I am, apparently, a big fat liar

Think back to last fall when I was proclaiming that our family absolutely, positively would not be going on any more cruises for at least the next thirty or so years. There are lots of good reasons for holding to that position: it's expensive, a cruise isn't the best way to truly experience a place, it gives our children a false expectation of what sort of lifestyle they can expect when they're adults, it promotes unhealthy eating (and plenty of it), and so forth.

Ummmm, well . . . . The kids and I are going on a cruise in April. After you stop laughing at me, you can read the rest of this post to understand my rationale.

The first reason is my current obsession with visiting Egypt. I was obsessed with Norway for a while, and I got that out of my system with my really enjoyable trip there this past summer. As I'd mentioned before, we were looking at taking a trip around Egypt in February or April, but that's more than I'm willing to take on as a single parent. This cruise will be my only shot this year.

Also, Egypt is a bit too unsettled for my taste right now. There is increasing unhappiness with Mubarak's government, and there are tensions between Christians and Muslims. (As I'm writing this posting, I just heard that a suicide bomber killed at least 30 people at the international arrivals area of Moscow's main airport. The world is a difficult place.) A heavily-controlled, one-day tour of some pyramids and some sphinxes seems more manageable with the kids than a week and a half of roaming the Egyptian desert. (Not as satisfying ultimately, but more stable and less stressful.) I know that the day will seem like a cattle call with a bunch of us overweight Americans piling onto tour buses, taking pictures, and buying tacky souvenirs, but that's as much of Egypt as I'm going to get this year. It's better than nothing. But, for the record, I don't plan on this being my last visit to Egypt. We'll go back one of these days, whether in the next couple of years or somewhere further down the line.

The second reason is that by April, I'm sure I'll be ready to give my life savings to someone who will offer to watch my kids in a controlled, safe environment for a week and a half anyway, so I might as well be on a cruise ship en route to Egypt, right? Of all the trips we've taken, the kids talk most about the cruises. This will be on the same cruise line we've used for our other cruises, and they have a really good children's program. Lindsey could spend all day in the kid's club and be perfectly happy. That's worth something. Tanner loves to roam the ship, hang out by the pool, and be a little more independent. A week and a half of not really having to worry about the kids, knowing that they're confined to the ship and that they've got plenty to do, sounds pretty appealing.

(Short side note: On our last cruise one morning, Tanner wanted to go to breakfast before the rest of us were ready. He headed to the dining room without us, asked to be seated, ended up at a table of adults he'd never met, and had a great time talking with them. After the rest of us had worked our way to the dining room for breakfast and were sitting a few tables away from Tanner, one of the adults at Tanner's table stopped by to tell us how impressed she was with our twelve-year-old son, who wasn't at all afraid to sit down with a table full of strangers and carry on a conversation with them.)

Third, this plan is flexible enough to include Stace or not, depending on how she's doing at that point. My assumption is that she'll still be in Utah working on getting better, but if she wants to join us on the cruise, she can.

So, there you have it. We're going on another cruise. But this one is absolutely, positively the last one for thirty years or so. You can take that to the bank.