both have the same necklace on!"

Sarah's costume announced her "baby bump" which is due on April 16th. Sarah and Jeff, the accountant, are hoping the baby does not come even one day early during the busy tax season.

Eli took a good look at the big, green leprechaun and did not know what to think.

Glen lifted up his red beard to show Eli it was just his grandpa under there and Eli was still scared of him.

He much preferred it when Glen kept his distance.

Eli burrowed his head into Jeff's shoulder several times and shook with fear.

I mean really--is there anything at all scary or funny-looking about this guy?!?!??

There was quite a crowd eating dinner at three tables and two high chairs.

Then the moment the kids were waiting for--DESSERTS and CANDLES!!!

News flash: Nani announced she is never going to make brownie bites again because they stick to the pan all the time now and it takes her hours to get them out of the pans. So those of us who got to enjoy this last batch of orange-filled brownie bites are extra special, aren't we?

It seems that Amanda always comes up with a cute Halloween dessert. This year it was cupcake mummies. The caramel apple nut pie was super good. Mom made snickerdoodle cookies for Nani's birthday treat.

Happy September and October birthdays went out to Mike, Amanda, Kaelyn, Michelle, Nina, Dad, Mom, Luke and Nani.

It was a fun party for everyone.

Thanks again, Mom and Dad, for throwing a nice dinner party.

Hmmmmm, now let me get busy thinking about what we're going to dress up as next Halloween.

Homeward Bound

Our last full day at sea found us starting our day as usual--with breakfast in the Windjammer.

Dad, of course, was busy all day with going to the Legacy classes. Mom and Nani followed my lead and found some more entertaining things to do on the ship.

We went to The Palace to watch the cake decoration competition between a ship passenger (who had an assistant chef standing nearby in case she needed help), Jimmy our Cruise Director, and an executive chef.

First assignment--put on your apron and chef's hat.

The competitors had to whip their own cream by hand. Jimmy decided to try the industrial-size whip to see if that would speed up the process. He enlisted help to hold the bowl for him.

All three held up their finished cakes. It was quite hilarious and we got many laughs during that time.

We enjoyed sitting in on the Bingo games because Bingo Elvis was quite entertaining to watch as well. We were too cheap to pay the money to play, but felt like we "got our money's worth" watching Elvis.

On our sea days, we would join in with the Legacy group when they all went to the dining room for lunch. We enjoyed going to the salad bar and picking our items for the chefs to mix together in our individual bowls--complete with chopping up the salad and getting all the dressing evenly mixed in before dumping it out onto our plate.

There was a big sun painted on the ceiling in the three-level dining room.

We even had fancy food at lunch.

In the afternoon, Nani and I went up on deck to watch the ice carving demonstration while Mom sat in on the art auction once again. Even though it was a beautiful blue-sky kind of day, it was still very cold out there.

The ice sculpting expert got busy doing his thing and 12 minutes later he had a beautiful ice carving for everyone to figure out what he'd made.

It was such a beautiful, peaceful calm day at sea. Nani spotted a ship on the horizon. Other passengers were enjoying the view as well.

Right before dinner, we watched the Island Frenzy Farewell Parade on the Royal Promenade. All of the costumes were very colorful.

These are the last of the beautiful dessert creations that we enjoyed on the ship.

Our after-dinner show was Farewell Spectacular Showtime starring the comedy of Steve Smith.

Jimmy, our Cruise Director, did a cruise in review and the best part of it was when he did his list of top 10 dumb questions asked to him by the guests.

There was a special finale from the officers, staff and crew. It certainly helped us appreciate all the hard work they did to provide such a wonderful experience for all of us.

Nani woke up super early that last morning so she could watch the ship sail into the harbor. I wasn't that anxious to see land and we were in no hurry to get to the airport because we had a late afternoon flight, so I slept in.

Nani and I then did our breakfast routine for the last time. Ahhhhhh, that delicious food that was always ready whenever we wanted it was soon to be just a fond memory...

It was interesting to watch two helicopters flying around overhead and all around the harbor. We didn't know if they were our welcoming committee or doing their job keeping the harbor safe.

We waited for a while in the dining room until our number was called. Then we moved down into this covered walkway area. The line had been moving rather quickly until we got to the front of the line. We waited and waited and waited for a bus to come and shuttle us to the airport.

And then we waited and waited and waited and waited for hours at the Newark Airport.

We found a food court in the airport where Nani and I picked the Island Chicken Grill to buy our lunch. It just wasn't as fun or exciting as eating on the ship. And to add insult to injury--we actually had to pull out money and PAY for this food.

I loved how it felt like we were eating free food on the ship. All that food I ate was free, wasn't it, Glen???

We tried to spend as much time as possible eating to pass the time. We spent some more time looking down over this railing at the incoming international passengers. We walked all around the airport and finally it was time to get on our plane and head home.

That's it.

Trip over.

So much food.

So much fun.

So much to do.

So much to see.

Even though we lamented a lot about the fact that we went on that cruise to look at the changing of the leaves and we didn't see much at all of the changing of the leaves, we still had a super fun time. I mean--really--who would want to ask for a refund when we had such a great time?

Once back home, Dad emailed me the following pictures which he took in their neighborhood.

Dad wrote: Why go to New England when you can see things like this here?