Wow! We had such a great time on our Cruise to Catalina/Ensenada. What a great way to celebrate the high school graduation of our first child! It was ,however, not without challenges...
I must back up to Saturday night as a preface to the first day of our trip--boarding day. I was finishing up the packing process late Saturday night and I went to the nifty little wooden box that safely stores all of our important documents to retrieve the kids' birth certificates. I found all--except Curtis'. I looked through everything quadruple times, opening and shaking each little piece of paper, but to no avail. It was not there! Dave wasn't pleased--why did I wait until Saturday night to look? BECAUSE THEY ARE ALWAYS IN THAT BOX! ALWAYS!! So we combed the house, searched our memory banks, and prayed multiple prayers...I had one brilliant idea that we could go to the Health Dept in CA on our way to the ship, until Dave reminded me that Monday was Memorial Day and the Health Dept would be closed....and so finally, I went to bed with a secondary idea to call Carnival first thing in the morning to find out what we could do.
Sunday morning, 7 am, I called Carnival--relieved to hear that if I brought Curtis SSN and a photo ID, that would suffice and he would be able to board the ship. WHEW! We went to an early Sacrament Meeting then headed for California, all smiles and filled with excitement, as I'm sure you can imagine.
Monday morning--We originally planned to have Carl, Dave's brother, to take us to the port at around 1, as boarding started at 1:30, but everyone was soooo anxious that we decided to go at 10am. GOOD THING! Because when we presented ourselves at the early boarding desk, the lovely Carnival worker lady, Mary Estelle (the lovely lady in red in the photo below), put an immediate STOP to boarding process....Curtis's documents were not sufficient to board. We would either have to leave him behind or just not go on our long awaited dream vacation. Um NO! Not OK! You should have heard the commotion that the Mac Arthur family can make. I was actually surprised at how vocal my oldest girls are...Curtis turned pale, sat down, and put his head in his lap; Karter began to bawl!and Mady had tears brimming in her eyes; I was shaking and Dave was demanding to speak to a supervisor because the answer NO was NOT ACCEPTABLE!
So we were escorted to the main building to talk to the Diane, the Supervisor, who then took our docs and our case to her supervisor and other higher ups from customs and such. It took them 45 minutes to come back with another resounding NO! We were apparantly not going on a cruise...
More tears, anger, upset stomach (on my part, because this was all my fault for not checking my box sooner). What were we going to do now? We summoned our luggage back (we had checked it onto the ship already) and waited...we couldn't bring ourselves to leave.
It was a Federal offense with a "hefty fine" to use a cell phone in that building, but given our predicament, we were given permission to use our phones. Who could we call? There had to be a way? The school had a copy of his birth certificate...I called Craig Seegmiller, Mekenze's and Arielle's friend's dad, who is on the school board. He gave me the number to the principal at the middle school and at both elementaries that Curtis attended. No answer. But I have friends...I called Robin Keith, a teacher and counselor at Dixie Middle. She was in Pennsylvania...BUT she had Kay Peirce's phone number! Kay is a secretary at DMS, and she was HOME! Having a family party...but she was willing to do us this very huge favor. She arrived at the school with about 30 minutes to spare but could not find Curtis' file. AUGHHH!! Arielle had the idea--look under "C"--and lo and behold! The file was found, birth certificate inside. She faxed it over, and we ran to the check in counter where Mary Estelle (what are the odds that she was working the next available window?) cheered for us and completed the check in process! WoW! You have never seen a more excited--and relieved--group of Mac Arthur kids (and parents).
First stop--the BUFFET!
Does Dave look happy/relieved or what?
The Welcome Show
Karoake
Laser Tag
Staterooms!
(Karter's #1 favorite thing was that he had his own key--a complete list of Karter's favorites coming soon...)
The Girls' Room
Curtis Living in Style...
