Jon and Donna Beitel

We will have celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary the day before this cruise begins. Happily, we are doing a back-to-back that begins on February 3rd, so will be able to note the day while onboard. We are the parents of 3 and grandparents of 8. We’ve lived in the same house in Oswego, Illinois since 1971 and hope to die here so we don’t have to clean out the attic. Sounds like a good job for the kids!

We are both retired, and loving every minute of it. Jon worked as a scientist at Argonne National Laboratory and I worked at various places as a secretary/bookkeeper. Retirement is so much fun we often wonder when we had time to work. Our days are now spent shoveling snow, weeding flowerbeds, and planning our next cruise.

We discovered cruising in 2004, but stuck to land for 3 years after that first cruise. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it again. Then in 2007 we tried Holland America - and were immediately hooked. The line is a good fit for us and we just can’t seem to get enough of it. We will receive our 100 day medallions on this cruise. One of our goals is to sail on each of the HAL ships, and we’ve been working at that by cruising 2 or 3 times each year. We’ve learned to prefer the longer cruises now though, and that will cut down on the number of cruises - but not the days.

The furbaby in our photo here is Ruby, our 2-1/2 year old Havana Silk Dog. She keeps life interesting and we’re nuts about her. She usually stays with our youngest daughter when we travel. Her "cousins" there are 3 big Labs and 2 sweet kittens. Ruby is the boss of things over there, and really lets those Labs know who’s in charge. Funny stuff!