Galveston - In ONE Post!

  My family's vacation really began in Senegal, but even if I did blog about it, you wouldn't get to see pictures of anyone except us. I can tell you that we had fun, met a lot of new people, and saw some old friends that we haven't seen in several years. There is one photo, however, that I CAN show you. We had a costume night and all of us got to dress up. After much debate my dad finally convinced me to dress up as Rey from Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens.

 Earlier in the year, GranAnnie, my grandmother, invited my whole family to her retirement party that would go from Texas to Mexico. Never having been on a cruise ship or in Mexico, everyone in my family stayed up late for a week packing and getting everything ready. I remember the night that we first got the news; Aidan and Christianna grabbed each other and started dancing, though neither of them knew what 'Cozumel' was: all they knew was that after two years, we would be able to see GranAnnie and Uncle Cam, Uncle Wally, Aunt Terri, Brianna, Caitlin, Daniel, Evelyn, Franklin, Camille, and Hosanna. Who cares where your going if you get to see your family, right?
 The whole point of this vacation was GranAnnie; celebrating her retirement with her was so much fun and I am so glad that it was made possible. It was truly an experience!
We were greeted enthusiastically once we met our Kelly Cousins inside of the Greensboro Airport. After two years absence, everyone except Daniel had 'shrunk.' (No offense...)

The zealous travelers, boldly and innocently walking into the deadly pit of motion sickness! 

 I'll skip the short plane trip and long car drives that we had to take in order to reach Galveston, but once we finally got there I felt much better. For one, my feet always go numb in airports, airplanes, and American cars because I am so used to the African climate. But Galveston was "hot," and "humid," just to my liking (ahem, normal).

 GranAnnie had rented a car just for herself, Brianna, Caitlin, Evelyn, and me, so the "Three Misbehaving Girls," plus GranAnnie and her copilot all had fun playing loudish music and talking about strange things (like cold feet). As we drove away from the airport, GranAnnie pointed out a plane that was taking off, and remarked that she hadn't really noticed how slanted the plane was from the inside. "The Three Misbehaving Girls" in the back, still recovering their land legs, all groaned with agony and turned their heads away (mainly poor Caitlin, she had the worst of it). 

Now as any sane person would do in Galveston, Texas, we hit the beach during our first few hours of vacation (NOT counting the plane ride, you NEVER count that part as vacation unless there are movies on the plane). After a few minutes of rolling around in the salty water, I felt a very slimy something dart past my leg, followed by half a dozen more all slipping and wriggling on my skin. As any sane person would do in this event, I proceeded to shriek and raced away toward the nearest available people (Caitlin and Evelyn). Before long we were all hopping up and down screaming as the unfortunate school of fish darted around our legs. 

 And it wasn't over! After several hours of this, during which only Caitlin, Evelyn, and I were 'attacked,' someone theorized that it was our toes; at least Caitlin and I had brightly colored toe nails that had been freshly painted for this occasion. I was rather mortified because I love having a shocking red nail polish on my nails. But it was really funny afterwards, because Daniel, Franklin, and Tristan would be standing in the same general area as the girls, and of course, we would start dancing on our toes with loud protests and stepping on the poor things by accident in our struggle to get away; all the while the boys would look on with who-knows-what going through their heads, simply watching and remarking that it was now tiring listening to us scream.  Finally, after a fish had bit my stray finger and I had stomped on it furiously without even knowing what I was doing, I had had plenty of fun for one day and was quite ready to go and do something else. :) 

Other than the beach, we played a bunch of different games. We don't have a picture of it because usually everyone was playing, but one game that we played the most was One Night: Werewolf. It's really fun. Also Caitlin, Daniel, Evelyn, and Brianna taught me to play Dutch Blitz (Evelyn is so good at that game she's scary....) Even in the picture above, she smiles with sympathetic amusement as I make my move, plotting how she can destroy her fellow players in one fell swoop!  

  One thing about the start of our vacation - no, the whole of our vacation - that may have been both good and bad. We ate really good American food. A lot of food; I mean, a lot. But I wasn't complaining, because going two years without Golden Corral and Papa John's is a sad life indeed.

I LOVE this picture!!

Unfortunately, Camille and Christianna are not in this picture. It had been ages since my family had been able to see Camille, possibly over 3 years, so Christianna and Camille were always off doing their own thing; making pillow-sheet houses all over my freshly made bed, running around on the beach, and playing all sorts of card games. It was so good to see everyone! One thing that is hard for non-MK's to understand is our 'split' nationality. We love our "home," but we miss our family and other friends back in-what-everyone-else-calls-home-for-us.

  One day during our stay in Galveston, GranAnnie generously offered to rent to bikes for people who wanted to bike around. We would all take turns, and ride up along the beach. Caitlin and I quickly volunteered. It was beautiful. Because it was the July 4th weekend, the beach was rather crowded, but Caitlin  and I weren't worried. I think my favorite part of that outing was either riding through the waves and getting splattered with mud, or through a flock of seagulls that took off around us.

 

Once I left a game in my room that I wanted to show Caitlin and Evelyn; after I had run back and picked it up, I knocked on their door and called for them to let me in. After a few minutes I got close to the door to call again and heard two people giggling and laughing. Finally they let me in and showed me the nice picture of my eyeball that they had taken. We all had a good laugh about it.

  Honestly, when I started this blog post I was very enthusiastic; I knew exactly how I wanted to begin, and everything in between, but I didn't really plan the ending. What made it worse was the fact that our internet cable got burned off when someone lit a bonfire under it a few weeks ago, and then about two weeks later the newly repaired cable was chopped to pieces along with the bougainvillea plants on the wall. Then I got sick! This delay did not help my inspiration. But I have pushed on and it seems to be working. :)

 

  Of course when you have so many girls in one place, you have to paint nails. I think that I have never done better on anyone's nails, or been pushed farther! We had a grand stroke of inspiration and did a bunch of cool designs.

  After a wonderful stay at the beautiful hotel, we reluctantly parted ways with Uncle Cam and Camille, packed up our luggage, and made our way towards the dock where our ship awaited us. I think that I speak for everyone when I say that it was completely worth the long lines the moment we stepped inside the lobby. The plane rides, car rides, long waits, EVERYTHING was worthwhile as soon as we were all together aboard the Carnival Liberty.

Our first sighting of the Carnival Liberty