All the various travel plans for meeting up withe Jeremy and Marissa at Christmas did not go quite as well as we would have liked; but thankfully, it all worked out in the end ok. Randy and I drove to my parents home in Kentwood, LA on the 15th, then drove to New Orleans on the 16th to meet Jeremy, before boarding the Norwegian Breakaway on the 18th for a 7 day Caribbean cruise! Randy & I got to New Orleans earlier than Jeremy and were eating dinner when he told us he missed his flight in Waco, TX (where he had been visiting some friends for a few days). His flight was connecting a couple hours away at DFW, so he hired an Uber to drive him there instead. Thankfully, that flight was delayed enough for him to catch it and make it to New Orleans that night instead of dealing with flying the morning of the cruise departure. What made it all a little more stressful was that Jeremy did not have cell service in the states and could only tell us what was happening when he was connected to wifi. We were relieved when we got the message that he was getting on the plane! The next morning, we Uber’d to the port and left my car in the hotel parking lot for the week. (I was pleasantly surprised that they let us do that for free!)
This was our first time cruising on Norwegian, but had heard it was one of the best cruise lines. It had a lot going for it, but it did not beat our experience on Celebrity. We heard someone say that their other Norwegian experiences were better, though, so we might would give them another chance one day. I’m not a big fan of their freestyle dining, though. I prefer having a set time and table with the same waiter that gets to know our preferences, instead of having to wait in line to get a table each night. We didn’t go hungry at all though, and ate way too much, as is typical on a cruise. A few highlights were riding scooters around ??, then snuggling with a sloth and having a monkey on my head in ??. We had a couple of really nice, sunny days and a couple of cool, rainy ones. I got a kick out of being tanner than Jeremy for the first time ever. He totally lost his tan being in cooler, cloudy Ireland and unfortunately got pretty burnt one day. I, on the other hand, was able to renew the tan I was just starting to lose from not being outside as much as during full time RVing. Oh, another highlight was having Jeremy ask me to fix his hair! 🙂 He’s letting it grow long and had trouble keeping the short pieces out of his eyes, so I taught him how to put the ponytail up higher with just the top part of his hair. So special, haha!
We got back to New Orleans the morning of Christmas Eve and had to wait for Marissa to fly in that night, since she had to work until 2pm as a Christmas Caroler. It was chilly and raining pretty hard, so we sat around the lobby of the hotel for a few hours on our devices instead of walking around downtown in the rain. Then we got word that Marissa’s flight was canceled for some reason. <sigh> They booked her on a different flight with a layover in Chicago that wouldn’t get into New Orleans until midnight (as opposed to 9pm) But thankfully, Marissa looked around at other flights and realized she could get on an earlier one out of MO and get into New Orleans at 10pm instead, which we didn’t complain about at that point, ha.
We eventually left the hotel and went to Cafe Du Monde for Beignets and hot chocolate, then looked around some of the shops on our way to Preservation Hall for a Jazz concert. Even with umbrellas, we got pretty wet walking around, but thankfully, it wasn’t miserably cold. I highly recommend experience the live Jazz music at Preservation Hall if you’re ever in the area — it’s in a super old, small building where the musicians are really close to you if you’re sitting on the front row. It was Jeremy’s first time there and mine and Randy’s second; we all agreed it was worth walking in the rain for it!
We didn’t really think about how hard it would be to find a restaurant open for dinner on Christmas Eve. We decided to find something on the way to the airport instead of eating downtown. But after Google was wrong about the first couple of places being open, we sat in a parking lot calling around instead of driving all over. We eventually found a pizza place that was open. We were the only ones there, but the pizza was really good and the Korean owner was very friendly. We hung around there a little longer than necessary, wasting time and watching a Korean show on their TV. Then we sat in the cell phone lot at the airport for a while before Marissa finally made it in.
We made it back to my parents’ house around midnight and decided that wrapping presents is overrated! Most of our gifts were shipped to Kentwood, so they weren’t wrapped ahead of time. I had already wrapped the ones I had ordered before leaving on the cruise, but everyone else just put the unwrapped packages under the tree then went to bed. Christmas day was just as fun without wasting all that paper, anyway! We got a few new games and puzzles that were fun to play and work while we were all together. Mom had fun picking out funny t-shirts for everyone. And as always, the gumbo, chicken & dumplings, and shrimp & corn soup were delicious. We also did something new this year that involved a Roomba, balloons and razor blades, haha. Check out the video to see what that was all about.
Since it had been about 6 years since we had taken a family portrait, we coordinated our outfits and had a friend take some pics of us. Thanks to my sister, Wendy, telling us how to stand and where to put our hands, they turned out great! Now I’ve just got to pick one and figure out where to hang it in the new house!
All too soon, it was time to drive the kids back to the airport. Jeremy had to leave a few hours before Marissa, so we dropped him off then went to see Wonka at the movie theater before dropping Marissa off. Randy and I drove back to my parents house to pack up, stayed one more night, then drove back to TN on New Year’s Day. We are all back to our own homes and settling back into a normal schedules for a while. It’s been a busy few months, so I’ll be glad for a break! Hope everyone has a very happy 2024!!!
0 Comments