Cruisn'

I went on a cruise this last week. I drove to LA with my nurse friend Karen and her roommate Jaime and her roommate's friend Rachel. We stayed at Jaime's aunts house in Glendora. It was like a mansion. Everything was super fancy and all the homes in the neighborhood were crazy big. I saw two avocado trees when I went on a walk. It is so cool to see them growing on trees. Karen and I went to Irvine Sunday night to visit our friend Elizabeth who went to nursing school with us. She just got married and moved to Cali. She is pretty lonely since her husband is always at school and everyone in her ward has kids so she really hasn't connected with anyone yet. She said that 52% of the student body at the university is Asian. That is crazy. She made us her famous gingersnap cookies. We got to talk to Sam which was a first. She was so excited to see us. We just love her to bits!
We left for the cruise on Monday and came back Friday morning. The first night we just got on the ship. The next day we went to Catalina island. It is an island off the coast of California. It was pretty warm and my back was killing me that day. We walked to the botanical gardens and I didn't know if I was going to make it. It was a hard day for me as you can tell from how I look in the pictures. I didn't take any photos of the four of us because Jaime and Karen had that covered. They seemed to be taking a picture every minute! I need to get their pictures.

The next day we went to Ensenada, Mexico. It was my first time in Mexico. I was bummed that we didn't get a stamp in our passports. The excursion that we went on was to La Bufadora. We traveled about 45 minutes in the bus to see it. It was pretty sad to see how run down the place looked on the outskirts of town. La Bufadora is a cave on the coast that gets filled up with water as the waves come in. Pressure will build up and send the water shooting up. It was pretty cool. we were bombarded with the sellers in the market. It took me back to my Ecuador days. I didn't really want any souvenirs so I avoided the haggling. Sorry everyone, I only got souvenirs for the niece and nephew. When I go somewhere cool, I will get you all something. I used a little bit of Spanish when asking for prices. We were tired after that so we just went back onto the boat. I kind of wanted to walk around town but it was almost night time and I figured that walking around by myself wasn't the best idea.
Each night we had dinner with the same people. They were pretty entertaining. There was a couple who were newly weds and then a couple of their friends that they work with in a casino in Vegas. Mama Pam, as she calls herself, was a hoot. She called every one baby. We ate so much on the cruise. We basically ate and slept. sometimes we went dancing at night. we had a warm melting chocolate cake every night for dessert. It is a chocolate cake on top and underneath that is cake that didn't get cake like but tasted like hot fudge sauce. They served it with ice cream. It was soooo good.
On Friday we went to Irvine to see Jaime's cousin and then went to see if Elizabeth was home since she wasn't answering her phone. It turns out that she was actually home but was sleeping because she didn't get any sleep the night before. I am sad that we missed each other. Then we went to San Diego on the way back to Arizona and went to Balboa park. That is where the San Diego zoo is located. We didn't go to the zoo but went to see the botanical gardens. I like San Diego. Then we spent the night at Jaimie's house in Yuma and came home on sat. morning.
It was a fun break but I am glad that I don't have to go back to work for a few days so I can recuperate from my vacation!!