The Cat Is Now Out of the Bag

We have just gotten home from what was probably our best vacation ever! We are using adjectives like “phenomenal” and “splendid” and “fantastic” to describe it.

THE SECRET IS NOW OUT. Back on the 10th we surprised the kids with the news that they would not be going to school the next day, nor the next week, but that they would be going on a six night cruise aboard the Disney Magic instead. They were ecstatic! Nate even put on an impromptu dance show.

For the sake of those of you who do not know this, we had originally booked a Disney cruise for January 2010. It was actually our main present to the kids for Christmas ’09, and to make the deal sweeter, Will, Darice, and their kids had booked the cruise too. Unfortunately, Pauline’s cancer had progressed more than any of us knew. Those of you who have been keeping up with us for a long time will recall that her health took a turn for the worse shortly after the new year and we quickly saw that we needed to cancel our trip so Vicki could take care of her mom. Pauline passed away on the day we were supposed to set sail. Ever since we had been keeping an eye out for more “kids sail free” deals from Disney but none came up at a port within reasonable driving distance for us. And then, as Aunt Mar’s health began to wane, we put that idea on the back burner for a while.

It was back in October that Brent and Sabrina were in to visit family and she mentioned to me that Disney was running the deal again for cruises out of Galveston. That conversation was really so close to Aunt Mar’s funeral that I immediately rejected the idea, but the seed was planted and it began to grow. When I mentioned it to Vicki she initially rejected the idea like me, but then the idea started to grow on her as well. By the end of October, having waited almost too late, we booked a cruise and began making plans to go. We decided then not to tell the kids until the day before we were to leave just in case something went awry.

The problem with that part of the plan is that we had a big secret to keep. I had no idea how hard it was not to discuss things with Vicki until this, and there were a lot of details that needed to be discussed. And then there were all the people who wound up needing to know that were would be gone, like teachers, folks at church, etc. To make things a little harder, all of Jenna’s swimsuits were worn out from the summer and we had to do some off season swimsuit shopping without making her suspicious. (Vicki wound up telling her we were going to Wilderness in the Smokeys for a long weekend.) Two weeks ago the secret was still holding, though Jenna had her suspicions, and we were a nervous wreck.

Going back to the day the kids found out, we were bursting with the news but somehow got them out the door to school without a leak. Vicki met me in Springfield for lunch and we couldn’t wait for school to be out so we could break the news. Sometime around 4:00 that afternoon we gathered the kids around the kitchen table and made their day. (We actually let Jenna tell the boys about the supposed trip to Gatlinburg first and then corrected her with the real news.)

There is no way I can tell all about a six night cruise in one sitting, so I will do like I did for our trip to Disney World back in 2008 and write it up in installments, each telling some aspect of our adventure. To that end, expect four or five editions to the Swann Family News to be published in the next week to ten days, after which I will return to my normal routine.

Since you have that to look forward to I will leave you with a couple of stories from before our trip until I can collect my thoughts.

CAT UP A TREE. A few of days before we were to go on out cruise we came home to discover Tagalong up in a tree in our yard. He hadn’t clue how to get down and Miss Cat and Dusty were both looking at him from the ground. I’m not sure, but I think they were enjoying it.

I had decided not to rescue Tagalong because it has been my experience that a rescued cat never learns how to climb down while a hungry cat learns this skill quickly. Tagalong, however, got a break. After two full days in the tree and our departure at hand I had to get him down. Unfortunately, he picked the large pecan tree in our yard. I had to back the truck up to the tree and put the extension ladder in the bed of the truck just to reach him. He was so hungry that he didn’t let Miss Cat bully him away from the food dish.

THAT’S MY PENCIL. I think I have said before that Judy thinks of the coolest Christmas presents to give the kids. Part of this year’s gift included packages of pencils with their names embossed on them. (I got a set of pencils like this when I was a kid, but the company misspelled them and they all had “Joe Swam” on them.)

That came in really handy for Ben at school the other day when another boy in his class picked up his pencil and began to use it. It doesn’t take much to imagine the conversation that followed.

“Hey! Gimme my pencil back.”

“It’s not your pencil. It doesn’t have your name on it.”

“Oh yes it does.”

The other kid then looks at the pencil and is surprised to see Ben’s name really is there. Then he tries to rub the name off, but couldn’t so he gave the pencil back. Not that we care who it was, but Ben won’t rat the boy out.

Joe