After Dinner
After dinner, I took our
LP and
Goofy to drop them off at their respective clubs for the evening (well, Flounder's Nursery is not a club...but it's where our LP went). Along the way we bumped into Harrison Ellenshaw again. He was once again hanging out near the art gallery (which is in essence, a wide hall). When I saw him, we said hello and he and
Goofy
started conversing.
Goofy is my big time art buff. I was so proud of him when Mr. Ellenshaw asked him about his favorite kind of art.
Goofy (who had just turned 9 the week before) looked up at him and said "I like impressionism. My favorite painting technique is pointillism." One of the Park West Gallery employees was also standing by us and her jaw dropped to the floor (or almost
). They were both very impressed that such a young child could converse about art movements and styles. For his part,
Goofy was eating up the attention. They talked for another ten minutes about art. Not Mr. Ellenshaw's art...but
GOOFY'S! For a little artist in training, it was truly an honor to have the attention of such a talented artist focused on him, discussing his own creations. For those few minutes, I am deeply in debt to Mr. Ellenshaw (and the auctioneer who joined in the conversation). They made my son feel like a budding Picasso. What a great memory for him. And for me too. I doubt either of them realized how much I was touched by their taking such an interest in one little child. My sweet, goofy boy. One of things they discussed was that
Goofy should grab a magnifying glass and look at a magazine page and he would see that it was really a pointillist work (the picture on a magazine page). Ever since our return,
Goofy has kept his magnifying glass close at hand when he is paging through a magazine. Try it, once you know to look for them, the many tiny dots are not hard to see at all.
Before we left, I wanted a picture of he and
Goofy. The auctioneer also asked if I wanted dedication plate. I informed them he had already sketched me a castle last night...but he waved his hand and drew yet another smaller castle for me and then inscribed it "For The ******** Family May your lives always be filled with inspirations. Harrison Ellenshaw". Here is a picture of him signing it.
And a picture of Mr.Ellenshaw and my little goofy artist. I think you can see the utter joy
Goofy was feeling in his very pleased expression.
Here is a picture of one of the decorations hanging in the hall. I laughed every time I walked past it during the cruise.
Goofy chose to walk back to our room with me in order to put away the dedication plate. I think he wanted to see it safe. I am so happy that it meant so much to him. We stopped and took a picture with dh and Ari (our room steward) in the hall. He did a fantastic job keeping our room clean and making it welcoming all week long!
Since we were back in the room,
Goofy decided to change before heading to his club for a final night of fun.
My adorable
Goof.
On this final night, dh and I chose to walk the ship, I didn't feel like sitting through the show and dh said he would rather not do so either. So instead, we walked, talked, held hands and enjoyed the ship and each other. I also took a few pictures that I thought would be good 'background shots' for my scrapbook-to-be.
For the life of me, I don't know which island we were passing. But, I thought it looked pretty with all of the lights.
As we walked, we came upon an after dinner buffet set up just outside of Lumiere's. They had mozzarella sticks, chicken wings, cheeses, dips, fruits, veggies, breads, beef kabobs and more. I had just enough room to sample one bite of the beef kabob and take one nibble of dh's mozzarella stick. How anyone on that ship had room for more food, I have NO idea!
Before long, it was time for us to pick up our
LP from the nursery. Not because it was midnight yet (the time the nursery closed) but because it was time for our movie to begin (and we didn't want to have to pick him up in the middle of it). Instead, we picked up our sleepy
Little Prince (who was happily cuddled in the arms of a counselor rocking him to sleep in a rocking chair) and let him fall asleep in my arms as we watched the movie. Before five minutes had passed, he feel into a deep sleep. We were watching Swing Vote. While it was an okay movie, something about seeing it at sea made it even better. I just liked feeling the gentle sway of the ship as I cuddled my
LP, held dh's hand and felt totally contented. Lucky for us, Mr. and Mrs. Friend were willing to pick up both
Goofy and
Stitch and keep them up on deck with their kids (playing foosball and milking every last minute out of the fun that was to be had on this cruise) while dh and I finished up the movie. It was about 12:45 by the time I made it up there to grab our kids. Dh had gone straight back to the room in order to get our
LP down without him waking. I quickly rounded up my middle boys and walked back to our room with our friends. We got in just a few minutes before our Ocean Questers were set to arrive.
Aladdin walked in at about 1:03 AM. And as soon as I saw him, it reminded me of something I had been meaning to do all week but had forgotten to get around too...so I grabbed him and hustled back to Ocean Quest. Here is
Aladdin outside of his favorite place on the ship.
It was now closed down. The doors were locked....but I knocked, hoping against hope that
Aladdin's favorite counselor was still in there. HE WAS! And as he opened the door, he didn't look annoyed (I was worried we would be bugging him but it was truly less than five minutes since the club had closed). In fact, he looked very happy(only Disney can find these wonderful kinds of people)!
When we saw his smiling face, I asked Edson from Brazil (
Aladdin remembered him from our last cruise as well)if I could just snap one quick picture of him. He agreed with no hesitation and when I explained that I wanted this picture because he was our son's favorite Disney CM of all time (land or sea) he almost teared up (what a great guy!) and he invited us in to visit with him as he finished straightening up the club.
While we were in there, I took a few pictures of area that had spent more time with my son than I had in the past week.
The recreated bridge of the ship which is located in Ocean Quest.
As we left, Edson reminded him to send him some email. To this day,
Aladdin always gets a reply when he sends him something.
Talk about going above and beyond! My final comment card absolutely glowed with praise for Edson the Ocean Quest counsler. He was GREAT!
As soon as we said goodnight to Edson, we hurried back to our room and feel asleep very shortly afterward.
Up next: Our final morning aboard the Magic.
TO BE CONTINUED...
DH & I, as well, LOVED the adult beach when we did CC!!! Actually, I picked up quite a few lovely shells as I walked the beach. Brought them back to the ship to take home. At dinner that night we were all talking at our table and come to find out "you are NOT to take the shells from CC"...hence my <-----TAG!!! 
If I am doing my math correctly Stitch and I may be sharing the SAME day!!! 
It's been such a treat to read your trip report - what wonderful trip it has been, from start to finish! Beautiful pictures in this update - and I think I'm not the only one who now has a 
I was actually less sad than normal, instead of thinking about how I wouldn't be having dinner aboard the Magic the very next night, I was focused on just how I could convince them both to come home with us. 
If I ever have children of my own, I hope they will be as sweet as your boys!
Yes!!!!! You did a wonderful job with the photo challenge Jay!!!!! I am mighty impressed!!!
