Alaskan Cruise?

My husband and I have been on two cruises (before having children;) One was a Caribbean cruise - for our Honeymoon. The second one was a Southern Caribbean cruise while I was 7 months pregnant with Beautiful. We have talked over the past 20 years about going on an Alaskan cruise. Recently I have been prodding my husband along trying to get him to take me. We have Beautiful to watch the kids and we can go a week that the Middles are at camp (we have no family in our state so have never had grandparents/etc to watch kids. We are so grateful for the friends who have kept our kids in the past when the Middles were younger so that us older ones could get away to Mexico (so.incredibly.grateful!) but they are now just too difficult to ask someone to take them for that long - hence us trying to go while the kids are at camp lol!)

He has been reluctant. He wants to wait for the kids to get older in case something happens to them or us while the kids are away. And, lets face it, our kids are a handful! He also argues that our oldest son will be gone to college soon and we should just spend the time with him until he leaves.

I keep arguing that Beautiful is probably going to have her own family soon and then she won't be able to keep track of our "handful" children as well if we left for a week, the kids can only go to camp for a couple more years, and - lets just be real - as difficult as our daughters are right now it will be nothing compared to what they are like from ages 13 - 16 (in my opinion those are some downright insane years for girls). So, I think we need to go sooner.

I think both sides of our argument have valid points. So, today he shocked me when he gave me a proposition.

I have been desperate to lose weight for years and no matter what I do I can't seem to lose it. So, he asked me what my goal weight would be - and then told me that if I reach it we can go. I countered that he has been itching to go on a fishing trip and that if he gets his A1C down to the recommended level (he was diagnosed with diabetes just over 4 years ago) that he could go on the fishing trip.

Then I told him - "It is ON!!"

Of course he will likely win way before I do. In fact, given how hard it has been for me to lose weight there is probably a fishing trip and not a cruise in our future. But I have a new motivation and maybe it will help lol!

Quite honestly, his motivation is probably that he gets to go on a fishing trip with only our 16 year old and will get to leave the rest of us home lol!