We’ve enjoyed another day with a relatively quiet ship as
most all the passengers have chosen to get off and go to the Princess Cay beach
for the day. It involves taking a tender
so we decided why bother. We can see the
beach from here and the gorgeous turquoise waters but here we have a place to
relax without getting all sandy or sticky from the salt water. (Can you tell
I’m not much of a beach bum? Ken either? Especially when it comes to oceans and
salt water? It turns out Dan would
rather enjoy the pools on the ship too)
Oh the wonderful delights of taking a cruise – not for the
destinations but for the amenities of the ship itself and opportunities to
simply relax and be ourselves, rejuvenating and enjoying time to contemplate
and reenergize.
One thing Ken and I enjoyed doing today was simply
remembering this day 49 years ago when our daughter, Sue, joined our
family. She made her entry into our
lives around 9:30 in the evening but I’d spent the entire day anticipating it
as my water broke when I got out of bed in the morning and I kept expecting to
go into labor. The strange thing was it
wasn’t happening but since we had to have a sitter for Beth if I did have to go
in the evening, we made that arrangement and while Ken was having supper, I
decided to rest a bit only to discover when I laid down that I could feel very
mild labor pains coming regularly 3 minutes apart. We decided I should probably go to the
hospital but assuming it would be a long night stopped at the library for books
and took along a cribbage board so we could play. We didn’t get to the hospital till after 8:00
and I’d just nicely settled in and started a game with Ken when I felt a very
very strong labor pain. Someone came in
to check on me right at that moment.
Took one look at me and everything went flying. They grabbed the bed and raced me to the
delivery room as I had just crowned without knowing it. And boom there was a beautiful little girl –
Susan Elizabeth Ledford. Suddenly we
were a family of four. We’ve sure had
our ups and downs over the years but what a delight she has been in our lives. She is an accomplished teacher loved by her
fourth grade students, a wonderful mother to three boys, Jackson (19), Reilly
(14) and Aidan (who waits to greet us when our time comes to go to our heavenly
home), and wife to our son-in-law, Tim, an accomplished biology teacher who has
a shelf of Teacher of the Year awards a testament to his wonderful teaching
skills.
I was wishing that I could post a
couple of pictures of Sue on Facebook to draw attention to her birthday but
alas I’ve found loading pictures just about impossible with the WiFi we have on
the ship so instead I took advantage of a couple of pictures posted by Beth and
Sue and put my note with that.
This afternoon we had to pack our
large suitcases as they must go outside the doors before dinner so they can be
moved to the holding spot and moved into the terminal for tomorrow mornings
pick up. It is always hard to do this
for a couple of reasons: one that it means the time is almost up and two how do
we pack the things we need in the evening and then tomorrow morning. We’ve taken to bringing little cases for that
stuff. Dan has a back pack and beat us
doing the job. Mostly cause I just hate
doing it and tend to stall I actually ended up late to dinner – Dan and Ken
just sat and waited at the table till I finally arrived.
After dinner we showed Dan our
new Thomas Kinkade painting, then he was off to watch the football games on the
big screen while Ken and I went to the Vista Lounge to see the Comedian
Magician Christopher James. He was
outstanding and really had us in stitches while performing variations on tricks
we’ve seen many times yet with different twists.
Ken was then off to enjoy the
Steelers/Bengals NFL Playoff on the big screen while I enjoyed listening to
some music in the Piazza followed by a short performance by the Duo Ronin
demonstrating some fantastic gymnastic moves requiring tremendous arm and core
strength. The two men did some amazing
stunts including one holding up the second man overhead supported only by one
hand with the other stretched straight out one way and the feet straight out
the other way in affect making the shape of a T. Once they were done and the Mardi Gras music
and dancing started I headed back to the room to call it a night.
No comments:
Post a Comment