December 19th, 2018 - Day 1, Part 1
A couple of things I will need to share with you before I get started...
A couple of months before we left, Rob had his wisdom teeth extracted. He had a tough time with it, he was in a lot of pain and had some complications. Long story short...he ended up having oral surgery the DAY BEFORE we left on this trip to remove some bone fragments.
I still remember getting a text from him that day when he was at his oral surgeon and thinking...great, well, that's going to put a damper on things.
Sadly, it put a huge damper on some aspects of the trip but luckily it did not get infected (our big worry!) and while it made things a little more challenging, it didn't ruin the trip and he managed to toughen it out and get through it.
The second thing I wanted to share with you was that I recently got braces! Yup, a lovely tin grin at the ripe old age of 46
While I've always wanted teeth that don't stick out, I didn't get the opportunity to get braces as a kid and honestly, I never thought I would have the courage to do it as an adult. The last couple of years we've invested a lot of time and money into Rob and Kira's teeth as Rob got Invisalign braces two and a half years ago and last May, Kira had her braces removed. On that same day, while I was there, I had booked a consultation for myself in September to talk to them about it.
For the life of me, I don't really recall making the decision, I kind of showed up, heard the speech and next thing I knew, I was making an appointment to get my braces on in November!
Rob got his Invisalign off the day before I got my braces on, which meant within a three-and-a-half year time span, there was/would be less than 24 hours where none of us had braces on our teeth
It was a huge adjustment period for me and I feel like I was just getting the hang of eating before we left, so that's good.
I'm still not used to having them in my mouth exactly, and I am constantly playing with them, with my tongue and my lips. There are times where I bite myself...not even chewing!! Just sitting there, watching TV or writing an email and I bite the inside of my lip!
Smiling is weird too. I have a RBF...a natural frown, if you will, so I feel like I need to smile in photos, otherwise I look miserable but when I do, often my lip gets caught on the bracket and the whole thing just looks and feels weird.
Okay, so now you know everything you need to about our dental history
So on with the report...
In the past, we've flown into Houston, spent a couple of days before the cruise in Galveston, then flew home the day we disembarked. This year would be different as Rob was meeting up with someone so we decided to stay in Webster since it was closer for him and then spend some time in Galveston after the cruise. The cruise was a 6-night cruise so that worked better for us anyway.
We started our countdown calendar at day 35 but I redid the numbers with newer, updated characters since the previous one was done in 2009 and contained a whole lot of princesses
The evening before we left, I had dropped off our dog, Boo at my brother's house as he kindly takes cares of her while we are gone.
Our flight left Calgary at 7am so I was up at 2:45am to shower and get ready and get the last-minute stuff packed.
We were packed and ready to go just before 4am...thankfully, no huge snowfall this year
We were half-way to the airport when Rob says "Oh look! The Wonder!"
Not OUR Wonder
Got to the airport, was getting our usual pics when someone kindly offered to take a family pic for us.
Rob went to drop off our vehicle at Park2Go while Kira and I tried to get our luggage tags. I had upgraded our seats to Plus during the online check-in and didn't realize that Westjet has a special manned Priority area where someone does that for you.
So, we found that area, dropped our bags off and waited for Rob to get back.
Onward to security and then customs where Rob did NOT get flagged.
Wooo hooo!
He had recently found out that the reason he kept getting the extra security check was because his account showed an expired passport so once it was updated, smooth sailing
Our usual stop at Wolfgang Puck's The Kitchen...
It looks like something weird is happening to my hair on the right side but it's just the lady behind me
When I first saw this pic, I was wondering what the heck happened to my hair that morning. It
was a pretty early morning after all.
I gave Kira an early Christmas gift...a new stuffy. Yup, I know, like she needs another stuffy, right? But it was Stitch so all is good
Kira got the french toast...
Rob got his oatmeal...
And I got my usual...delish!
We headed down to our gate where Kira was already done with photos and spending time with us apparently
So, Rob and I took a selfie and joked about how we were going to leave her at home
It wasn't long before they started boarding!
And Kira was thrilled to be sitting far away from us, on her own.
Although we couldn't take our usual family selfie, we adapted
She was very happy with the extra room and no one sitting right next to her.
I was not as happy when this jerk reclined his seat three minutes into the flight.
I really think airlines should remove the recline feature on all aircraft! Good thing I was reading and not trying to watch a movie on that screen in front of me
I watched a beautiful sunrise...
They gave us some hot cloths, which Rob used to wrap around his very sore jaw.
This was Rob's breakfast...
I ended up getting a ham and cheese croissant but never ate it as I didn't want to get food stuck in my braces while in a plane.
About four hours later, we arrived at our destination!
Grabbed our bags and headed out to the rental car shuttle, where it was waiting for us
Then straight to Alamo's garage where we picked out our car for the next 12 days.
We originally had found a Murano but then Rob spotted a Rav4, which is what he drives at home so we grabbed that instead.
f
It wasn't as well-equipped as the one he has and it was super touchy on the gas pedal and it didn't have the best tires on it so he ended up skidding a lot. I wish we had gotten the Murano
We loaded up and headed to Webster.
It was foggy and cool, my kind of weather
Traffic was light, except the usual congestion just before you hit the 45.
About an hour later, we had arrived at our exit
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2011 DCL Second sailing of the Dream
2021 Christmas on the Wonder
2022 Alaska Wonder Cruise
Can't wait to read the rest of your report!
These darn kids, growin' so fast!!
