March 7, 2014

March 7, 2014

Dear Children,

    There is so much to say about since the last time I wrote just before leaving for the cruise; all I can start with is, "Wow!" We thoroughly enjoyed our Panama Canal Cruise and what made is even more sweet was having so many family members along. I took reading

materials and lots of things to plan and do but never got around to them! There was never a dull moment: always someone to eat with, talk with, eat with, play games with, eat with, swim with and did I say eat with? Yes, a cruise is a buffet on the water but I also decided that is an Aspen Grove on the water. We love Aspen Grove and I especially loved the fact that I would play, relax and eat with my family but never step foot in a kitchen. Aubrey and I both commented how nice it was to walk away from a table full of dirty dishes and just dash off to the next entertainment! Frankly, I was exhausted at the end of each day from just playing! If it would have been a normal family gathering, I would have been completely exhausted with the pre-planning, keeping up with meals, and clean up. A cruise is the way to go!

It was a very memorable trip.  About a week into the trip I was thinking two weeks was going to be too long but at the end, I was sorry we were headed to Los Angeles to disembark. A Panama Cruise has been on my wish list for a long time so with much gratitude, I am glad that Grandma Maldonado planned this before the new canal would be in use in the next year or so. It was much more meaningful going through the canal that Grandpa Maldonado’s father, Jose Antonio, worked on. Without the Panama Canal, I am not sure the Maldonado family would have traveled as indentured servants to the United States.

Luckily, we all met in the boarding room at the Miami dock to we boarded together. Actually, what made that possible was a three hour delayed boarding time due to the gastro-intestinal illness that was on the ship before us. They had to do a more thorough cleaning and there were extra precautions throughout our trip. Aaron was fairly certain that he got food poisoning one night but they categorized every illness as the highly contagious one that was affecting other cruises so they quarantined him 24 hours to his room which was sad since he felt good but had to stay there and eat room service bland food.

Aaron was our entertainment specialist; he would look at the day’s schedule and suggest fun events for us to join. He knew most the crew by the end of the trip. Actually, our family was fairly noticeable since there were twelve of us and only one over the age of 70.  I believe the average age on the cruise was 70 year old.  Gregory and Bryson would go to the Children Activity Center and I think that there were only about eight other children aboard!

On board, we went to many shows, bingo, and goofy competitions.  We spent lots of time in the salt-water pools, hot tubs and slides.  We got plenty of sun on land and on the ship.  It was comfortably warm every day, except the last day heading into California.  Every day was a high temp of 82 to 95 . . . awesome!  Aboard the ship we usually had a table reserved to play card games when we didn’t want to be in the sun. There was

even a large table at a casual dining area overlooking musical entertainment where we played games while waiters brought us snacks and drinks; what a life! It was fun that we gathered together so often.

Morty was our gatherer, especially for the dining room options. He would look at the menu early in the day and figure out a time to eat our dinner, making the necessary arrangements or even going early to put our name onto the waitlist since we were such a large group. We ate both casually and formally; we found our favorite spots. But, the most fun was discovering things like soft serve ice cream and also crepe time while we played games.

The on-board seminars from Dr. Lund were excellent.  He is an authority on Book of Mormon lands and family relations.  We didn’t always attend due to fun family fun events at the same time.  Gregory and Bryson went to their Activity Center each day if only for a short time in the evening on our shore days. They always had fun crafts and activities for them. They probably went down the ship slides… maybe 500 plus times during the trip . . . endless energy.

On our first days at sea, we saw Cuba from a distance and landed in Columbia.  We did a little shopping, toured historical forts and sites, and played on the beach.  Dad braced the wave jumping as it was a rough at times, but fun in a warm ocean.  The beach there was crowded with locals.

The trek through the Panama Canal was a full day adventure and truly amazing.   From early morning we traveled through several locks, across the inland lake and then the other set of locks before sundown. It was amazing to witness the engineering that had been built in the late 1890’s to 1914.  No wonder so many people died during the construction; it is massive. It was interesting to have a Panama Canal guide on board telling the history while traveling through the locks. Our ship was pulled through the locks by two locomotives on tracks on the sides of our ship. There was only 36 inches of clearance! Towards the end of our trip through the canal, Katie and Aubrey knew some friends and family members were on the website of the Panama Canal webcam so they went and danced on the deck by one of the cameras. In one of Adrianne’s screen shots from her computer, it looks like she captured them! The most beautiful site at the end of the Canal was the LDS temple surrounded by lush greenery of Panama City.

Our next stop, Costa Rica, was beautiful and warm.  The entire family toured together on this day. We had great bargaining power with our size to get a good price from street vendors.  We made sugar cane juice, saw lots of fruit and went to a park where locals were picnicking on the beach. We fed monkeys that were hanging from trees.  They would come down to grab a piece of fruit when offered.  They were small black monkeys with white-topped heads and cute faces.

In Mexico, Puerto Chiapas was worth the entire trip.  Some of us went on Dr. Lund’s

trip to Tree of Life and Stella 5 Izapa stone site.   We were in the Land of Zarahemla, according to Dr. Lund and the research on the stones carvings would point to that possibility.  The Tree of Life, a real tree, was magnificent and surrounded by carved stones.  The Tree of Life stone was there and we could see some of detail as it has weathered.  The place is where Lehi, probably, gave his final blessing to his family.  It felt so good to be there.  Close by we saw a demo of how chocolate is made from cocoa beans; that was fun.  All the while we were just miles from the Guatemala border. It was this stop that Nate taxied to an airport for his flight home since he could not stay the entire trip.

Huatulco, wa-TOOL-co, was a perfect place; probably my favorite port.  It combined charm, sun, beach and the BEST snorkeling!  We took a cheap TAXI to a nearby beach, La

Entrega, where we swam and snorkeled.  I also loved that we were able to “rent” a table and umbrella all day for the price of having a drink and chips with guacamole! We found the “Bat Cave” where Aaron, the brave one, was first to swim into, through a narrow water passage.  We gathered our courage and followed him in after he didn’t die! J  Bats reside there during the rainy season.   The plentiful fish were described by Aaron as “walls of fish”.  Many of the interesting ship entertainers sat next to us at that beach.  Most of the family stayed at the beach that was right off the dock so we met up with them at the end. As we left port, we saw dolphins swimming along side of cruise ship; it was fascinating.

Puerto Vallarta was beautiful as well. We traveled to a jungle site with Shawn’s family on this day while Aaron and Morty accompanied Grandma on the Lund tour to another jungle site and hoped to see the beach that they traveled to as children with Joe but the tide was very high her so not much beach was in sight.

With our local driver we stopped at a Chicklet Tree and tasted gum, sticky sap.  We stayed most of the day on a property where two rivers join which was carved through solid granite formations.  Aubrey said she wanted to live in a place just like that.  We waded in river and were bitten by no-see-ums . . . we didn’t notice until blood specks appeared on our legs.   We jumped from high rocks into the cold river, led by Shawn, of course.  A local cliff-diver helped us across slippery rocks and polished granite.  Shawn, Aubrey and I slid down a granite chute in the river and plunged over a water-fall.  It was WAY beyond my comfort zone but I felt the moment was right to just do it and I am glad I did.  So, I have done my daring thing of my life.

The local man who was helping us actually starred as a diver in the film, Beverly Hills Chihuahua; the little boys knew the movie.  He did some dives off some very high rocks into a narrow river pool in between rocks.   It was hard to watch since he did one dive blind-folded.  We enjoyed a home-made lunch of chips, tortillas and guacamole . . . as we also did in Huatulco; the chips being the size of small tortillas.

Cabo San Lucas was another treasured stop.  Most of the group got a cheap van service and went to our favorite beach, Chileno.  Grandma didn’t think she could get onto the “tender” boats, since were anchored off-shore.  We were the first ones at the beach, except a group doing a photo-shoot.   The beach, with free Palapas to shade us, was beautiful.  The water was cooler than previous stops but there were SO many fish to see.   Everyone enjoyed some snorkel-time; I think we have some more snorkel converts in the family.  Shawn and Aaron ventured pretty far out.  Shawn showed us some of the fish they had been observing.  Shawn had even seen an octopus but we couldn’t see it in the rock crevice when we came.  Greg went with us to watch a Black Marlin being skinned and cleaned when we got back to the dock. 

We saw several whales from ship often in pairs as we left this port. The thing about a cruise is that you just get a taste of each port and you want to return. I certainly want to go back to Huatulco.

As soon as we arrived in Los Angeles, we scattered to our various flights. Instead of going home with Dad, I went to Salt Lake to be with the Brady family as Heidi was in Hawaii visiting one of her friends. Her friend, who had moved away from Utah was missing her girlfriends so her husband gave her a Christmas gift of two friends coming to spend a week with her! On Monday, Adrianne came up for a visit after work. She was able to stay for a cute family home evening lesson planned by Jenna. While Rebekah and Jenna were at school, William, Ainsley and I were able to travel down to Orem to visit Grandma on two of the afternoons; one being a very quick trip when Morty flew into town for a day!  I followed Heidi’s spreadsheet fairly well until Morty came into town and got everyone playing wildly. Maybe the homework and music lessons didn’t get completely done that day! I unfortunately didn’t get any photos while in Utah; we were too busy having fun!

I came back to a huge snow storm. I was supposed to travel to Seattle for a SendOutCards meeting but the snow conditions were too unpredictable for our return trip. So, we did what every snow bound person should do. We got in our car and traveled the empty freeway to the airport and flew to Oakland to go to my favorite Mexican restaurant, Los Compadres and then flew home that night. Not without a few hiccups though since the weather was causing problems in lots of places. It was well worth it since it was our last free flight.

Yes, our wings have been clipped. Katie accepted a new job with Fandeavor.com in Las Vegas. She packed her heavy things and drove her car to Las Vegas on the Monday after the cruise and returned to pack her apartment. Luckily, we were able to book our spontaneous Oakland flight through to Las Vegas so she put four large tubs on the plane with us when she dropped us off at the airport. We got off the flight in Oakland, her things went on and Aaron picked them up in Las Vegas. Smooth! This snowy photo is our footprints down our driveway (from the garage) after we were dropped off at the mailbox because the snow was so deep about 1:00 am after our delayed flight and thankfully, slightly delayed MAX trip to Beaverton.

We have been trying to get used to regular life since being home. We relaxed all that time on vacation and then felt like slugs during the snow storm (except I did clean out my cereal and pasta cupboards of old stuff; you will all be so happy to here!).  But our pace has picked up. It looks like there are a couple of jobs lined up for Howard Bitter Concrete and I won another customer gathering contest in February. Last weekend I had to speak at a meeting in Yakima, Washington about the January incentive that I won so I thought I should do it a second month in a row. It went well!

Weather was an issue traveling back from Yakima in the Gorge but luckily I made it back in time to meet dad at Kimberly Motto’s mom’s funeral. We saw people we haven’t seen for so long. It was a short service and a party with desserts and ice cream for everyone afterwards!  But, we just figured out that is where we caught our awful stomach flu bug. We have been so sick since Monday morning.  We rarely get sick and this has been so bad. Every day we think we will wake up and be better and we are shocked how long this is lasting. I tried to do a couple of things too early and was back feeling awful. We have slept so much and still, it has been hard to get back our energy. We of course had to cancel our dinner out for our wedding anniversary on Tuesday evening. Maybe we did our share of celebrating last month!

The Panama trip and the snow storms postponed our chance to celebrate Alina’s birthday so we went down two weekends ago. Since it fell right in between Alina and Klaire’s birthday, we celebrated both of them since we plan to be gone for part of Spring Break. We are trying to get to Utah to see Rebekah and Jenna in the Wizard of Oz and be there to celebrate some March birthdays in Utah. We are probably going to drive unless we can book a flight with points and try and get bumped. Oh how we will miss the SWALife website!!! If that all crumbles, I will be in Utah twice in May and then in June for Adrianne and Blake’s baby! Did you hear that they were flooded a third time? The second time was just after they paid to get their basement fixed from the first flood. Luckily, they hadn’t put in the carpet yet.

Scott will have a new roommate in the next little while. Someone in another cell is leaving and he is ready for a more positive change. His new roommate, Brian Baker, and his wife have a non-profit that sends Bibles to the prison when requested by an inmate. You can send Scott photos via an email service now. That would be fun for him: accesscorrections.com gives you more information.

So that basically catches us up for now. We love you, Mom and Dad