So let me preface this announcement by asking if you remember what one of my business goals was? Anyone? Bueller?
Yes, it was a family cruise. (I think I specifically said Disney, but realistically any cruise would suffice.) And we hoped the grandparents would tag along—I mean, what a great experience for the kids, right? And we’d all get an amazing vacation where no one has to cook or clean, we all get to relax and have fun with the kids, and hopefully escape some yucky Midwest weather.
So we forewarned the grandparents (they weren’t quite as excited as we were but they promised to think about it) and let our travel agent know we were looking for a good deal on a cruise. But then life takes over and you don’t think about it and time passes and you know that if you don’t actively engage, nothing will ever happen. And then something happens out of the blue and before you know it, you have put down a deposit on a cruise and it’s convenient to wait a few days to tell the kids after their party!
So what happened in an instant? New friends of ours (from baseball) that we’ve been hanging around with (and the kids love) were talking about a cruise they’re going on this fall. And not having any idea that a family cruise was actually in the back of our minds, she (possibly mostly in jest) said “You guys should come with us!” So I took a breath and said “You know, that might just work!”
It was the cruise line we just went on last year (almost the same ship, too) so that was a plus. A quick check of the calendar and with Tom (who pretty much gave an immediate and unequivocal YES!), and a few quick messages with our travel agent…and the cruise was booked! (Our TA even said he’s never booked a cruise that fast before!)
Long multiple-day story short, my dad and stepmom decided to go, too, so that’s awesome and we’re super excited. (We really tried to convince my mom and stepdad to go but weren’t successful.)
In the meantime, Tom started watching YouTube videos about the ship, pretending we were just showing the kids examples of cruises. We reaffirmed that we would be going on a cruise before we moved again, but that still left us two years.
We honestly didn’t think too much about how we were going to tell them, so after the party I rushed to the basement and cobbled together a card with the cruise info on it so they’d read it and hopefully we’d get a great video reaction.
Well, as usual, things didn’t go quite as we’d thought…