Aruba

Our first port of call: Aruba! Statistics: at the dock at 7am, temperature about 80 degrees, no breeze, beautiful turquoise blue water, white sandy beaches......what we called paradise!
We were escorted into port by pilot boats. The pilot boat carries a pilot who takes command of the ship and directs it into the dock. We were awake and on our balcony to watch the transfer of the pilot. Luckily they entered the boat from our side (port side).
Our first look at land....6:30am. The sun was just starting to rise, much later than at home.
The houses and businesses in the area are very colorful. We took this picture from our balcony. It gave us a good perspective of how high above the water we were on the ship.
These birds kept us entertained as we were coming into and out of Aruba. They kept diving towards the water......
getting closer......
splash down! Not sure what they were finding to eat but they entertained us!
Lizards were everywhere and they didn't seem to be too bothered by people. They scurried away when they thought we were too close, but otherwise posed nicely.
One of the many tropical flowers. All of them were colorful; hibiscus were the most prevalent and colorful.

And the winner is........

????who knows????? My dad and sister, Beth, have an on-going competition for the best garden grower of something. This has been going on for years and last year for the very first time, Beth won with her Peter Pepper! (I will leave that one up to your imagination! But it really was a pepper that grew as its name suggests.) I had entered the competition for the first time last year and came in dead last. So I donated my $5 to Beth. Anyway, this year it was decided that we would grow loufah squash. Now this is a squash that does dry to become loufah sponges. Beth started plants for all four of us (Beth's daughter, Amy has joined in again this year) and I got my two plants on Father's Day. Dad has conceded as he has managed to kill off 4 plants and decided this wasn't his year. Because this is a finicky plant, I am documenting my efforts of growing these now....just in case.....and everyone's dies too!!!!
I kept the plants in my kitchen garden window until yesterday and planted them in a pot. They sit on a warm porch in a pot now and measure about 10" long. If they are looking puny, into the house they are going to go!!! For whatever reason, they thrived indoors. Beth kept telling me to put them out (maybe a case of sabotage??????)
Our garden has decided it's going to grow in spite of cool spring and summer weather. I have spaghetti squash setting....hopefully warmer weather this week will help them along.
Actually the garden looks pretty good, considering! I was putting the grass around the plants this evening and discovered a cucumber that was about 4"! We have several very little tomatoes---FINALLY! (Can you tell we are ready for summer weather?)
The butterfly bush is in full bloom and smells wonderful. I'm gone so much of the day, I'm missing the humming birds and butterflies that frequent the bush.
Our latest visitor to the bush is a bird - not sure what kind - we have only seen the nest. We have kept our distance as we are hoping if there are eggs, mama and papa will sit and hatch them. How fun would that be?!
My dad made this awesome bird feeder but last winter did the shingles in. So....I decided a copper roof would be fun to have on it. Greg wrapped the roof in the sheets of copper and we will wait to see how it patina's. It's ready for the onslaught of finches, robins, swallows and other feathered flyers. Ah the wonders of nature!

Day Three: Day at Sea

We sure were enjoying our warm weather. We spent the day on the balcony and by the pool. It was not a hard thing to do!!We sailed by Cuba most of the day. It was a surprise to see how long/big it was and how close it was to the USA.
Our cabin steward kept us entertained with towel animals! He even put more candies in the animals throughout the week. It was fun to come back to the room and see what he created.
We had a complimentary bottle of wine delivered to our room from our travel agent; Robert, our steward, decided the wine glasses needed to be showcased! I could get used to the pampering, I tell you!

Sailing all day.......

The first morning after sailing all night was a surprise. We discovered sunrise is around 7am, not the 5:30am we had experienced in Oregon! I guess that's because we were getting closer to the equator. It was a bit strange to wake up at 6am (no, we didn't sleep in much!) and find it was still quite dark.
The sunrise of our first full day of cruising.....we would cruise for 2 full days before we would reach Aruba.
It was interesting to find out that the Love Boat series was originated on a Princess cruise ship. So here is the signature dessert....you can have every night....and it's called.......drum roll, please....you guessed it.......The Love Boat!
Our first night's dinner was a formal dinner. Tux for Greg and long dress for me!

Sailing Away

Finally, back to blogging about our cruise! The time to sail from Ft. Lauderdale did arrive and we found ourselves appreciating the views and warm weather! The harbor area is just beautiful.
Yes, the water really is this blue! Especially on such clear, sunny days.
Do we look happy?
A final look back at the United States. It would be 14 more days until we would see our country again.

We interrupt these vacations postings for....

Shingles (n.): 1. A thin, oblong piece of material, such as wood or slate, that is overlapped to cover a roof or sides of house or building 2. An extremely painful condition, caused by a reinflamation of the herpes zostra virus (aka chicken pox) that involves inflammation of the sensory nerves.

Sure wish I was dealing with the first definition and not the second! Unfortunately, I hadn't realized what the back pain was from so the medication they can give isn't effective once it's been 72 hours since the initial symptoms.

Oh well....once I can get comfortable sitting at the computer, I will resume our cruise pictorial. Until then.........

Sea Princess

And we are off to the ship! We weren't able to take pictures from the pier - security reasons and so we settled for pictures from the ship.
Our luggage is somewhere in the piles of what was being loaded. It took forklifts and over 4 hours to load the luggage. With 1900 people on board and most likely 2 bags/person, it was a busy place! They delivered our luggage to our room before dinner!
For whatever reason the only picture of our balcony stateroom we took was the door!!! How funny is that! (The bathroom -very tiny - is the door on the right)
On the outside decks.....no swimsuits yet to put on to enjoy that pool!
The big screen TV - we actually sat out under the stars and watched movies at night. They served pizza, cookies, and popcorn!