1. Evan Gilman Memoir 3/30/11

2. I have the most fun and happiness when I am with people I care about. A good example of that was when I went on a cruise last summer with my extended family. Eighteen of us in total were walking up the ramp to get onto the cruise ship. We were all very excited about the next seven days. Each was going to be filled with adventure, relaxation, and fun. I kept on wondering, and I bet everyone else was too, what was it going to be like inside the ship? I couldn’t wait to find out!

3. We stepped inside the ship, a floor above the wonderful “Royal Promenade”, and the moment we stepped inside I knew this was going to be one of the best weeks of my life. There were tons of nice and comical people who worked on the ship. The Promenade was glassy with many places to sit down. We then split up to check into our rooms with a plan for all of the cousins to meet later near Brandon’s room. There were ten of us kids in all. Two of my cousin’s families were on the 9 th floor and my family and one of my cousin’s family were on the 7 th. Vincent, Dillon, Ethan, and I soon started walking up the stairs to Brandon’s room. Once we all met up we decided to explore. It was amazing; the ship, so much to do, so many floors. One night we were hanging around in the corner of the card room which had a piano. The curfew was 2am, but we thought that there would be nobody looking for kids to send to their rooms, so we were having fun with the piano. Soon a person came with a vest and we were awed that they actually had hired people to patrol the ship for kids after curfew. We then were sent to our rooms to sleep. It was fun while it lasted though. In two days we would dock in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

4. On the 3 rd day of the cruise, my brother and I woke up early to ride the mini boat to the port at Cabo. We were going to spend the day at the famous Lover's Beach and Divorce Beach. The beaches are back-to-back, with Lover's Beach facing the Sea of Cortez and Divorce Beach facing the Pacific Ocean. The only way to get there is by boat, so we took a glass bottom boat. The beaches were surrounded by many strange rock pillars and the waves were very rough. It was a very interesting sight and I knew I was going to have a lot of fun in the waves with my cousins. After we got off the boat (which took a while because of the waves – and the fact that there was no dock, so we had to jump off!), we started exploring the beach. We all soon figured out that when we walked on the dry sand, it painfully burned our feet. Nonetheless, we still decided to run across the sand to Divorce Beach. There were barely any shade spots to give my feet a temporary rest from the agonizing burn, and I thought I wasn't going to make it until my feet finally found the salty water of the Pacific Ocean. The waves here were even bigger, and twice as high as I was tall. I started walking with my cousins up close to the big wave that was forming. It was sucking out all the water so that there was no water for a while. Soon, the wave came over us, harder than we expected. It toppled me over and was sucking me into the sea, but with the taste of salt water in my mouth, my oldest cousin reached out his hand and pulled me out. Even though this happened, it was still very fun, so we continued doing this many times, but now, a little further back. We had a great day at Lover's Beach and Divorce Beach, even though we later found out that a wave overtook my brother, Ethan, and he swallowed a lot of salt water. Luckily, a nice man helped him out and gave him some fresh water, but he has been scared of oceans ever since.

5. The next day we docked in Mazatlan. This time, we didn't have to take a mini boat because we were docked right at the port. That day we were going to have a tour of the city in a van. When we got in the van and started moving, we realized there was no air conditioning, just one tiny fan! We were very hot, fighting over the little fan, and pleading for the next stop to come soon. While we were in the van this was all we did, but then at the end of the tour, we finally made it to a modern, heavily air conditioned furniture store. We all ran in, went to the bathroom, and jumped onto a nice, big sofa with a table, and sat there enjoying the cool air and talking. It may not have been the best tour, but it was still very fun going through of all that with my cousins. We then went to a very nice beach with extra soft, blackish sand. The waves were also pretty decent. After a couple hours or so of having fun in the deep water with the waves, I went in to get some food under the tent, and man they had some good Mexican food! Mazatlan actually turned out to be really fun.

6. Already the 5th day, and we were docked in Puerto Vallarta. I was the most excited for this day, because we were going to go zip lining! It was going to be where the movie Predator was filmed. When we got to the place, they gave us instructions on how to stop and stuff like that. We then got all of our equipment and walked up a mountain to start zip lining. The twelve zip lines provided amazing views, and every time the wind rushed against my face it felt like I was flying! The zip lines were extremely long, high, and exhilarating. The weird part though, was that our faces were all speckled with black liquid. We found out that it must've been oil from the zip line. It was a little rainy too. Still, the zip lining was one of the most fun things I've done in my life. We were then able to hang out in a little, rocky, freshwater pool. The place had a rope swing, and you could climb up the rocks to go slide down a little rock slide. The water was clear and cool and we had a great time there. Puerto Vallarta had to have been the best stop on the Cruise.

7. Over the next two days we had a great time doing everything on the cruise ship. I had the best time with my cousins that week, it may have been the best week of my life. It was tough to say goodbye to the many people I love. Yeah, true happiness always comes from spending time with the people you care about. At least I had something to immediately look forward too. My family had a flight to Kansas City, Missouri for my weeklong baseball tournament against teams from across the nation, the AAA World Series.