Jan 21st, 2020 Day 18 of 128

Hello from our day at sea. We safely left Rio de Janeiro yesterday and had a relatively uneventful evening at sea.  A little rocking and rolling but we have become quite accustomed to the movement, as long as it isn’t too rough.  This morning the four of us had a lovely breakfast at the Pinnacle Grill resteraunt before we all went off our separate directions for the day’s activities.  Nana and Valerie went off to a Galley tour and got to see the working of the ship’s kitchens. I really wanted to go, but the release we had to sign stated we did not currently have any illnesses or coughs, so that disqualified me from going. Megan and I went to the project Linus group and I got to turn in my first completed blanket.  It is sweet how they ring a bell and get everyone to look at your competed work as they applause the maker of the blanket.  I believe our blanket count as a group at the end of today was 104 completed blankets to date on board.  I picked up some more yarn and started on my next blanket. Megan is still chugging through and is about 75% done on her first blanket.  After that Megan went off to do school work with Valerie.  I stayed and did a little more crocheting until 1:00pm when they had the first meeting of the Service Club on ship.  All members of any service organization, Lions, Lioness, Rotary, Kiwanis, Eagles, etc. were all invited to attend.  We had an opportunity to introduce ourselves and then started brainstorming on what service project we could do while on board or for a port we will be visiting.  Then I met up with Mom at 2:00pm for our daily educational presentation. Today we learned about the next three ports we would be coming to, Punta del Este, Uruguay, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Montevideo, Uruguay.  It was a great hour-long presentation on the places we are going to be seeing next on our adventure.  At 3:00pm Megan ran off to dance class and Valerie finished her studies for the day. Mom and I had a cocktail party with the Captain at 4:30 pm and we had a chance to get to know some more passengers on the ship.  It amazes me how we still meet someone new every single day.  The blessing is we are also starting to see familiar faces daily as well too.  At 5:30 pm we met with the girls at the main dining room.  They sweetly invite Geoffrey from Club HAL to be our guest at dinner tonight and he joined us for another lovely meal.  Tomorrow he is going to host the four children at dinner in the main dining room and since we have a table that will accommodate six people, we gave up our table to the group.  So, mom and I will have our first opportunity to enjoy one of the specialty resteraunts on board tomorrow evening.  It was a nice surprise and everyone is excited for what tomorrow will bring.  For mom and I it will bring our first massage appointments in the morning and hopefully a relaxing day poolside tomorrow.  We haven’t had much chance for relaxing in the sun and it is time to just lie out and enjoy the beautiful weather we are having.  We’ll be in Antarctica in a week and it will be freezing so time to enjoy it when we can.  It was another really full, but completely fulfilling day.  Sometimes I feel like I hardly saw the girls at all.  But at the end of the day everyone has a smile on their face, a happy heart and love to share.  What more could I wish for?  Sending you love from me to you from across the miles…Debra