I should add...

The night before, Sarah`s mom suggested that the other three adults could have breakfast in the main dining room. We say, okay! Unfortunately, the room service breakfast we arrange for her and the kids arrives way early, so morning comes a little quicker to their room than ours. Sarah`s mom manages our savages while the rest of us head off. Breakfast in the dining room is a nice change, because there is no greater meal fatigue than breakfast buffet fatigue. We end up talking about statistics for an hour (and for neither the first nor the last time during this trip, I think: who have I become?)

Back at the room, there’s an announcement over the PA – something about a redirection in course, but none of us really catch it. We’re all wondering what the hell is going on, but Sarah’s mom figures out that it’s an April Fools bit. It’s sort of a groaner, but then she hands us a mock version of the daily activities pamphlet that accompanies the jokes, and it’s legitimately very funny. The day’s activities include: Let’s Play Dead, Learn Surgery From Our Ships Doctors, and Expired Pills Exchange. Also, the suggested dress code for dinner is Rainforest Indigenous. Well played, people.

After kid-drop-off, Sarah looks into booking another cruise (yes, different than the one from yesterday, and different from the one two days ago). This one is just for the two of us to celebrate our 15^th Anniversary, so it’s warranted, but she’s still banned from meeting with the Future Cruise staff for the remainder of the trip. I go to the gym while this is going down, and it’s my third gym day in a row (again: who have I become?!?) I’d janked my knee while running about a month prior and it was taking forever to heal, but it was starting to feel decent so I thought I’d test things out with a quick jog on the outdoor track. The test was a success (in that it successfully proved my knee was not better.)

After kid-pick-up, we did some more wall climbing and even Sarah muscled her way to the top. Veronica had another failed attempt and was once again pretty P.O.ed about it, and this time we distracted her with… the Wonders of PowerPoint! As part of her homework while she’s away, she has to put together some kind of journal about her trip, and a slide show was the format she chose. I spend a few minutes showing her how it all works, and while it turns out that PowerPoint is the bane of adult existence, kids think it is the absolute greatest thing ever. The other kids watch and whine while Veronica puts together her slides. Susannah actually sends a barrage of punches at my thigh when I won’t let her rip the laptop from Veronica’s hands so she could make her own presentation.

Veronica goes for a second attempt at the wall, but her hands are pretty wrecked from prior attempts and she can't do it. We’re in Disappointment City again, but then she has this really nice moment where she coaches some lady to the top, telling where to put her hands and feet next. The lady gives her a big hug when she’s down and says, “I couldn’t have done it without you!” Then it’s off to dinner. Randomly, they decide to choose today as the day they recognize the dining room staff. They do that thing where they play tarantella-type music and everyone waves their napkins over their head as the staff marches by. Susannah is loving it, just waving her napkin non-stop. After a while, she turns to me and says, “Why are we doing this?” And I tell her it’s this random thing we do to thank the staff. And that’s not me simplifying things because she’s a kid: it represents my complete understanding of what the hell it is and why the hell we do it.