McDonald's, You Are NASTY

Happy Saturday.  Today the big boys are off enjoying a day of skiing.  That means it's been a "Mom and Miles day."  I asked him if he'd like to go to McDonald's; he thought that was a great idea and wanted to "play and eat french fries."  What a great plan.  Last month I took him to the AF McDonald's because my previous experience at the PG McDonald's was so awful that I never want to step food in that McDonalds again.  Well, today I can add the AF McDonald's to that list, in fact, I may add any fast food place with a play structure to that list.

We got to the AF McDonald's and Miles was ready to play.  I told him that he had to wait until we'd ordered his french fries and filled the drink cups.  He patiently waited.  We found a table near the play structure and I told Miles he could play while I picked up his fries.  As I was waiting for the fries, a lady approached the counter and told an employee that there was "poop in the play structure."  The employee told the lady that it was probably just meat because that's a common prank.  The lady insisted that her kids said it was poop, and she was told that it'd be investigated.  No employee headed to "investigate" during the several minutes that I stood there waiting for the fries.  Meanwhile, I was freaking out because Miles was playing in the "poo structure."  Our order was finally ready and as I picked it up, another mom came to the counter to complain about the poo.  I hurried to the play room, set the food down and called to Miles to get out of the Poo Palace and come eat.  I feared I was going to have a son covered in fecal matter.  Unhappily Miles came out (poop free) and started to trying to hit me to express his displeasure until I explained to him about the poo.  He seemed to "get it" and didn't mind the hand sanitizer bath I gave him.  Meanwhile an employee finally came to investigate.  Guess what?  There was poo in the play structure.  I loved the "I'm going to puke" look on the manager's face after she finished cleaning up the mess and disinfecting the structure.  Well, I made Miles wait for quite awhile before he was allowed to re-enter the play thing and he had to liberally use sanitizer each time he came out.

I didn't think the visit could get any worse.  Sometime later, this young girl (but not too young... like 5 or 6ish) came out of the structure and over to her family sitting at the table behind me.  I hear her mom exclaim, "You wet your pants?  You went your pants in there?  Seriously, you wet your pants?"  At that point, I had to get out of there.  Pee and poop on the same visit; I was so done and didn't want to imagine what would be coming next.  I told Miles that we had to go.  As we used hand sanitizer on the way out, I decided that we'd seek out a cleaner place to visit;  we went to DI.

Bad Mommy!

Growing up, there were two "What were you thinking?" moments that I love to remind my mom of.  The first was when she grabbed me by the big toes and pulled me down the carpeted stairs.  I bounced hard multiple times on my tailbone.  Ouch!  The second was when I stuck my tongue out at her and she tied a dry cleaners bag in a knot onto my tongue.  My tongue turned purple-blue from that less-than-awesome experience.  Well, yesterday I had a "What were you thinking?" moment with Nolan.  Nolan was needing some "go do your homework" motivation so he asked me to literally kick him off my bed so he'd stop watching the Olympics and get busy on his schoolwork.  I happily kicked Nolan off my bed.  Then I decided to provide him with some additional motivation so, I grabbed him by his ankles and dragged him to the computer room.  We both were laughing... silly mom!  I dropped his ankles and Nolan's laugh turned to a painful groan.  His shirt came up while I was dragging him and his back has a nasty rug burn on it.  I didn't anticipate that happening.  Sorry, Nolan!  The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.

Today Nolan had PE and as he was changing his shirt, some guys noticed his back and wanted to know what happened.  Poor kid.  Here's how his back looks today... Ouch!

Long Beach

So we woke up and had breakfast on the Lido deck, then killed time until our zone was called to debark.  We got off the ship and stood in line to go through customs.  Amy went through first, then it was my turn.  I walked up with Miles, presented my customs form along with my passport and Miles' birth certificate.  I said I didn't have any food to declare or any alcohol or cigarettes.  The customs guy started to hand me back my passport, then changed his mind.  He asked me where Miles' father was... why wasn't he with us... was he still on the ship, etc.  I explained that Dan was is Utah at work.  I could see wheels turning in the agent's head, so before he could ask me any more questions, I told him that I had a letter from Dan authorizing Miles to travel with me.  He wanted to see the letter.  I dug it out and handed it over.  It basically said that Miles could travel with me from Jan. 26-30 aboard the Carnival Imagination, and could get off the ship in Catalina and Ensenada.  The letter was even notarized.  The agents examined the letter, then handed it, my passport, and Miles' birth certificate over and sent us on our way.  I thought that was really strange.  Was he thinking I was trying to illegally bring my son back into the country?  Did he think I was going to kidnap Miles and then had a change of heart?  I have no idea, but I'm glad I read the fine print on the travel info provided by Carnival that said that if a child wasn't traveling with both legal guardians, a letter authorizing travel was recommended (and "required" if debarking in Mexico).  After dealing with Mr. Customs, we retrieved our luggage, then headed to the car.  We stopped at the beach in Long Beach; I rolled up Miles' jeans and told him he could only get his feet wet.  It was just a few minutes before a surprise wave soaked him.

 Next we went to Walmart to let Miles pick a treat- marshmallows, then we went to the airport.  As we boarded the plane, Miles wanted to go sit in the cockpit again, I was happy he took being told, "no" well.  We flew back to SLC, then took Trax to Amy's, then got in our car and drove home.

My official opinion is that the 4-day Baja cruise is a dumb cruise.  The ports are really sub-exciting. Did we have fun?  Yes.  We made the trip fun.  I just can't believe that there is a 8,000+ people each week go on this silly cruise.

Day at Sea

Amy and I started the day off doing the "Behind the Fun" tour while Miles went to camp carnival.  On the tour, we saw the galley, the engine room, the bridge, an employee break room, the laundry facility, and the food and beverage storage areas.  It was really interesting.  After the tour, we went and had brunch.  There was a large pod of dolphins jumping alongside the ship.  That was fun to see, even though our grumpy waiter wanted us at our table because he needed to take our order because he "is a very busy man."  After brunch, Miles wanted to go play on the slides again, surprise!  Then he needed to play golf.

We went to the "Hasbro Game Show" which was lame, then to the comedy club, and then went to dinner and took a few pictures of our awesome waitstaff.

 Then we put our suitcases outside the room door and went to bed.

Ensenada

The second stop on this cruise was to Ensenada, Mexico. We were greeted by dancers.

However, this is a dumb port, for sure.  There's really nothing to do in the city.  We walked to downtown

 (Miles wanted me to take a picture of the mud), saw a monument to some dudes,

checked out a unique sculpture,

then let Miles play on a playground that should be sited for safety violations.  Miles enjoyed the danger playground though.

Grandpa got scolded by a policeman for being on the playground equipment.  The rule is for ages 12 and under.

 Seriously, there's nothing for the locals to even do other than hang out in a city park and make-out.

After playground time, we walked over to McDonalds.  

Across the street from McDonalds was a vendor selling a Minion costume.  Miles wanted it, so after McDonalds, I armed him with $5 and let him buy the costume.

Then we walked back to the ship. Miles played golf.

 We watched sail-away from a "secret deck"

and called it a night.

Catalina Island

We got up and had a leisurely breakfast in the dining room before heading to get on a tender, and a few minutes later, we were on Catalina Island.

We ambled at a sub-leisurely pace to the place where our sea kayaking adventure was to depart from. Miles had to chuck a few dozen rocks into the ocean.

We joined up with our adventure guide and headed out into the ocean where we saw a lot of sea lions playing.  One swam close by us underwater.

The little dark blob is a sea lion!

We stopped for a snack at a beach and Miles wanted to make a snowman out of the sand,

then we paddled back to the starting point.

After kayaking, we headed back to the "green pier" to catch a tender back to the ship.  We boarded and a short time later (and 15 minutes earlier than scheduled), the ship departed to international waters and to kill time before another short sail to Ensenada.  As the ship pulled out of port, Miles wanted to play on the waterslides again, so he did.  Meanwhile, some passengers pointed out dolphins that were swimming off in the distance.  That was fun to watch.

We cleaned up and got all dressy for the elegant night.

Before dinner, we went to the comedy show, and then had to wait forever to get a table for dinner.  We finished dinner quite late and Miles fell asleep on the way back to the room from dinner.

Winter Escape, Getting There

Two and a half weeks ago, Miles and I, along with Amy, and my parents took a quick trip.  We went on a 4 day Catalina/Ensenada cruise.  Miles had been looking forward to the trip because he wanted to go on Jet Blue. To add to his excitement, I bought him a model Jet Blue plane.  He had it in his hand when he boarded the plane and proudly showed it to the flight attendant.  Well, the flight attendant was charmed by Miles and  asked if Miles would  like to sit in the cockpit when the plane landed in Long Beach.  Miles didn't care about that, he just wanted to show everyone his airplane.  After an uneventful flight to Long Beach, the flight attendant motioned to Miles to come up to the cockpit.  The pilot greeted Miles by name and sat him in his seat.  I think Miles was a bit perplexed.

My parents picked us (me, Miles, and Amy) up in Long Beach and we drove to the port.  We stood in line for a while and then were checked in by the slowest agent ever before heading to the ship.

We boarded, dumped our junk in the stateroom (look what was right outside our room window... Queen Mary! and according to Miles, it's "stuck"),

then went and got lunch, attended the muster drill, registered Miles for Camp Carnival, then waited for sail away.  While we waited for sail away, Miles wanted to go on the waterslides.  Well, it was a gray, breezy day in Long Beach, but Miles was insistent, so I let him play on the slides.  He had the entire waterpark completely to himself.

Finally, Miles was cold,

so I got him dressed while we continued to wait for sail away as we were delayed due to work being done on the tender platform which was taking longer than supposedly anticipated.  We watched the sunset,

Long Beach. CA

walked around the ship (and Miles decided to play Dominoes with the giant chess set),

then got dinner.

Miles was tired, so after dinner we went to bed.  The ship finally set sail around 10:30 p.m., five hours later than scheduled, but since we only had 26 miles to travel to Catalina, the delay was insignificant.