Ham Fam Cruise

 

Grandma & Grandpa Ham took the family on another cruise!! Grandma has been diagnosed with Visual Alzheimers, and there are a lot of unknowns and a lot of challenges that are coming along with that. They wanted to spend some quality time with the whole family. The cruise we went on 5 years ago was some of our family's favorite memories together, and they wanted to do something big that would create the same kind of experiences and memories again.

We caravan-ed out to Long Beach with my parents, Mel & Amarie, and the Loosli's. 

The kids loved to see the family when we'd stop at gas stations. We hit a lot of California traffic, and so it was a long day of driving. We stopped in Barstow and stayed in a hotel that night. Grandma, Caitlyn and I went on an ice run. :)

The next morning we had a couple more hours to drive and then we were able to get on the ship!!

We found the rest of the family and were able to get some lunch and some ice cream of course. :) Cody was on the phone so we all got to say hi. It was so fun to see him in real time! Jonah was in heaven getting to talk to Cody!

We got all settled in when our cabins were ready. Tessa loves to sit in the window and watch the ocean!

First thing Tessa and Damon wanted to do was get in the pool!

Paul enjoyed the chair in the shade. :)

Rockwell took off with Wyatt and Ammon, and loved the freedom of hanging out with his cousins and just checking in at dinner. We got reservations in the dining room every night, and that was great to gather at the end of each day and visit with everyone.

We watched a musical show after dinner that night. I didn't know many of the songs, but it was fun to be with everyone.

We woke up the next morning in Catalina Island. We got off the boat right after breakfast and wandered through the shops and the streets of Catalina. We had to take a ferry from the ship to shore.

It's a beautiful island! I really enjoyed exploring it.

We booked an excursion called the Fantastic Race. It's a play on the show the Amazing Race, which we absolutely love. Matt and Gary and their families booked it too, and there may have been some trash talking beforehand between Matt's family and ours. :) They're big fans too, so we were both so excited...and also really wanted to win. Haha. While we were shopping beforehand, we tried to notice anything we thought could possibly be involved in the race. We read all the plaques and noticed any statue we passed.

This statue that Damon's posing with ended up being where one of the clues sent us. We were so excited that we knew right where it was!

When it was time for the Fantastic Race to start, the host Jacob (aka Phil from the show) asked us each what our team name would be. We hadn't thought of a team name, and so I panicked and said Beat The Ham's. Since both my brother's family's are Ham's, I thought it would be funny. Gary's team name was Hot Ash, so I don't think anyone knew that we were related to them.

But Matt's team name was The Haminators, so people did get a kick out of our name and could tell that we were related. 

When Jacob had explained all the rules and gave each team our packets, the race began!! Luckily Lori and Julie took some pictures along the way, because I didn't take any that weren't needed for the clues. :)

The first clue was a picture of this wall at the base of a fountain. Luckily we had seen the fountain that morning too so we knew just where it was. We had a legend with all sorts of tiles on it, with numbers assigned to each tile. We had to figure out which tiles were missing using the legend and run back to Jacob to give our guess of the correct numbers. If we got it correct, he gave us our next clue. After that we didn't see Jacob again until the finish line.

There were all different types of clues and challenges to solve, and we ran from one end of the island to the other, up and down the back streets, and out to the end of the pier. There was another team that was neck and neck with us the whole time. That got the competitive juices flowing for us. :) They were so nice though and really fun to race so close with. We helped each other out a few different times. We got to the post office and opened a P.O. Box right before them, but we let them grab a clue out instead of making them figure out how to open it. (It was actually really tricky to open.) They helped us with coloring over an inscription on a statue to see the next clue.

We had to find a newspaper and then find a clue in the paper. Then call the phone number and figure out a password from the voicemail message, and then give that password to the ice cream shop. They couldn't figure out the password and so we gave that to them.

When we got the ice cream cone after giving them the password, Rockwell grabbed the ice cream off the top and grabbed the clue out of the cone. Damon was so excited to eat the ice cream, and so he was so sad when Rockwell just picked it up and threw it in the garbage can. (Rockwell was very invested in winning and was in the front with the map the whole time. It was fun to have him so into it.) I promised Damon that we would buy him an ice cream cone when we were finished with the race, and then we took off running again. Haha.

The last clue was on a giant chess board at the library. We picked up the king and read the clue together with the other team. It told us to find a cafe, and both teams assumed the cafe would be on the main street by the harbor. We both took off running toward the main street, but I saw on my maps that we were heading the wrong direction. I called out Rockwell's name since he was in front of me and told him we needed to go the other way. Luckily the other team was running so fast and concentrating on figuring out where to go that they didn't hear me. We turned around and ran the other way and found the cafe where Jacob was waiting for us. We won the race!!! It was so exciting!! The other team came in about a minute and a half behind us. It was so close!

We got free cold drinks and chips and salsa at the cafe. Those cold drinks tasted so good after running and sweating buckets for as long as we did! It was a hot day! It was fun to catch up and hear stories from the Haminator's and the Hot Ash team while we ate. You could do some of the clues a few different ways, and so it was fun to hear how they had done it and what tripped each of us up and what worked well for us. 

We got gold medals for taking 1st place, and also got free entrance to a new excursion that just opened. It was very similar to an Imax movie, where we were inside a circular room and could watch deep sea divers and see all the oceanic life that they had recorded. The kids really enjoyed it, and Paul and I really enjoyed sitting in air conditioning for 30 minutes. :)

We went back to the ice cream shop to get ice cream cones as promised, but the line was enormous. We asked Damon if he just wanted to get back on the ship and fill up his own cone on there. He was totally happy with that. We bought the souvenirs we had picked out earlier in the day and then headed back to the ship. It was the 2nd of July and so they were decorating for Independence Day in Catalina.

Al & Keith and my parents found a beach to spend the day at. Mel & Amarie did a hike that morning. I love the picture Mel got from the top of their hike. The clouds look so cool!

It was nice to get back on the boat and shower and then enjoy looking out at Catalina Island now that we felt like we knew it all so well. :)

Tessa and Hallee were excited to try the ropes course on the top of the ship. They went around and around and loved it!

Paul and I had fun watching Jonah in the basketball tournament.

Paul thought it would be funny to wear our medals to the fancy dinner that night. :) Rockwell bought himself sunglasses on the island and he just looked so cool walking up to dinner.

We had a fun night playing a 90's music trivia (Paul did so well at that!) and then I stayed up visiting with my siblings and eating all the things until late into the night. It was a great day!