At Sea ... Day 1 ....

Well, I've been trying for well over half an hour to upload just two pictures for you from today, but at 75 cents a minute for internet ..... I now quit.

You'll have to wait until I get back home for pics, Peeps.

  It is now 12:45 a.m. and I am sitting out on the balcony outside of our room.  Son #3 is sound asleep and Son #2 is off with some teens .... hopefully having fun and not getting into trouble.

The moon is almost full.  We're going at a good clip.  There's a nice breeze out here.  The water is very dark ..... and very, very calming.  Very.

  I am learning that, even when I don't think I have expectations, I sometimes do.

I will never again have the kind of "vacation" that I used to have.  No matter how much I plan, or how much I spend ..... it's not the same.  He is not here.

And that changes everything.

     I am thankful that the kids are older and that we wouldn't have had too many more "family vacations" with all of them, anyway.  

What we had will have to be enough.  Hopefully for them ..... most certainly for me.

     We got on the ship shortly after 1:00 this afternoon.  Everything is pleasant enough and the food is good.

The boys seem to be enjoying it, for the most part.  It's still early.

Tomorrow we go to Atlantis on Nassau, and I hope that we have fun.  It will be a full, active day.

    We are sitting at a table (for dinner) with another family of three, only they are legitimately a family of 3:  a father, a mother and a 14 year old daughter.  Even with only 2 children at my side I think we overwhelmed them tonight.  What only-girl-child would not be overwhelmed amid two of three boy children-of-6 children?!

I wonder if they'll show up for dinner tomorrow?  If I were a betting woman .... I'd say no.  We shall see.

Two years ago this would have been a blast of a vacation!  Two years ago we would've all been here, most likely.

But now it's 18 moths ago .... and things are not what they were ..... or what we want.  So we, the survivors, keep moving forward ..... trying to make things normal.

Hoping to get the normal that we so very much desire and expect.

Every day is an exercise on letting go of expectations and learning what our "new normal" is.

It's now Day 2 at sea ..... since I fell asleep before finishing this last night.

We're off to Nassau.  

Nothing will be normal.

No expectations.

I'll keep you posted.

By the way, the water is gorgeous!