Matt reads a book!

As we leave Brazil and head towards Africa-Matt and I are enjoying many new experiences.
*We have now been on a boat longer than any other time
*We are now enjoying our longest continual time at sea
*This is the furthest we have ever been away from land (on a boat-not in the air)
*This is the smallest apartment we have ever lived in (300sqft)
*Boat fabrication from trash
*Matt is reading a book NOT a tractor manual!


Since we are at sea-today’s blog will be about life on board Oceania Insignia-room 8019.
Believe it or not this story started 2.5 years ago-when the Andrew family decided to sell the ranch and move on to new experiences. Some how I talked Matt into moving to Colorado and making reservations for this cruise. At the same time, I was shocked! Ok I admit I was super excited.
Once Oceania gave us our room assignment-the planning began. How do I pack for 6 months into a room the size of my bathroom? Like anyone in the year 2016-I went straight to Pinterest to gather ideas. I designated one room as the staging area and began gathering supplies. Years of summer harvests have taught me the importance of staging areas. Shoes hangers, space saving closet hangers, lotion, toothpaste, ect...all laid out across the floor while I counted to be sure there was enough.
I talked with my doctor-and made our plan for the needed medications and extra immunizations. I take some daily meds and we both needed: Hep A, and Hep B, (Before I go on I’ll stop here to tell you both Hepatitis immunizations require a series of 3 shots given 3 months apart!) Typhoid fever, Malaria, Japanes encephalitise, and Yellow Fever. It took 9 months to gather the extra medications, and finish the required immunizations and now we are sure to be immortal!
When the day came to ship our luggage (What a great idea! We didn’t have to lug everything across the U.S!) We had 11 suitcases. 2 bags with scuba gear, 2 with bathroom supplies, 2 with clothes, 1 with shoes hats and other crap, 1 with craft stuff, 2 bags of camera gear, and 1 bag with other stuff (Truth: don’t remember what was in there.) Packing hint: use duffel bags-they fold flat and fit under the bed. Everything arrived to the ship on time and now it was time to see if my planning was right. All the planning paid off-the space saving ideas help a lot, and our room is just the right size.
Fast forward 3 weeks to today-Matt and I have made friends with a family on board that brought their 10 year old son as part of a home school program. (Isn’t that a great idea!) Jackson (The child) and Matt have entered a boat building competition. The rules are simple: 1-must be made of discarded items from the ship 2-must float 3-must hold 6 cans of soda. I’m not sure who is more excited for this project Jackson who has never built anything before, or Matt who LOVES to build things. The final competition is Feb 6th and high noon at the pool-so more to come on this.
Matt is reading book number 2-this is a huge change for him. It was not required school reading, or a new tractor manual, just a book from the ship library. From his nonstop reading it seems to be a good choice. I bounce around from pilot manuals (my favorite ‘light’ reading...) camera magazines, and brainless fairy tale books. Not sure how people made this voyage before kindles, but I LOVE mine.
Sunday will be an awesome day besides being my birthday we land in Africa. It is a lifetime dream of mine to see this continent and now we are spending a full month exploring! The ports are: Togo, Benin, Sao Tome, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, with a final stop in Mombasa. I took over plans for this area-sorry Matt-we are doing a few safaris, but I made sure to leave a lot of time to get to the local areas and meet the people.
Overall life on board is great-other than eating so much I doubt my pants will ever fit again.