RobbieLovesLulu said:

helloooooooooooo ladies!
What a wonderful name. You must be LuLu's honey!
We normally stay on deck 6 in a veranda room. But on our last crusie we stay in a secret porthole room. It was nice. We used the saving to do the Romance package. How all has done this now? I loved it. But we went on a short cruise and I think it would have been nicer on a longer cruise. How does everyone like the changes to this package?
Does anyone know where/whihc stateroom Karen is staying in? Wonder if she has ever stayed in that room before? I love to hear about the different rooms.
Ok I have been asked by several, even my friends that just lurk (lol, please stop by for a chat next time), what happened to Erik. It is a long story. I am not sure if I even told Sandy all of it. I will try to tell it all now.
History: Erik, my son plays on a traveling baseball team. My husband started the team a year ago. Due to not having enough coaching and even time Dh decided to allow another coach "take" over the team. With the understanding DH will remain a coach. Tournament ball starts in Feb and ends in late November. We play 3-4 weekends a month. In those weekends we play 4-6 games sometimes starting on Fridays and ending on Sundays. We have to go out of town alot to play. It is expensive and it is time consuming for everyone involved. Beleive me when I say if Erik did not want to play ball we would not be doing this.
Present: DH gets a call yesterday morning at 8:26 am EST kicking E off the team. The head coach, Chad, told DH that he had heard form several parents that Jeff was not happy on the team and was saying things about the team. One such thing was we were refusing to do fund-raising. We were refusing to go to a major tournament which is out of state. Supposely Chad was told these things after practice last Tuesday, after the team meeting on Wednesday and Sunday night. Chad never once asked Jeff if he said this. Chad would not tell DH who said this. Instead, he kicks Erik off the team and takes it away from DH as well. Remember this is a team DH started. Needless to say when DH got off the phone he called me and let me know what had happened. I was and so was he ...in shock. We have NEVER said anything like this to anyone. Theres much more that was said but for the sake of keeping this as short as possible...let me say several lies were told and we were innocent of them. The head coach kicked E off the team.
I had to think about how I was to tell an 11 year old boy who eats, drinksks, eats and sleeps baseball that he was no longer able to play for his team. I hate to think about this all day long yesterday. When I came home Dh and I told E what had happened. My son broke down and ran crying from the room. He went to his bedroom. This is my sensitive child. I went to his room and he was in a huddled into a ball crying. You talk about heart breaking. He threw himself on me crying. You know Mommys are suppose to make things better, but this is one thing I can not fix. For several hours after E repeatly said he was sorry to us. When asked why he was sorry he said if I never wanted to play baseball this would not have happened. I knew how my son would take this. And he did not surprise me with his reaction but I am telling you right now I have had my heart torn in so many pieces over this. I do not know if I have ever cried as much or ached as much.
It upsets me that my son was the one who has been hurt and feels rejected over this. First of all WE did not say these things. Second of all, Chad never once asked us if we had said these things. Instead, he jumps to the conclusion we were guilty and hurts my child. I have had to see an 11 year old destroyed and a 12 year old break down because her little brother was hurt.
I did talk to the coach last night. I was able to make him tell me the things that were said and he listened to me and my side. Although he admitted he probably did not handle this the correct way he refused to allow Erik back on the team. One of the worst things for me was when he said, I always told everyone if you had issues come to me. I do not want you talking about things and getting upset about things. Just come to me and we will make things right. I told him if we had of had issues I would have done this but since there were never issues for us we did not come to him. I then reversed the situation on him and told him, he was preaching the walk but not walking it. I explained to him he wanted the parents to do one thing but he did not do this with us. He never came to us and asked us what was wrong. I think this made him take pause. Needless to say there is no happy ending to the situation.
I will say that I have had to pray alot in the last 36 hours. Many times I have had my mind going in nasty thoughts and I had to stop and say a prayer. I will not allow myself to be lowered to these standards.
I am a firm beleiver what comes around goes around. But even with this I do not really wish for the people who are involved to have to hurt like my family has been over this but I do want them to be hit head on with a learning experience over it. I have always been taught God takes care of children and fools. I have said this many times in the last 36 hours. My son is a child and those men are no fools. I know in time what comes around will go around. I hope it is sooner than later. But I do not wish anything bad on them. Just what God will meter out.
I gathered my little family around the kitchen island last night and said we must find the positive in this situation. God does everything for a reason. I told them all that right now the positive I can see is that just maybe God wants us to spend more time as a family. I told them we will not be ugly. We will not say bad things. We will look for the postive and remember in some way we will find a blessing in the situation. Is this easy for me NO!! But I will not allow myself to be lowered. I had the chance to say some truths to Chad last night about the person who did this and at one time he even asked me a question in which I could have hurt this family as badly as we were hurt. I told Chad that I refused to say and lower myself. I told him his decision was made and I was not going to tell him things about this person that was told to DH in confidence.
So now each of you know what my son has had to deal with. He is feeling some better but he is still very emotional. He broke down again this evening and threw himself on me crying....it will get better.