Home Stretch!

The banyan Tree in Lahiana
Yesterday in Maui

Aloha everyone!

Week 19 out of 20! Almost home. I know, we said we would post pictures and we haven't gotten around to it yet. No excuse really, busy yes, but everyone is right??? Where to start.....so much has happened.
Our first day on the Pride of America there was a mandatory meeting with Colin Vich, the CEO of the company. He announced that the Pride of Aloha would be going international in May leaving just one NCLA ship in the Hawaiian Islands. There would be a list published based on seniority of those employees that would continue with the company and all the rest would get a two month severance pay. Matt and I were very excited as we had been looking at other jobs and weren't sure we wanted to continue here. We were ready to take our two months and run to Europe for a couple of weeks and then work in Alaska at one of the resorts. As with any offer of free money, this to turned out too good to be true. :-( Last week NCLA posted a new list and just about everyone is on it including us! (darn those good employee evaluations!) No severance pay for us! Smart move on the company's part however. Oh well......we are still not coming back. Matt and I do not want to spend another 5 months saying goodnight in the hallway. :-p We have applied at Yellowstone, several Alaska resorts, turned down two jobs with two different cruise companies and are in the running for a resort in Wyoming. We will know by the end of this week on that one. Some of you might be getting a call for references. Thank you in advance. The resort is in the middle of no where on a ranch. It is beautiful. Matt has wanted to be a rancher since he was a little boy. I'm hoping a year with the cows will satisfy him of that desire but who knows, I might be sealing my fate as a permanent country girl. (no Rocky, you do not have to worry about me getting up at the crack of dawn to milk the cows, I'll be serving a very nice dinner to the guests)
So that is our biggest news. Whatever we do, we plan on starting in May, that will give us a little longer vacation. We still have a year or so of wondering left before we settle back down in Salem. Hawaii has been so beautiful these past weeks. Hardly any rain. It was hard for me to come inside to do this as the beach was beckoning. It would be very easy to come live here, very easy.
So, we look forward to seeing all of you soon. We will be in Canada to get our snow-fix in March 22-29. Other then that we will be bouncing in between Seattle and Salem.