Tempe Improv Theater (Saturday, July 1st, 2017)

We decided a night of comedy would be really fun, so we went to the Tempe Improv to see Drew Lynch.  He is the comedian from America's Got Talent that went to sleep after receiving a concussion, and when he awoke, he had a permanent stutter in his speech.  I'm sure it was devastating, but he was able to make something out of it.  He took life's lemons and turn them into lemonade. Something that very few of us can do.

As we got in line for the show, they told us that if we went into the bar before the show, we could enjoy the nice cool air conditioning, and would get wristbands for VIP seating, which meant that we would be seated before everyone else in line.  That sounded pretty good to us, so we headed inside before the show.

Once we were in the theater, it didn't take them very long to seat all of the guests.  We each ordered a drink and waited for the show to start.

Drew Lynch's opening act was a comedian from the LA area named Justin Foster.  His forte in comedy was his interaction with the audience. It appeared that very little of his material was scripted, he just rolled with whatever the audience gave him.  His material was clean, even though it was a 21+ venue. This is a picture of us with Justin after the show.



Drew Lynch is one of the funniest comedians I have ever seen. His comedy is clean, and revolves around everyday life that we can all relate to.  He talked a little bit about his stutter, his short stature and his therapy dog. There were times when we were crying and couldn't catch our breath.  He was SO funny!  After the show he stayed around for pictures, which was a lot of fun.  All of the staff said that he is a really nice guy.  



We enjoyed every minute of his show and would go see him again in a heart beat.  I highly recommend you look him up on the internet and check out some of his comedy.  It is priceless!

A Quick Stop in Mesa (Tuesday, February 24th, 2016)

While we were in Havasu, we decided that it would be great to stop in Mesa, AZ for a few days on our way home to see my parents. Since my mom was sick for our oldest daughter's graduation, it has been a long time since we have seen them.  So we left Monday morning and enjoyed the four hour drive from Lake Havasu City to Mesa.  There were a lot of wild flowers in bloom, so it was really pretty!  

We had a nice dinner out with my parents on Monday night, and enjoyed a low-key day with them on Tuesday.  Steve and my dad had a chance to play a little pickleball, which my dad had never played before, so hopefully he enjoyed it enough to play again.  I was a little under the weather again, so we spent some time out on their back porch just enjoying the weather and picking citrus fruit to bring home.

My parents had purchased tickets to a show that they enjoy with their friends each year, so when we called to say that we would be coming for a short visit, they picked up a couple more tickets for us as well.  The show is called Bernie and Red, and is a musical comedy duo that travels around the country entertaining snowbirds. They are from Liverpool, England but currently reside in Canada. They recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and have spent their entire married life entertaining others.  They have 16 different shows that they perform in different places, throughout the year.  

We met up with my parent's friends at one of the manufactured home parks in Mesa where we would be watching the show.  I meant to get a picture of my parents and their friends, but just forgot.  Darn!  But here are a few pictures of the Bernie and Red Show.

Such a cute and talented couple!

We really enjoyed the show, and the company of my parent's and their friends.  They are all such great people, and I am so happy that my parents have found them.  The following morning Steve and I left to return to Denver.  The stay with my parents was much too short, but we have commitments in Denver on Thursday and Friday that we have to be home for.  

It was an easy drive with no weather issues, which is always a relief.  As we entered New Mexico from Arizona, we drove into a fog bank, which came and went through much of New Mexico.

Fog and freezing temperatures make for an icy wonderland

The Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque.  The fog had lifted for us, but was still hanging in the foothills

As we passed through Santa Fe, New Mexico, there was no fog, but there had been a snow storm the day before, so we got to see the beautiful aftermath from our car windows.

Quite a change from what we had been experiencing in Arizona!

We see a lot of wind turbine blades on the roads, but I'm always amazed at how big they are

And as we came back into Colorado, we are greeted by the Spanish Peaks once again!

We made a quick stop in Colorado Springs to see the progress of the house that our oldest daughter and her husband are having built. It has a long way to go, but we're making progress.

Now to get settled back in at home, and get ready for our next adventure!

Second Day at Sea Northern Caribbean (Monday, January 11th, 2016)

When I first woke up this morning, I looked out the window and there was dense fog. That certainly didn’t give me a reason to want to get up, so I rolled over and went back to sleep. At about 8:00, I tried it again. This time when I looked out, the fog had lifted, but now I can see water running down our window. 

I guess this means that it’s time to blog since I don’t need to rush to the poolside chairs to get a tan. My sweet husband ran up to the lido deck and grabbed us both some coffee to drink as I sat her and typed. He’s just that kind of guy! Whether we’re on a cruise ship or in a hotel, he always makes a coffee run for us while I’m getting ready. He’s so sweet!

It was a nice leisurely day, since the rain decided to stick with us. The back pool deck has a retractable roof, so during the night last night they closed the roof. 

The 18 and over pool,with the retractable roof closed

It makes the area a bit humid, but very comfortable in a rain storm. It is an 18 and over area, so we could just spend the day by the pool, in and out of the hot tub, relaxing. Our daughter is still not feeling great today. She feels good for a while and then goes back to feeling bad. We feel sorry for her, but it makes us happy that our days are relaxing and not crazy busy.  Hopefully she will feel better when we get to our first port.

For lunch today, Steve and I both went to the Guy Fiery Burger Bar. This is a relatively new option being offered on the Carnival Freedom ship.  They hand make your burger for you, and then have a topping bar with lots of yummy toppings.  It's way more food than I can eat, but a great treat!

And our daughter enjoyed another gluten free pizza, hand made just for her!

Although it's rainy, its really quite comfortable outside, so we spent some time on the outer decks just enjoying the day.

A view of the retractable roof from the outside.  We love this!

Plenty of people in the main pool area, even though it's raining

As we walked to the front of the ship, we could see the next big rain storm approaching, so we decided to once again head inside for awhile.

We opted for an afternoon game of blackjack

and a little afternoon snack of ceviche and bar-b-qued octopus

Again tonight, Steve and I got ready first, then left the room to go sit at the back bar while our daughter got ready. We have really enjoyed talking to Suriya the bar tender at the back lido bar. When our daughter was ready tonight, she met us at our usual spot, and we all headed up to the promenade deck to watch an acoustic guitar player. He was really good and brought in a pretty good crowd.

The great thing about rain during the day is beautiful skies at night!

We headed to another nice dinner in the dining room. After dinner instead of heading to comedy, we went with our dinner table mates to the theater to watch the nightly show. It was called 88 Keys, and started out as a piano bar, but then turned into a complete singing and dancing show, based on the piano. It was a really good show. 

When the show was over, we headed to the headliner for a little more Sheila Kay comedy before turning in for the night.  When we got to the room tonight, we were greeted by another towel friend to keep us company through the night.

How does the housekeeping staff have time for this???

Leaving for Galveston (Saturday, January 9th, 2016)

We got about four inches of snow again yesterday. They say that’s what we should expect in an El Nino year, but not necessarily what we want. If we still enjoyed skiing, snow would be a great thing, but right now it just means shoveling, slow traffic and very dirty cars.

We made another phone change before we left on this trip. We paid an extra $40 to Verizon this month to have cell phone coverage from the ship and at each of our ports. If you have Verizon, you can call 611 from your cell phone and it will put you in touch with the international representative who will give you pricing for international travel phone coverage. We decided that the extra $40 would be worth it to be able to talk to our older daughter while we were away.

We left the house at 4:45 this morning for a 7:25 flight to Houston Hobby Airport. We will be boarding the Carnival Freedom later today for a seven-day cruise in the northern Caribbean. As we drove to Denver International Airport it was 21 degrees outside and some of the roads were still icy from yesterday's snow.  Security lines were longer than we expected, probably still the end of the holiday travelers.  

Our flight to Houston was completely full, and in fact, it was over sold, so they were asking for people to take a bump. Unfortunately that wouldn't work for us this time, but maybe another time.  The flight on Southwest Airlines was very good, and got into Houston about 15 minutes early. We landed at about 11:00 a.m. It was 55 degrees when we landed, so the temperatures are definitely moving in the right direction.

We are taking this trip with just our youngest daughter. Our oldest daughter started her “big girl job” on January 4th, and is getting her career off to a good start, and our son (in-law) is back in training in Georgia.

When we booked our Carnival Cruise, we purchased the airport to ship transportation option that they provide for $37 per person each way for about an hour ride.They had a check-in desk right in the baggage claim area at the Houston Hobby airport, which made it really easy. We checked in after picking up our bags, and then waited about 30 minutes for the rest of the bus passengers to arrive.

We talked to the Carnival representative at the airport and she said that a lot of people flew in yesterday and stayed at a local hotel, then caught the hotel shuttle back to the airport this morning in time to catch the first bus to the ship. We hadn’t thought of that, but might have to try it next time. They run three buses a day on arrival days to get people from the airport to the ship.

Once everyone had arrived, they walked us all out to the bus, which was a nice big coach bus. 

We told them that we wanted to carry our luggage on when we got to the ship, so they put it in a separate bay from the other luggage so it wouldn’t automatically be taken by the porters when we got to the ship. We appreciated that very much!  

The cruise lines typically handle your luggage when you arrive, and as quickly as they can, they deliver it to your room. Since there are thousands of passengers on the ship, this can take quite a bit of time, and until your luggage arrives, you don’t have access to it. So we prefer to just carry our luggage on ourselves and put it in our room. That way we have everything we need, and don’t have to wait on the luggage delivery people. 

We always enjoy seeing how different life is in different places. As we came over the bridge into Galveston, there were beautiful neighborhoods (on stilts of course) built right on the water, and in Galveston, it's all about oil. Everywhere you look has something to do with oil.  

Since we came straight from the airport and used the Carnival transportation, we got to skip the long lines and go straight through priority security and check-in at the ship. It was very nice because the main lines looked really long. 

 Carnival cruises are all inclusive except for alcohol, and alcohol can be quite expensive. We don’t drink a lot, but we do enjoy a drink here and there, so we always take advantage of the carry on wine policy that Carnival has. Each person over 21 can carry on one bottle of wine. If you choose to drink it with dinner, there is a $15 uncorking fee, but if you just drink it in your room, or around the ship, it is free to enjoy anywhere else on the ship. Just don’t forget to bring a corkscrew, although our housekeeping staff has helped us with in the past. 

The other thing we also always pack for a cruise ship (and hotels too) is extra hangars. We keep lots of metal hangars from the dry cleaners around just for this purpose. There is plenty of closet space on cruise ships, but never enough hangars.

When we got to our room, it was just as we expected it to be.

Plenty of room for the three of us for a week

Looking back toward the window

Cozy, but efficient!

After we got our bags to our room, we headed out to explore the ship a little it. All of the Carnival ships have basically the same layout, but are decorated differently. The buffet style restaurants are always open when you get on board to provide food to hungry travelers. This was a good thing for us today since we got up at 4:00 a.m., had a small breakfast, and really hadn’t eaten anything else since. We all found a little something for lunch at the Italian buffet.  We walked around the ship some more, but it was really cold and windy on the outside decks so we didn’t spend much time out there. 

The ships always do a safety briefing before they set sail, which varies by ship, but requires the passengers to report to their “muster” station. This is an area out of the side decks of the ship where the lifeboats are stored. They explain what to do in an emergency while you are standing out there. Since it’s quite cold outside today, we went back to the cabin and grabbed our coats before reporting to our station. This turned out to be a really good idea. There were a lot of really cold people huddled around trying to get through the safety talk. 

We each only brought one or two pairs of pants, so were hoping that as the ship makes it way south that it starts warming up or we’re going to be doing a lot of re-wearing.

After the safety briefing we found ourselves a nice, warm inside table from which to watch the sail away. 

Our daughter and I went out to the pizza bar to see if they had gluten free crust, and to our surprise they do. They made her, her very own, hot out of the oven gluten free pizza with any toppings she wanted. It took about 4 minutes to get her pizza. What a nice surprise! 

As we sat at our table, eating pizza and waiting for the sail away, we noticed a school of dolphins right outside our window. They swam around the side of the ship for about an hour. What a treat! I tried to get a few pictures, but only had a little point and shoot camera, so not much luck, but it was really fun to see them.

If you look closely, you can see a mama and baby jumping side by side

Galveston sunset

We prefer to have the late dinner slot, so that we are never rushed to get back on the ship after our excursion days. Our dinner time this trip is 8:15. We had time to go to the welcome aboard show before going down to dinner.  In the main restaurant there is assigned seating. We have been seated with another family of three. A mom, with her daughter and son from Freemont, Nebraska. They are really nice and about our age, so they will be fun to eat with each night. 

Steve had the vegetarian option, which is always Indian. Carnival usually has Indian chef’s, so the Indian food is always really good. I had grilled mahi mahi and creamed spinach and our daughter had grilled chicken and a baked potato. We all also had an appetizer and chocolate melting cake for dessert. Our daughter had ice cream since she can’t have gluten. 

From now on, our daughter will order a day ahead, and all of her meals will be prepared gluten free for her.  As we finished our dessert, they brought tomorrow-nights menu to our table, and she picked out all of her selections for tomorrow night, including gluten free chocolate melting cake. We are very pleased with how Carnival is handling her meals, and they do it all with a huge smile on their faces.

After dinner we went to the comedy club where we watched two really good comedians, Thomas Brown and Sheila Kay. They usually have good comedians on Carnival cruises, but we thought these two were exceptional. After the comedy club we all headed back to our room for some much needed sleep.