Dan's Lifetime Sales Confrence

I've been back for a few days now and I'm finally getting a chance to sit down and blog. Our cruise was so much fun. The company Dan works for always does a sale's conference every year. In the past it's been in Zion's, Midway, and other places around Utah. This year the company's travel agent found a great deal on a cruise, so they arranged the conference on the cruise. I was lucky enough to be able to go with Dan. We paid my fare of course but it was really reasonable. Dan's Mom, his sister Wendy, his sister in-law AnnieLaurie, and his Mom's close friend Bev Nye (all are wife's of lifetime employee's) who along with their husbands were able to go as well. Cruise's are truly a worry free vacation. I enjoyed not having to worry about "what are we going to do for dinner tonight" on the back of my mind. I also love getting room service. I felt so pampered when when I didn't have to make make my bed in the morning. So here's the summary of our trip. Last Monday we flew into LAX airport and then took a bus to the cruise port. We had lunch on the boat first thing because I was hungry after our flight. That was probably the last time I was really hungry the rest of the trip! The rest of the day was filled with meeting's and napping in our cabin. I can't tell you how nice it was to lay down and nap with out worrying about what time Benjamin should be waking up. When your entire world revolves around your kid's schedule it's amazing to feel totally free to sleep in as long as you want. Tuesday was our first port. We headed off the boat to explore Catalina Island. I was expecting a mini Sandiego after all Catalina is part of California. I was really surprised at how tiny this Island was. We're talking really tiny, you could bike the whole town in just a couple of hours. There's hardly any cars on the Island. Everyone rides golf carts around. It seemed like a total tourist town, it was quaint. Also an interesting fact about Catalina is that that weather there is more mild than the rest of California. Because it's an island it's always ten degrees warmer in the winter, and ten degrees cooler in the summer. That sounded pretty nice to me. We rented mountain bikes, it was really fun. The island is very hilly, so it was slow going for a good part of the ride. It was worth the view though. You can see in this picture we got a great shot of the cruise ship from the top of the mountain we biked up. We also did a little bit of shopping and then headed back to the boat. Once we were back on the boat we had time to relax in the hot tub, and lay out for a little while. That night was the formal night of the cruise. I had picked up a new top for Mother's day that I wore with some black pants. We got our picture taken by a photographer and yes that is a fake sunset backdrop, but I think the picture turned out really cute.

In the evening it was time for more meetings. The next day we went to Ensenada. We did a Kayaking and snorkeling excursion with many of Dan's coworkers and also Dan's parents went as well. Can you tell were in Mexico from the looks of our tour bus?

We drove for probably close to an hour before we made it to the the beach were we were kayaking. It was a beautiful cove, the beach was a bit rocky but it was still really nice. First we Kayaked. I had never been kayaking in the ocean before. Lifetime has partnered with a kayak company Dan recruited called Dragonfly. Lifetime actually liked the product so well they recently bought them out. They arranged to ship two of the lifetime kayak's out to Ensenada so we could try them on this excursion. I was lucky enough to end up with one of the two lifetime kayaks. The Lifetime kayaks are much more stable than other kayak's on the market. I never even came close to tipping. Dan however wasn't as fortunate. He was in different brand and it tipped over into the sixty degree water. We saw several seals while we were kayaking. I wish I had taken my camera, it would have been a great photo opportunity. The seals would just pop their heads up out of the water and look right at you. It made me wonder what other types of sea life were beneath us. It was really neat to see the new product. Dan was one of the main guys working on this kyack buy out. It seemed like he was working constantly on this deal for the past year, so it was neat to see the results of all of his hard work. After our kayaking Dan suited up to go snorkeling. Since the water was so cold he had to were a wet suit. I didn't think that snorkeling in freezing cold water crowded with kelp seemed worth it to me, so I opted out and just sat on the beach. Dan snorkeled clear up until the end of the excursion. Then we piled back into the truck and made our way back to the ship. We barely had enough time to hit a few souvenir shops right outside of the ship. We picked up some things for the kids. We bought Kate a Mexican doll, Kirk got a wooden snake, and Benjamin got some maracas. That night we were pretty tired so we just watched a movie in our cabin. Thursday was a sea day. Dan had a lot of meetings that day, and I didn't want to just sit around by myself on the boat so I went with him to those. It was a lot, but I was interested to learn about the company. I feel like it was really beneficial for me to know what Dan's company is all about, and it helped me to realize how complicated the whole business was. It's amazing how smoothly the whole process runs considering how many different variables that play into the manufacturing process. That night after dinner we went and watched karaoke. Annie Laurie has a great voice and we were able to see her sing. Then I dragged Dan to a show. He was really hesitant to go to it, he hates to see costumes. I promised if it was edgy we'd leave. Much to our surprise it was a really classy show. Then we headed to bed to enjoy our last night sleep on the boat. Friday we headed home from California. This cruise seemed perfect. It was just a short plane ride from home, and only five days long. By the time we started to miss the kids it was almost time to go home. I think it's time that I stop blogging and be off to bed. I'm going to be tired tomorrow.