Home again, Home again

After a week of lounging around, seeing beautiful sights, eating more decadent food than I previously thought possible . . . . it's back to reality. It's amazing how fast I got used to having food ready whenever I wanted it, and tons of options to choose from so no matter what I was in the mood for, it was there! My bed was always made when I got back to the room from breakfast. After eating did I want to read, go swimming, play ping-pong, gamble away my money in the slot machines, go to an art auction, or learn how to fold towels into cute little animals? I could do anything, anytime, and most of it involved food. Oh the food!!!!! I cannot say enough about the food. We could have been cruising through the podunk backwater of some swamp and if the food was still as good, I would have been thrilled to be there! Breakfast and lunch were pretty casual, but still amazing. Tons of choices; Italian, Salad Bar, Sandwich shop, outdoor grill, Chinese Wok, bistro . . . .you could eat 24/7 and still never eat everything they offered. But dinner, oh dinner, was where it was really amazing. We ate four course dinners every night, with appetizers like rock crab artichoke dip, Beef carpaccio, tuna tartare, crab cakes .. . . . . all pretty amazing. Soups and salads like mixed berry soup, Gold Rush soup (tomato on steriods), Greek salad . . . . yum again! If you weren't stuffed by this time then make room for duck al' orange, New York Steak, Surf and Turf, lamb shank, Rock fish, scallops. Top it off with dessert like mixed berry crisp, creme brulee, mango sundae. It was quite a letdown to have to go back to regular food after that. But I have to say that I am glad to get back to regular food because if I ate like that all the time, I would weigh 300 pounds in about a month!

The rest of the cruise was amazing. We got to see great cities, really interesting historical sites and the excursions were amazing. We got to hike a glacier and I DID IT!!!! I was really worried because they said it was a 2 hour hike and you needed to be in good physical shape to handle the rough terrain and low-level ice climbing skills. But I did great! I huffed and puffed a couple times, but I kept up and did it all really well! I think that was the highlight of the trip for me, was accomplishing something that I was really scared I wouldn't be able to do.

But like every vacation, this week of gluttony and sloth came to an end. And I was glad to see it end. As nice as it was to be on a adult schedule, I missed Kadin ALOT by the end of the week. There was a little 1 1/2 year old girl dancing in one of the night clubs in a princess dress on formal night. Just watching her bop around in her sparkly dress and feel the joy just pouring out of her, it just about made me cry. I missed my little man and his joy.

Coming back to see him was so great. He had his usual giant smile and couldn't wait to jump up for a big hug and to tell me all about the fun things that he had been doing while we had been gone. He had the greatest time at Grandma and Grandpa's house, but he was also pretty excited that we were back and were all going to be going home together. It was such a great feeling of completeness when it was the three of us again.