Fancy furniture

Every morning it's the same thing. Wake up, take a shower, eat breakfast, brush teeth,... any other casual morning routine. Pretty much the same old thing repeating over and over again. Actually, now that I think about it, that's how my life has basically been. Repeating the same actions and events over and over. How boring.

Little did I know, that was all about to change...

Thanks to my wonderful father, my family finally had a chance to experience life on the seven seas. Trust me, life became more exciting on an extremely large ship. With so many decks and places to go, the event certainly didn't leave you with nothing to do. Suddenly, I wasn't so concerned with the cell phone locked up in the safe in our room. Although, being stuck on a large ship in the middle of the ocean left me with a feeling of being trapped. I was thankful when our ship docked at Disney's own privet island: Castaway Cay.

I woke up that morning to the bright sun streaming through our porthole. Now, if you're thinking of the tiny little portholes that are in the movie Titanic, you're imagining them wrong. These portholes were huge! My little sister, Katrina, could stand inside one with her arms spread to her sides and she's taller than I am! (Only by an inch or two, mind you) Outside the glass, it was a perfect day and I fully planned on taking advantage of the sunshine that was already warming the water below us.
After a warm shower in an overly clean bathroom, I walked over to the fancy, floral couch sitting against the wall near the port hole in our water-closet of a room. It doesn't matter how big the porthole was, the room was still smaller then a walk in closet. No, we don't get a Veranda. We're not special enough for one, I guess.

I sat down on the couch and glanced at what my sister was watching on the television. Trina - her nickname - was sitting in a matching floral chair that was just as fancy as the couch. She was starring at the television (flat screen television) totally zoning out the rest of the world. Glancing to the clock, I noted the time. It was only 8:33a.m., they wouldn't be letting any guests out of the ship until ten. That left me with an hour and a half to kill.

Getting up, I riffled through my suitcase, looking for my sketchbook and pencils. I had this really strange dream last night and I wanted it out of my head. Pulling out the brown book, I settled into the seat of the porthole. Satisfied, I began my work.

Yes, instead of sketching I should have been getting dressed for the day, but I didn't see the point. At least, not until Kaity came over to our room.

Out of all of the people I chose to invite on this cruise, Kaity's family was the only one to accept. It was a huge surprise! I had actually been pretty sure that they would turn it down, but it seemed that destiny had other plans

Kaity and I met about five or six years ago at a Girl Scout summer camp. It had been a canoeing program and we were paired with one another on the second to last day of the camp. We became instant friends. Bonding over an interest we didn't know that we shared: Kingdom Hearts.

After that week, we kept in contact. Talking through email and Instant message. Sometimes we wouldn't speak for months, but once we began a conversation, we spoke like we never quit talking. And once a year we would plan a day to meet and hang out. Usually this day would be in late January or early February. You see, our birthdays are in the same week of the same month, so we see that as a golden opportunity to plan a way to celebrate our birthdays together. And even though we both were born in the same month, I'm a year older then Kaity.

So I guess you could say that this cruise is that one time of the year we would spend with each other, seeing that it is January. Although I wouldn't be turning seventeen until next week.

Oblivious to the time passing by, I continued my sketch, watching with wonder as it began to form. I didn't even know what I was drawing. There were so many different objects in the picture that it just didn't make any sense. I added splash's of red and shades of blue until it kind of looked like a stained glass image of a garden of rose's with an old-fashioned train on a railroad in the background. It was really... interesting to say the least.

I didn't look up immediately when a knock echoed off the door. My mom, sitting only feet away from the entrance, set down her book and went to open the heavy door. My dad was working now, so it was just the three of us in the room. I looked up from my drawing to see a short, blonde haired girl making her way over to me.

"Kai!" I called jumping to my feet. Kaity smiled and we gave each other a hug.

"Hey, Nami," she greeted, pulling away. Yeah, we're really big Kingdom Hearts fans. We even named ourselves after two of the main characters: Kairi and Namine.

Kairi is the main heroine of the story. Although she is tall and has red hair in the game, she is spunky, social, a speaker of the mind, and fights for what she loves. In appearance, Namine is practically the twin of Kairi with the exception of her blonde colored hair. I don't look a thing like her, but I share her personality; Being shy, a rebel, following her heart, and doing what she knows is right. Our personalities are so close to the characters that we could probably be the real life copy of them if we wanted to.

The only difference between us and the characters of the game was our hair color. Kaity has blonde hair and I had a shade of copper brown closer to Kairi's hair color. But she's still Kairi and I'm still Namine. You're probably thinking that looks should decide what characters we are, but how we look doesn't matter. We base our characters on our personalities.

Not to mention that in addition to Kaity's blonde hair, her height was shorter then Kairi's by a few inches. I wasn't as tall as most, but I stopped at an average 5'4".
Forgetting about my drawing, we both sat back on the couch and watched the Disney Channel stars strut around the screen.

"It's almost ten, do you want to go down to the island?" Kaity asked after glancing to the clock.

"That's a great idea." I smiled. I looked over to my mom.

"Mom?" I called. My mom looked up at me. "Hey, can I go down to the island today with Kaity?"

"That's fine," she said, "but you have to take your sister with you."

I groaned and slumped down the back of the couch. Great, now I have to baby-sit her.

Kaity shrugged next to me, "That's fine, 'cause I have to bring Natalie if I go." Natalie was her younger sister.

"Alright, then how about we meet at the elevators in, maybe, ten or fifteen minutes?" I suggested as they announced that people could start getting off the ship over the intercom system.

"Alright. See you in ten minutes!" She called as she ran out of the room.

"Okie dokie," I sighed. Standing up once again, I went over to our suit case's that held our bathing suits and pulled out both mine and my sisters. Now all I had to do was get my sister to get ready to leave.

Katrina was still staring at the television. I threw her bathing suit at her.

"Hey," I said as she held up her suit. "I'm going to the island with Kaity and her sister, but mom said that I could only go if I brought you with us. So go get ready!"

She groaned and slouched into the bathroom to change. I walked after her to go get ready myself.