Merry Christmas!

Hello Everyone and Merry Christmas!

Below you will find our annual Christmas video. We hope you enjoy it!

If you ONLY KNEW how hard it was to get this video online...while sailing in the middle of the ocean. Let me just say that it was a CHRISTMAS MIRACLE.




We had to make the video file size alot smaller than normal, so we apologize if the quality isn't the best.

MERRY CHRISTMAS and WE LOVE YOU ALL!


P.S.
To see our previous Christmas Videos, look to the right side of our blog and find the December month of 2010 and then of 2009 and you can find our Christmas video posts there.

Claire Anne Ohlson

My sister Diane had a baby girl!!! Claire Anne Ohlson was born last Thursday, December 15. 6lbs, 12oz 18 inches! She is perfect! Andrew who is 3 is already the older proud brother. Everyone is healthy and doing great. It makes me so sad that Whitney and I won't be there for Christmas this year. My immediate family are spending Christmas in Kansas City in the Ohlson's new home. So jealous! We love you guys!

Spreading the Holiday Cheer

Christmas is definitely one of my favorite times of year. Who doesn’t like Christmas? The malls are always decorated nicely; Starbucks has the best flavors during this time, buying presents is always exciting, Christmas music is the best, and the Christmas movies never cease to put me in a good mood!!

Last Sunday we went to Olrando to the Millenia Mall – it’s beautiful there!

Whitney and I love our new iPhone 4. We each got Shirley and Fred’s old iPhone because they upgraded and it’s super awesome because you can face-time with anyone who has the iPhone 4 or 4S over wi-fi. As you can see the quality is great – this is me chatting with Brittany. I was in St. Thomas while she was in LA, amazing technology I must say!

This is a picture of a whole bunch of motorcycles that were on board a couple of weeks ago. We had a motorcycle group on the ship and they got to bring their bikes, so they could ride around at each port. How amazing! 

 Every week the cast gets together usually at Beans n’ Tings which is for crew only and we play games. The other night while playing a game, a worker whom we didn’t know delivered Whitney a present from her Secret Santa. She got a Pictionary Card game! Each cast member has a Secret Santa and the limit is $50. Up until Christmas you can leave your person little gifts and then on Christmas day everyone will give their ‘big’ present to their person and you can’t open it until you guess correctly on who your Secret Santa was. I have already gotten a 2000 piece puzzle of Times Square that I plan on putting together with my cast backstage in between shows. I got the game Clue (chocolate edition), a pack of dice so that I can teach everyone the dice game, and pretzel m&ms - my favorite.

Rock Climbing and Flowrider

The other night as crew we got to go on the Rocking Climbing wall and try the Flowrider. Both are hard. Whitney and I both climbed to the top, however, there are easy and hard routes. If you stay on one color the whole time it’s harder and some colors are harder than others. I tried to do one side just one color and I couldn’t do it… I had to use other colors to keep going. My forearms were extremely tired; this is something I wish I could do more often.

I went on the flowrider for the first time ever. It… was… really… hard. These pictures actually make me look like I’m doing well, but I was the most wobbly. Haha, we took a video of it – I’ll have to post later. The second time I went on it went a lot better. I think our cast gets the flowrider all to themselves tonight! Yahoo, I’m going to try my hardest to get Whitney on it. 

Garmon/Jones Cruise Week

 Well it sure has been a few weeks since our last blog, but we’ve been super busy! Whitney and I have been getting ready for Christmas. The cast is doing Secret Santa and it has been really fun so far. Whitney’s parents and grandparents vacationed on the cruise ship last week - having them on board was a blast! It was hilarious to see their reactions the first couple of days. Since the ship has so much to offer we never got bored. Unfortunately due to the rocky waves, we didn’t port in Grand Cayman but everything else went smoothly.

Whitney and I learned that having guests on board can be quite exhausting because since we’re not allowed in the guest elevators we had to make sure to have perfect communication so that no one got lost. While they were on the guest elevators we had to either run up the stairs to meet them or take the crew elevators, which aren’t exactly close by. Needless to say, we were laughing a lot because it was much running around… I would do it all again in a heartbeat though to enjoy our families’ company and we will very soon. My parents and sister are coming January 8^th, which is in a month! And… the Garmons and Jones are coming back March 11^th!! How exciting – this contract is going a lot faster than we had intended! 

This Christmas we are getting a little bit spoiled because we get to celebrate it 3 times. We already had Christmas with the Garmon’s while they were here – we’ll celebrate with the cast on Christmas day and then with my folks in Jan.

Some of the highlights of our time with the family were ;

-Mexican restaurant in Cozumel, Mexico – sooo loud and very inappropriate staff which made for fun and awkward moments

-Johnny Rockets for lunch after Labadee, Haiti where Granny just could never understand that everything is included for $4.95 except for the milkshakes that are $5 --- sooo funny!

-Granny’s one liners…. wish I could list them….

-Of course opening up Christmas presents! We got some great onesJ

-Quest, a game show that involves people going a little bit crazy

-Love and Marriage game show – absolutely hilarious

-Playing cards

 

  

 

We are extremely blessed to have loving and supporting family who will spend the money and come visit us while we

perform.

Happy Birthday Andrew

Paradise Point in St. Thomas!

 Beautiful Peacock!

 Random Goats ...not sure.

Pirate Ship Fun!

This was another excursion that we went on for free! We had a blast on this pirate ship in Jamaica- here are some photos.

Snorkeling

Last Friday we got to go snorkeling in Cozumel, Mexico for free! We did the 3 Reef Snorkeling by Boat excursion and it was sooo fun! We went snorkeling on our honeymoon in Jamaica but this was so much better! There were fish everywhere! We even got to see a crab the size of a football.
We just found out that as crew - we can go on any excursion for free as long as there is room and afterwards we have to fill out an evaluation! We can't wait to do more activities:)

 This fish obviously wanted to be in our photo! LOVE IT!