definitely NOT cruisin'...

yes, these are images of the boat we were to board yesterday for our dream cruise for our 10th anniversary to the mexican riviera. but it was not meant to be. we've had several moments of disappointment as we've passed dates and events that we were to have missed.

we had each picked out several books to read poolside, we'd booked glass bottom kayaking, snorkeling, canopy tours, rappelling, city tours, massages (just to list a few of the items we'd been looking forward to for months...) on tuesday morning when i started following the news and twitter feeds about a fire in the splendor's engine room the pit in my stomach started to grow...

while the pit in my stomach was growing, the uss ronald reagan was packaging spam and sending it to the stranded passengers aboard the cruise-liner.

tugboats took three days to get to the boat and pull it to san diego.


so yes, we'll live to cruise another day.

meanwhile, we are here in the snowy cold and loving it. the girls built this snowman on october 28th, but this morning we built another (mickey mouse style) and then headed over for the first sledding of the year before the snow melted and before they headed off to school. they loved it. (ella tried to come out in her dress and flip-flops but mom put a stop to that.)

soon after realizing our hopes had been dashed by the fiery fiasco i sent a plea for shifts and my colleagues graciously offered me some work this week.

my mom offered to give us a night in SLC over the weekend at the gateway and crystal inn where we luxuriated for one night rather than seven.

we were here to see byu clobber csu and notre dame decimate utah.

we were here to see michael's 'great to be eight' program at the church. when one of the leaders announced that when a boy turns eight he can start cub scouts michael called out an audible, 'yesssss.' people laughed and we were proud of our eager soon to be eight-year-old.

michael's thanksgiving choir concert will be tuesday night as is the evening in excellence amy is in charge of. the first thing michael said when i told him our cruise was cancelled was, 'now you can come to my christmas concert!'

plans began to emerge for the week as we will be here for the byu vs. utah state basketball game.

i had been lamenting missing the opening of harry potter while floating somewhere off the coast of mexico and since stevie's coming into town we purchased tickets to see it with hillary and him!

the biggest event of the week by far (in close running with the wedding of andrew wright) is the birth by melinda of baby jared scheduled for friday morning!

so in reality. we are excited to be around and will certainly find our way back into the day to day. all the while wistfully thinking of what might have been...