little town of Skagway

3 May 2014 Skagway
I had the morning shift of port day. It was uneventful for the first hour, I just read a book, but at 9 some of the officers came in, checking out the area because a fire drill was taking place in the Loft at 9:30. I had to call Danielle and figure out what to do about that. Since I still didn’t have any kids, she told me just to hang out in the Lido until the fire drill was complete. So, I got a cup of tea and sat with Jim and Dan as they had breakfast. Once the drill ended, I wandered back upstairs and had just a few minutes to myself to turn the wii’s and music back on before all my little ones came up for port day. They kept running back and forth from coloring to the wii’s, and complaining that I didn’t have all the coloring sheet’s they’d started the day before in the other room. Finally, I managed to get them all settled watching or playing MarioKart, just about the time Teleya came up to take over and help take them to lunch. I will admit, it is kind of nice not having the Slice on this ship when we have kids on port days, because we can just get all their meals at once instead of having to visiting a few different places.

I sat and ate a light lunch with them, then joined Dianne as she passed by going back down to the room. She invited me to come ashore with her and the CAC host Barbara and her husband Bob, so we waited for them to finish Pinnacle lunch and all wandered into town together. We stayed together for a while, then just ended up wandering into different shops and got separated, which we figured would eventually happen anyway. So, Dianne and I wandered around together talking and basically just enjoying the day. We kept moving from sunny bench to sunny beach, getting ice cream and ever-so-slowly making our way back to the ship. We moved to different benches closer to the ship every 15 minutes, and still made it back by 5:30. It was nice though, we got to sit in the sun and just enjoy being outside on a pretty day for Alaska (I was bundled up in my coat, two shirts and a scarf, but in the sun I was happy).

We had dinner, then it was back to work. I had Alien night, which my kids enjoyed despite the fact that I kept having to gather them and spend ten minutes to make them stop talking in order to explain the next activity. This group just doesn’t want to listen at all. The best thing about tonight was that I found out a game they actually enjoy!! At the beginning of the week, they quickly tired of “where’s my shoe” and even stopped asking about hide-and-seek when I let them play and they discovered there really wasn’t anywhere to hide in that room, but by then I didn’t remember any other time-killer games that aren’t too complex for this age group. But tonight, I found out that they love playing 4 corners! We spent 20 minutes playing and they begged me to keep playing even though all their parents were picking them up! I’m very grateful I finally figured out something they actually like to do!

After work, we quickly cleaned up, and Danielle, Dianne and I went to the show with Jenna, the librarian. It was the first time this show has been performed on this ship, and the first performance for this cast. It wasn’t a bad show, a bit weird at times and I could tell a few times when they messed up, but we enjoyed it. After the show, we decided that it would be a good night to stay out a bit and go to the OB, so we hung out at the OB until we all realized how tired we were and how early we have to get up and work tomorrow.