Feliz Navidad

I know lots of people are passionate about not celebrating Christmas until the Thanksgiving dishes have been washed.  I don't understand what difference it makes if Christmas is in the store.  Do these folks seriously do nothing about Christmas until December?  I prefer to have the shopping done, the packages ready and the cards prepared all by Thanksgiving.  If I am going to buy or make new decorations or make a gift then it better be accomplished by the time the whipped cream is spooned on the pumpkin pie.  If I need gift wrap, gift tags, tape, boxes, ribbon, candy, stocking stuffers then I want them before December.  The time between the two holidays is short but there is tree decorating and lights on the house, gift wrapping and The Nutcracker and church parties and school parties and holiday movies and choir concerts and baking and candy making and delivering and Christmas caroling all in the month of December.  Preferably before the 25th.  Okay we don't go caroling.  That is our gift to our friends and neighbors.

This year something occurred to me.  There are Christians all over the world celebrating Christmas that do not have Thanksgiving as a benchmark.  So when is the appropriate time for them to begin the celebration?  If you say whenever they want because what other answer is there, then why is that not true for Christians everywhere?

Cruise to Alaska, The End

Our last night on the ship we stopped in Victoria, Canada. 

We chose to stay on the ship since we can practically see Victoria from our house.

And besides we had lobster.

In the morning we waited to disembark, enjoying our last minutes of our trip to Alaska.

Bryce's bed that pulled down from the ceiling.

Emily and Bryce waiting for Grandpa to pick us up.  We had such a good time together with 

Mickey and Minnie.

 

Camryn and the rest of Bryce's family were waiting in the parking lot to be reunited with their 

 

little Mouseketeer.

This is our third Disney Cruise and all three times we have commented for weeks after how much we miss being on the ship.  It is so much fun. 

Cruise to Alaska, Day 6

And on the sixth day we went to Ketchikan.  Bryce could have been Alaskan, he fit right in.

He wanted to pose in front of the ship, he liked that the characters were repainting.

An awesome little town to take a break from a ship.

Bryce and I went shopping for pirate pajamas and sunglasses.

There is our room aboard the Disney Wonder.  We had a nice view of the ship from Ketchikan.

Bryce was looking good in his Spiderman shades.

Even Santa thought so.  It is Christmas all year here.

Bryce and I went to see the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show.

You don't see trees this size just anywhere.  I know.  (We went on a wagon ride at Robber's Cave in OK 10 years ago.  As part of our tour we saw the largest diameter tree in the state.  I still remember thinking, it was pathetic.  My Northwestern upbringing taught me they should not be bragging.)

These were championship caliber lumberjacks,

capable of sawing a log

or climbing a pole

or rolling a log

or sporting the plaid flannel shirt.  I think I recognized all of them from Oregon.

Meanwhile, Emily and Lonny went zip lining through the trees.

Before

and after.

They had fun and nobody died.

So we get back on the ship and Bryce decides he wants to go on the slide.  The slide he said he would never ever go down.  He slid down, jumped off, ran around and up the stairs again and repeated this procedure at least 25 times.

We stopped counting eventually.  Here he is at the top.

It took awhile but he finally had had enough.  He needed his sunglasses and a towel to warm up.

Then he was ready to eat.

This photo captures this cruise well.  Bryce is eating ice cream and the little girl in the background is wearing a bikini because we are next to a swimming pool.  Everyone else is dressed appropriately for the weather.

Even Mickey looks like he could saw a log in the rain.

We decided to get some more photos taken because we could.

Emily's hair looks like she may have been running around a ship from morning until night

for six days straight.

 

This photo took more work then it appears.

Everyone thought Emily and Bryce were sister and brother and we finally stopped explaining.  If they wanted to think Lonny and I had a five year old then whatever.

One last formal pose with Donald and Daisy.

Disney Cruise, Day 5

Another day, another glacier.

We took a bus to another glacier and museum.  It was raining but then it was Alaska. 

When it is not snowing it is raining.

More frozen snow and bright blue ice.

Still smiling.

Then it stopped raining and we took a whale watching trip.  We saw lots of whales but the odds were not with us for getting a photo.

That buoy was covered in seals.  Apparently they like laying around out of the cold water.

The whale watching boat took us

 

 to this lodge for a delicious salmon lunch with the best rolls ever.

 

 This indoor tide pool had starfish and other sea creatures you could touch.  Eeeww.

Bryce was so happy to find this flat rectangle rock that he could write on with his "pencil" rock.

We saw the Alaskan Ferry on our boat ride.

When we got back to the ship it was pirate night and there were pirates everywhere.

Bryce had more than one discussion with Peter Pan about not growing up.

I am just glad Peter Pan wasn't a girl which I do not understand.  Why can't a boy be cast as a boy?

We are not sure if Bryce even knew of Captain Jack Sparrow but he was a captive audience.

Jack appeared to be straight off the Black Pearl.

Bryce said he knew Will Turner (okay right, Grandpa William Turner) and a pirates life was for him.

If Mickey and Stitch were getting on the pirate ship so was Bryce.

If a pirate can be called cute.....

and by now he was a complete pro posing for a photo.

And monkey towels are for pirates.