Friday, June 5, 2009

ALASKA!!!!

Wowowowow!!! May 24 through June 3 were seriously the best days ever!! To celebrate our graduations, my family decided to reward ourselves with an Alaskan cruise! My 20th birthday was also on June 2, so we tied that into our little celebration, as well!

We drove to San Francisco all day Saturday, the 23. Boy, that was a loooonnng drive. But I loved every second of it! I loved looking out the window and seeing something different, and I think I almost have the Pride and Prejudice and the Becoming Jane soundtracks memorized, haha. We stayed the night in Oakland, and the next day, we drove up to my new favorite temple. I didn't think I'd like the Oakland Temple so much (I'd always thought it looked kinda weird in the pictures, lol), but it was so beautiful in-person!! It's right on the side of a hill and it overlooks the city. I didn't get to go inside, as it was Sunday, but we walked around the grounds and took a few pictures. Then, we drove down into San Francisco and got on the boat around 1!!

I wish I could give all the details about every day we spent on the ship, but I don't know if you'd really enjoy that too much, lol. So...I'll just do a quick rundown on some of the highlights of our trip.

We stopped at four different ports--Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, and Victoria. My family isn't a huge fan of tour groups, so we mostly explored on our own. We went whale watching in Juneau, which was amazing!!!! Kevin, the captain of the boat we were on, was super cool. He had a really long beard and couldn't get over the way we were dressed, especially my mom and I, haha! "I'm freezing the Arizonans!" We saw two pods of killer whale, lots of humpbacks, bald eagles, and sea lions. We even saw one humpback do this, twice:




And the same whale came up about 5 feet away from our boat!! Coolest thing ever!!

When we pulled into port in Skagway, we rented a car and drove up to Whitehorse, Canada. The drive up was breathtaking. It was like another planet!! We saw two bears, one black and one brown. And it started snowing on the way back down! Yuppers, snow in May...it looked just like a Christmas card!

And we can't forget the ship...the Sea Princess!! The food was amazing...you definitely couldn't say you were hungry while on the boat, lol. There was a 24-hour buffet, which was both a blessing and a curse. I loved the waitress we had at dinner; she was from Romania, and she always called my family her "sweeties" and she called me her "little angel!" Aww!! I'm going to miss her. :( Chris and I also enjoyed watching movies in the Princess Theatre, and they also showed "Movies Under the Stars" on the deck, but it was way too cold and windy for us "Arizonans," lol.

Kind of a funny story...every night, we'd get the "Princess Patter" delivered to our staterooms, describing the next day's activities. On Saturday night, I was looking at the Sunday morning activities, because I'd heard they'd be having an interdenominational church service and was planning on going. I found that one, and then looked at the 9am activity: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Service!! Yuppers, they had a Sacrament Meeting on the boat! It's funny, though, because it was held in one of the bars on the ship, lol. So now I can say that I've had the sacrament in a bar, lol! I hadn't been to church in over a month, so it was great being able to take the sacrament again.

Another story...we ran into a psychic!! We were in the elevator headed to the buffet for lunch, and a couple was going to the same deck as us. We were having small talk in the elevator, but when we got out, the lady stopped our family and told my parents that "your children love you very much and you have done a wonderful job with them." My parents thanked her and got in line for the buffet. I'd started walking with them, when she touched me on the arm and said something along these lines: "You are very musically talented, and you shouldn't give it up. It is your gift, and you bring joy to those around you when you share that gift. And what you've been thinking about the piano...go for it." How could she have known about my music?!? I'm definitely not as musical as I used to be, so I hadn't told anyone on the ship that I could play anything. And how did she know about the piano?! I'd been thinking about starting lessons again...dodododododododo it's the Twilight Zone. lol!

Anywho, we celebrated my birthday at sea! I woke up that morning and when I opened the door to go down to breakfast, I found three "Happy Birthday" balloons--purple, pink, and red!--taped on my door! Then, at dinner, I was sung to by our waitress and her assistants and got a special birthday cake, with a pink candle! And then, as it was the final night of the cruise, they had Baked Alaska for dessert!! The waiters all paraded around the room with them, and they played "Feeling Hot Hot Hot!" It was the coolest thing ever!!

So that is basically our trip in a nutshell! I will post some pictures soon! We got off the boat on the 3rd, spent the night in L.A., then drove back home yesterday. I'm so sad it's over...we had the best time!!! But Chris and I are already planning on doing another cruise next summer, possibly to the Caribbean!!