How do you celebrate 40 years of friendship? By going on a cruise to the Bahamas of course! We did just that last week and spent six days with our group of Christmas Lights friends. Forty years ago Max and Patty Searcey invited Melvin and Janet Dissmeyer and us to Marysville, Kansas to eat at the Koester House and see the Christmas lights in their town. Arn and Kathy Hottovy joined us the next year after they moved back to Nebraska from Grand Junction, Colorado. After going to Marysville for several years we started to take turns hosting. We have eaten at Evening With Friends in Milligan, Jeanie’s in Lewiston, Upstream in Omaha, Playa Azul and Classic’s in Beatrice, as well as Famous Dave’s, Vincenzo’s, and Mazatlan in Lincoln, just to name a few. We have taken trips to Kansas City and Des Moines. One year we attended a Mannheim Steamroller concert in Omaha. Sometimes we even see Christmas lights! We always have good food, good company, and lots of laughs.
When the Searcey’s suggested celebrating our 40th Christmas Lights gathering on a cruise ship we were understandably apprehensive. Going on a cruise has never been high on our list of fun things to do. We have always enjoyed the mountains more than the beach. But we thought we could manage a trip like this for four days and, who knows, maybe we would even like it.
Last Sunday we picked up the Dissmeyer's and headed to Kansas City to meet the others for our flight to Fort Lauderdale. It was quite a mind shift to get off the plane and have warm weather in February. We ate that night in a Cuban restaurant across from our hotel - the only place we could get into because the Super Bowl had filled up all of the sports bars. They did have the game on their only TV but it was tuned to the Spanish channel. Needless to say we didn’t get much out of the commentary.
The next morning we boarded the Celebrity Silhouette and were greeted by the friendliest people on the planet. We made our way to our stateroom and were pleasantly surprised that was so nice - not the cracker box that I was expecting. We had splurged on a balcony room and were so glad that we did as we spent a fair amount of time there.
On Tuesday morning we docked at Key West where we boarded a hop on-hop off trolley to see the sights. We took a tour of Truman’s Little White House, saw Ernest Hemingway’s house, Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville Bar, and the southernmost tip of the U.S. On Wednesday we were at sea all day so we took advantage of the activities on board the ship. Those included archery, cha-chi dance lessons, a fitness dance class, sudoku and crosswords puzzles, and trivia games - lots of trivia games! On Thursday we were one of six cruise ships docked at Nassau in the Bahamas. We spent the morning shopping in the markets and found a few treasures to take home.
Each day on the ship we spent time on the pool deck enjoying the warm weather. We enjoyed several great shows in the theater after dinner including an illusionist, a wonderful singer from Jamaica, and two production shows. My favorite part of the day was our dinners in the main dining room. The food was amazing! Our waiters were attentive and personable. The sommelier kept our wine glasses full. And we had two hours to enjoy the company of our group. And then there were the desserts!
As I looked around our dinner table each night I felt so blessed to have the friendship of this group for all of these years. We have 184 years of marriage between our four couples and all eight of us are still alive and kicking! And we were so glad to escape the cold and snow that hit home while we were gone. We just wish we could have stayed another week to escape the frigid temps and mounds of snow that we have this week! We can’t wait for our next cruise!
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