Your entire home has just been packed up. You have been preparing for your international move for months. You have said goodbye to friends and family and are 6 short days away from making your big move to Japan. But wait. A flurry of emails are taking place halfway around the world. Someone did not do paperwork correctly. A major error has occurred. Your family can't move to Japan anymore. And just like that, all of your hard work to get things ready, all of your tear-filled goodbyes, all of the time that you put into selling yourself and your family on moving into a new land just flushes down the toilet. It was all for nothing.
Now there are many, many words that you could use to describe how we were feeling at the moment when we were essentially told "nevermind." Angry, exhausted, disappointed, frustrated, and then angry again are the first ones that comes to mind. But at the end of the day, we have been at this Navy game for 15 years, and we know that things in the Navy don't always make sense. Decisions aren't always made with the family or servicemember in mind. Sometimes, often times, in fact, it is just a decision that one person makes while sitting in an office without all of the needed information. And so, we moved forward with the hand that we were dealt.
As Dave made preparations for his return back home to the States (remember he had already been working in Japan since early December), we decided that we deserved a vacation. Not your average vacation though. More like a "holy smokes our world was just flipped upside down and we need to get out of town for a while before we go crazy" kind of vacation. After a little bit of research, a decision was made: we were going to take a Disney Cruise.
Within a week, Dave arrived back in Seattle, two of the three shipments of our household goods were returned, and life was quickly resuming to its state of normalcy. As we unpacked boxes, we were simultaneously packing suitcases for the trip. To make our getaway a little more interesting, we decided not to tell the kids our final destination. We simply told them that we were "going to LA." Having traveled quite a bit, they both know that for our family, a trip to LA typically means two things: Disneyland and Aunt Jan/Uncle Phil. We also said that we were staying somewhere that we had never stayed before and that it was more expensive of a place than we normally stay when in LA. Being the inquisitive girl that she is, Grace actually Googled "most expensive places to visit in Los Angeles." It came up with the Grand Californian Resort at Disneyland. They were sure they had it figured out. Dave and I let them think what they wanted.
We flew into Long Beach on Saturday evening and headed to a hotel for the night since it was "too late to head to where we were going". The next morning we woke up to a beautiful, sunny California sky. We had breakfast and the kids swam in the pool for a bit. We then rushed to get ready to catch our shuttle that would take us to the cruise pier. They still thought we were going to Disneyland! The secret was almost revealed when the shuttle picked us up and the driver said, "cruise pier" several times.
As we drove across the bridge in San Pedro, the driver coughed and motioned over to the cruise ship. The surprise was starting to unravel. As we drove a little further and finally pulled into the gate, neither of the girls said anything as the huge cruise ship finally came into full view. I finally said, "Surprise! We are going on a Disney Cruise!" They still didn't say much, but you could tell they were excited from the smiles on their faces!
I won't lie when I say that I was just as excited as the kids! We had never been on a cruise before this and I couldn't wait to see what the week ahead of us would hold. The check-in process was amazingly convenient and well-coordinated. Disney music played in the background as we checked in our bags, received our rooms keys, and registered the kids for their activities. As we went through the process, we found our surrounded by families, just like ours, who were looking to find that perfect combonation of relaxation and family fun. It was clear right away that we had made the right choice to take this cruise!
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