Canvas Gifts

Since I tackled my first canvas earlier in the year, I had been itching to do more. On a fall crafting weekend away I played with some more with these results:

This one is for my oldest grand daughter for Christmas.

This one ended up going to a wonderful friend who fell in love with it.

When I came home I did this one for my youngest grand daughter for Christmas. Love the final result, but it sure kicked my butt in the meantime. It went through lots of stages before I was happy with it.

The following are for nieces and my nephew:

This one was for my mom:

One for Cari:

The these two for a couple of special ladies who take care of me all year.

The saying on the last three are a bit hard to read but they all say, "Today I Will Choose Joy." Need to make one for my craft room next. :)

Saturday, Day 9 - San Juan to Home

We had booked a rainforest tour in San Juan which included airport drop off. It started at 8:00. We had to be at our departure area at 7:15. That meant we had to be in Blu for breakfast at 6:30 when they opened. Talk about an early morning. It's gonna be a long day. But my boys are in the playoffs and I get to go home and what that game so at least I have something to look forward to tomorrow. Having said our goodbyes to our people in Blu we got our bags and went to area to wait for disembarking.

Carlos was our driver for the morning. He was full of information about the city, the rainforest and its vegetation, politics, etc. The rainforest was a good 30 minutes away so it was a nice little drive. Our first stop was the welcome center and hike through the forest. It was beautiful. The walk itself was pretty short but Carlos guided us through and informed us about the trees, plants and birds that inhabit it. We heard all kinds of birds but they make themselves scarce and hide from people. Not like those fish yesterday!

Next Carlos took us to the waterfall. It wasn't much to be honest. But that's ok. It was still pretty. There is a much bigger one but the tour didn't allow time to go to that one. I think it's a half hour hike in and back out. This was only a 4 hour tour.

From there we went to a tower overlooking part of the forest. That was beautiful. The rainforest in the foreground and the city and coast in the background. Wow.

We were at the airport around 12:30. By the time we changed clothes (started our in short sleeves and shorts - surely couldn't arrive home that way), checked in and went through security it was around 1:30. And we were hungry! My oatmeal was long gone. There was nothing by our gate so we ended up at Margaritaville by security for some drowning our sorrows and grub. That was interesting. Took us a while to get anything but we had plenty of time so it wasn't crucial ... except we were hungry. Gigi and I got nice salads which were surprisingly good. The Land Sharks weren't too bad either. Ricky cracks us up with his wandering. He's always off somewhere investigating something. It gets quite comical. Eventually we all wandered back to our gate to sit and wait some more. 

We are about to land in Atlanta. The pilot just said its 41 degrees. Ugh. The party is officially over. But man it was a good one. :)

And we thought that was bad enough ... this is what we came home to:

Yeah ... nuff said.

Friday, Day 8 - Śt. Thomas

(Broke my golden rule. I'm journaling this Saturday on the plane. When we got back to our cabin after dinner last night I discovered I had, apparently, accidentally packed my glasses in my suitcase. No glasses, no journaling. So I turned in a bit earlier.)

After breakfast at Blu we went down to the port to find a taxi to the beach. We weren't sure if we would end up at Saffire or Coki Beach. The guy we ran into said the snorkeling was the best at Coki so off we set. It was probably a 20-25 min drive. St. Thomas is the most developed island. It's very Americanized in town. Out by the beach was, however, a different story. I wasn't impressed with island when we were there last year but we didn't see that much of it. I'm sure there's still plenty to see but I wasn't impressed this time either. The area the beach is in was a bit rough looking. And just dirty. The beach was ok. The first thing we noticed was all the snorkelers in the water. The water was beautiful and the snorkeling ended up being really good, especially in comparison to the rest of the week. This beach was a pretty small cove and it got a little crowded but not too bad. We'd probably go there again. 

The water was cool but seemed warmer than at the other beaches. Knowing it was our last day We took full advantage of it and was in the water most of the day. After we took our first dip, we broke out the gear. What was so nice about this site was being able to just walk out and snorkel to our hearts' conten, then come back to shore and rest ... Then do it all over again! We had a ball!!

Would you believe they actually sell dog bones to feed the fish with? FRO. Bob dropped a piece of a granola bar in the sand so I took that out to see if they'd eat it. Sure enough. It was friggin' AWESOME!! Video Here's some more of all the fish:

More fish - with divers

More fish - rocks and coral

We packed up about 2:30 since the taxi would be back to pick us up at 3:00. We were so thrilled we got to use our snorkel gear and see some fish. Today was what we were hoping the rest of the week was going to be like. But at least we got one good day. 

Back in our cabin we got ready to go to the sauna one last time. Believe me, we needed to detox. After the herbal steam room I sat out on the heated stone benches for a while. Good grief! I was a limp dishrag coming out of there. I met Gigi on the way out. She had already sucked a mojito down, enjoyed her turkey burger on her balcony and was enjoying an ice cream cone. LOL. Well hells bells guess I'm having a burger too. 8Ball and Jacques was still steaming it up so she sat with me while I ate my burger. About the time I finished Jacques found us and decided he needed a burger too, so we both sat with him while he ate. 8Ball was still nowhere to be found. They headed off to their cabin and I went looking for him. He was really enjoying his sauna buzz. Then I sat with him while heate his burger. LOL. We just couldn't get our act together this afternoon. 

After we both got our showers and were somewhat presentable, we went down to Blu to pick up the bottle of wine we started last night and had planned to finish in there tonight. After our day beaching and snorkeling in the sun we decided we were going to slum it tonight, especially since we had to pack everything up. Talk about a major buzz killer. Anyway, we got our bottle of wine and enjoyed it on our balcony one last time while watching the sunset.  Or so we thought. We didn't really get a sunset tonight. The ship wasn't facing the right direction heading back to San Juan. 

Sadly, we couldn't put off packing any longer so we just got to it. Our bags had to be outside our door by 11pm. We had to put what we needed for Saturday in a duffle bag. 8Ball remembered to keep shoes out this year. :) (Story from last year: Bob realized getting ready for breakfast the morning of departure that he had packed all of his shoes in his luggage. Yup. All of them. He had to go down to breakfast in his socks. We still laugh our asses off about that. Everyone in the restaurant got the biggest kick out of that. I made a sympathetic move and took my shoes off too just so he wouldn't feel so alone. LOL. Unless we had to walk down the gang plank and it was raining. I drew the line there. After we got our luggage in customs he got a pair of shoes on his feet. True story!)

It took a lot of energy to do all that packing so we went up to Mazy's (Ocean Cafe) for a snack. About half way through our meal we were delighted when Mazy found us. He had been down to Blu looking for us. Said he went down there last night looking for us too but he was a little too late, we had already left. He is such a sweetheart. He didn't have much time to spend chatting but wanted to buy us a round of drinks and give us his contact info so we can keep in touch and hopefully reconnect again when we're back next year. That was priceless. He is a gem. 

After reminiscing about another fabulous cruise together (and we still like each other!) and sharing some laughs we went back to our cabins. Which is when I discovered I didn't have my glasses. So early night for me.

Last night to be rocked to sleep. I'm not ready. Ya know, when we took our first cruise to the Caribbean last year we read about back to back cruises. I just couldn't understand why anyone would want to do that. LOL. Yeah. I get it now. Not ready to leave the sunshine, beautiful beaches, warm breezes, being rocked to sleep, being waited on and pampered. But all good things must come to an end I supposed. Already counting down to January 9, 2016.  

Lights out!

Thursday, day 7 - At Sea

Today was our sea day so we slept in a little, went upstairs to the Ocean Cafe and had breakfast at our leisure. Then we found some chairs in the pool area to plant for a while and veg out. We tried to read but there was so much going on it was difficult even for me. There are kids everywhere on this cruise. That's a first for us. I'd say at least 30% of the passengers are traveling with kids - some really young as in babies in strollers and lots of school age kids too. We've deduced that the school age kids are from different countries and still on holiday. And Celebrity was running a special where kids stayed free in your room. But they are everywhere. Lots more young people on this cruise than last year as well. So the pool area was hopping. 

We grabbed a burger at the burger bar for lunch. Pretty good burger. Gigi and I started with mojitos today. They really hit the spot -  so refreshing. We hung out by the pool until about 2:00 and my bum was hurting from the lounge chair. It was time to relocate. 8Ball and I went upstairs to see if we could find a quiet spot and didn't last long there either. I guess the rocking of the ship had us both nodding off, so we came back down to the room. Not much else going on until dinner. Except watching the sunset. Another beautiful one!

Tonight was formal night, which doesn't mean a whole lot for Blu but we still dressed a little more than normal for dinner. The Riddles were looking sharp!!

Tonight we started with a small lump crab cake followed by a plantain and corn soup and lobster tail for the main course. Hard to beat that! Dessert was a citrus romalaude and was very nice. 

Steve Couette was the comedian doing the show tonight. It was about 8:15 when we left Blu so we decided to head in that direction and get a good seat. He was pretty good. He says he had an act planned but he's so good at improv he really doesn't need one. He fed off of certain people in the audience, included participation and it worked really well for him. I liked him. 

Then we ended up staying for a 10:30 show called The Liars Club (Word of the Day) or something like that. Three of the crew officers were the panel and they were given a word to explain to the audience. The audience then had to decide who was telling the truth. Nathan, Ken (activities director), and Captain Leo. They fed off of each other and seeme to have a pretty good relationship considering one of the panel was the captan of the ship. These are the four words they got:

Oxpecker

Nathan - boom mic

Ken - bird that eats insects and poop off the back of animals

Captain - none of us can remember 

Arachnibutryophobia

Nathan - fear of peanut butter getting stuck to the roof of your mouth

Ken - fear tilling behind a large animal

Captian - fear of brown spiders

Pismire

Nathan - wool that has been soaked in urine

Ken - type of ant, piss ant

Captain - type of goat

Hawshole

Nathan - 

Ken - the bag used to collect semen in artificial insemination for horses

Captain - opening in the super structure of the ship that holds mooring lines

Of course they all had stories to go with their version of the definition. They were quite hilarious. I think we ended up being right about half of the time.

After a long day it was time to head back to the cabin and get ready for bed. We need to be rested to enjoy our last day in port - St. Thomas. This is what Javeir had waiting for us:

Night!!

Wednesday, Day 6 - Grenada

Breakfast in Blu this morning. As always, it was wonderful. Bob and I had the berry blast smoothie to start ... Yummy!! Was so good! I carbed out this morning and had one each of the regular vanilla pancake, the blueberry pancake and the French toast with a side of bacon. Perfection.

We had decided to take a taxi to Grand Anse beach and veg out for the day. Walking through the port we found a water taxi for $4 per person each way, for a 10 minute boat ride. Or that's what the sign said. Sounded like a good deal so we were ushered to the dock where the boat was. Being one of the first to board we figured this was pretty cool ... Until they kept telling us to squeeze in together. Like sardines. For real. We started looking around and found some comfort in the fact that we saw life jackets. Sinking before we even left the dock was seeming like more and more of a possibility. One legged Oscar Was our captain. He was a hoot. It was pretty funny when he was messing with the family next to us and they didn't even recognize it. I was dying. He thought it was funny that I got it and they didn't. About half way through this 10 minute ride Oscar slowed the boat way down to explain how this worked and collect the money. Actually, the ride over to the beach was free ... It was $8 for the return trip. I kid you not. Before he informed us about that we were considering finding a car taxi back to the ship ... I guess not. LOL Needless to say we made it safely and we were thankful to be on solid ground again. We thought we worst was behind us, right? I mean how much worse could the return trip be? Just wait ...

This beach was, by far, the best one of the trip. Oscar told us to ignore the "welcome committee" waiting for us. Which meant all the locals peddling their wares. Good grief. It's like you get attacked as soon as you hit the sand. Believe it or not, being rude doesn't come easily to me. But you really have to be rude for them to leave you alone. Tuck that away. It will come back to haunt me before the day is out. There is competition for everything, from renting beach chairs to buying beer to buying spices and wraps to tubing and hair braiding. I'm sure I've missed something. Bob will probably remind me when he reads this.

Fast forward to beach chairs and umbrellas rented and settling in. Let's see, then Patrina came by wanting to braid our hair - we told her later. Jason came by wanting us to go tubing - we told him later. Another lady wanted to sell us spices - we said not right now. Kellon (pronounced like Kellogg except for the "n" instead of "gg") came by wanting to know if we wanted to order some refreshments - we told him SURE!!!! Like the troopers we are a bucket of Carib was ordered - 6 beers for $15, or $20 with tip. The boy was walking a really long way to bring them to us. Then with beer in hand came a dip in the beautiful turquoise water. It was niiiiiice. Really niiiiiice. The wind finally died down and the water was almost as calm as a pool. Even Gigi joined us to "ice her booboo" LOL. Patrina walked by a couple more times and I continued to put her off (instead of being rude). This went on until we went up to the cafe for lunch. 

Rush slowly. Island time. We had to keep reminding ourselves of that. No one moves fast in these places. Including our waitress. We ordered a seafood wrap and I swear I think they had to go catch the seafood. But all is good. If we hadn't been on a timeline toget back to the ship I don't think any of us would've cared. We made the best of it and the food was good (albeit a bit spicy) so no complaints. Gigi and I went to the "shops" after lunch to see if we could get some local spices. Grenada is known for its spices. We should've known. This shopping area where you could by spices was nothing more than a local flea market with the same stuff you could get at the real stores in port. Which we ended up doing on the way back to the ship, for the same prices. We did get some cool stuff but that comes later ...

While at this "shopping area" (and I use that term lightly) the spices from my seafood wrap kick in and I had to go to the bathroom. Thankfully, there was one right there. As I walked in, a woman was perched right in front of the doorway and informed me it's $1 to use the bathroom. Ricky had told us that but we thought he was kidding ... He wasn't. Whatever. Everyone has to make a living somehow, right? I had a $5 bill. She had change. LOL We left and walked back Tom our chairs without contributing to the local economy. Just saying. 

Like a bloody vulture Patrina descended upon me as soon as my feet were in front of my chair. Sigh. Since I couldn't put her off anymore I said sure. I had never had my hair braided before, why not? LOLOLOLOLOL Well now I know. $20. I contributed to the local economy ok? Gigi laughed and asked if I was going to wear my hair like that for formal night to Blu tomorrow night ... Patrina says it will last 1-2 weeks. Uh huh. In all fairness, she did have a little 2-1/2" round mirror she used to let me have a glimpse. Let's just say things look a little clearer in a regular sized mirror. But we aren't there yet. 

Jason is back for our tube ride. He had a 4 seater tube. Jacques went with us. Gigi held down the fort. It was a friggin blast. You know I hooted and hollered. The guys laughed their asses off. It was great. Short but great. No pics. Had to hold on or I would've gone flying. 

Time for one more dip in this incredible water before packing up and heading back to the ship. We get back to thedock and line up to board the boat. As we were sitting there waiting for the boat to fill up, Gigi notices the mechanical improvised engineering going on under the dash. Wires hanging out everywhere. There was even a water bottle involved. We didn't see any life jackets on this boat either. The jokes were flying. But wait!! There's more!!! The boat finally fills up. Our driver (can't call this dude a captain, I just can't do it) went to start the boat, he plugs these wires together like you would a Christmas tree ... And it starts!!! The best part? LOLOL Two of the three crew start dancing around like they're so surprised they're celebrating!! Well doesn't that give you a warm fuzzy? NOT! Seriously, you can't make this stuff up!! Yet another boat ride ending with prayers of thanksgiving we didn't drown.

Meanwhile, I have been wearing my ball cap since Patrina finished. Just sayin. We went through the shopping area in port and found our spices and went back to the ship. This is my spice loot!!

This is raw unprocessed cocoa. They make tea with it. Will have to let you know how that turns out but it smells heavenly!

This is cinnamon sticks and nutmeg. So cool. 

And my spice basket with all kinds of local goodies. 

As we're walking down the dock, Jacques says, "Y'all want to get any ice cream?" LOL The man does love his ice cream. I haven't mentioned this before because it wasn't really applicable to anything else ... But when boarding the ship, the scan your card and look at the photo they took of you on the first day to make sure there are no imposters attempting to come aboard. I can't lie. I had not seen my head yet but I was hoping they didn't toss me off when they looked at my photo and back at my new head. I'm still here to write about this so obviously they didn't. Thankfully. He did smile a little funny at me though. 

It gets interesting about now. Ice cream is on Deck 10. Our cabins are on Deck 9. We decided to drop off our bags in our cabins before going for our afternoon ice cream. This is when I get my first real look at my new head. Oh dear Lord. No way in hell am I going anywhere with this head. Anywhere! That hat went back on my head faster than Richard Petty crossing the finish line, Derrick Jeeter's fast ball or an RG III fumble. As we were eating our ice cream I told Gigi i had a job for her. We were having an unbraiding party. Immediately. Let's just say it took a while. I washed my hair three times and conditioned it extra long. It still hasn't recovered. But I can check that box off my bucket list. Been there done that! I could go on but I'll just stop there. And THANK GOD there are no pictures!!! It was fugly. 

We chilled on our balcony, finished the bottle of wine we opened last night and watched an incredible sunset.

Then we went to Blu and had some amazing halibut for dinner. What a surprise to be greeted by Gabriel who had come by from the main dining room just to say hi to us and share a magic trick. He is so cute. Not much else going on that we were interested after dinner so we all had an early night. Except me. It's almost 11pm and here I sit journaling. That's ok. It's quiet and I'm enjoying hearing the water lap against the ship. This is the first night we've been able to keep the balcony door open because the winds have been whipping until today. It's very soothing. 

Tomorrow is a sailing day. We sail from Grenada all the way back up north to St. Thomas where we'll dock Friday morning. 

With that said, G'night!

Tuesday, Day 5 - Dominica

Good thing I'm blogging thus because otherwise I would have no clue what day it is. At least I can look back and see what my last post said and can go from there. That's when you know you're in true vacation mode. We're there.

We had plans for an excursion today that started at 9am with snorkeling on Champagne Reef. Weeelllll, this was the view this morning ...

So we went to Plan B. See how flexible we are? We decided we'd enjoy our room service and head down to the port to check out finding a taxi ride to take us to the falls and Emerald Pool and whatever else island tour was available. There are always taxis and drivers wanting your business. We found Barry and we was our most informative tour guide today. But first we started the day out right ... With a local beer. :) 

Our fist stop was the Emerald Pool and waterfall. It was about a 30-40 minute drive but only because the roads are rough and curvy and the speed limit is mostly 30mph. So it's not really that far, but the drive is tedious. And by now we've seen multiple rainbows, more rain and sunshine. Barry told us that rain can happen at any time anywhere but that there are places on the island that can get up to 375" of rain a year. That's a LOT of rain. The people here carry umbrellas everywhere. 

The hike to the waterfall/pool was petty short, but it is beautiful. It took Gigi and I twice as long as it did the guys because we were stopping every few feet to take pictures of the trees with their amazing roots. I have never seen anything like it before. We each took way too many of what probably looks like the same thing over and over but we just couldn't help it! Look! Aren't they gorgeous?

Our first glimpse of the falls/pool ...

The pool itself didn't look to emerald today but was still a beautiful place. I waded in a little bit. The water was a bit chilly as the locals like to say. They don't use the term cold apparently. 

Next Barry took us to another waterfall a short distance away. I forgot to take a picture of the name but I think it was the Salton Falls. Barry went with us on this short hike. Here he was telling us about the fern trees. I have never seen a fern that grows like a tree and gets 20' tall. The rainforest is an amazing place!

On the way to this waterfall, Gigi managed to slip on a leaf and went down hard. She's gonna be feeling that bruise for a while. Poor thing, she was moving slowly the rest of the day, but trooper that she is, she made it back to the van without a single complaint. 

Our next stop was Mr. Nice's fruit stand. He doesn't charge for any of the tastings but asks that if you enjoyed it and can afford it, please leave a donation. He was a trip. And the food? Wow. That's what fruit is supposed to taste like. The bananas on these islands are nothing like we get at home. It's almost like they taste like artificially flavored bananas. The grapefruit was so mild and less acidic than what I'm used to. And the Cocoa beans? Wow. I've never had a real cocoa bean before. Something else I ate that those who know me well will not believe ... I can hardly believe I ate it. Coconut. Real coconut. This was roasted and baked with cinnamon and real cane sugar. He called it coconut candy. It almost looked like a very thin pasta. But this is what we did with it - took a spoonful of the coconut candy and put it on top of the banana and then put a cocoa bean on top of that and took a bite. Unbelievable. I loved it!! Here's a shot of his stand:

Then he did a demonstration of stripping and juicing a real sugar cane. It was fascinating and the juice 
From it tasted nothing like the artificial crap we get at home. 

This was the highlight of the tour for me. Was a great little perk we all loved. Oh yeah! They had this sign posted. How stinkin' cool is that? LMAO!!!

All along the way Barry told us about life on the island and local vegetation. He even stopped at one point and picked a piece of lemongrass for us. The aroma filled the van. Amazing! Poinsettias grow wild here. Check this out. 

And hummingbirds are everywhere. Kind of like rainbows. He said they don't even notice them because they see them so often. This is my lone shot of a Dominican hummingbird. LOL 

Life on this island is really simple and down to basics. Their motto is, "We grow what we eat and we eat what we grow." They are big into herbs and natural healing and the children are taught these things growing up. He said the younger generation tends to try to get away from this though. They like their KFC. So sad. Oh and the healthcare system on the island ... Interesting. From birth to 18 and 65 to death everything is free. From 18-65 you pay for yourself, unless you have insurance. He showed us where their president lives and talked to us about the the political parties and government here. All I all it as a great day spent seeing the island and learning about their culture. I can definitely see the possibility of spending a week here exploring at some point. 

We returned back to the port around 1:30 and went to a little local cafe Barry recommended for a sandwich. We all chose the seasoned cod fish sandwich since it was a local item. The guys got another Kabuli and us gals decided on a shandy for something different. Both sandwich and drink hit the spot and was delightful!! While we were sitting there a guy approached us to peddle his CDs. Here we go again. He said they were recorded in Bob Marley's studio. Uh huh. Well, the owners of the cafe knew this dude and shooed him away. Then told us he's trying to sell blank CDs. For real! You can't make this stuff up!

We returned to the ship for some chill time. Got a scoop of ice cream on the way to our cabin and just relaxed the rest of the afternoon. I finally uploaded photos from the week to my iPad and started going through them. Bob and I did make it to the sauna though. Hope we're sweating out all this alcohol!! LOL After my shower I continued sifting though photos until time for dinner. I had just thrown on a sundress after my shower and let my hair dry naturally. I had planned to do something with it before dinner but then we all talked ourselves into slumming it and going upstairs to the Ocean Cafe for dinner instead of having to get dressed up to go to Blu. Before we left for dinner I looked outside and the most beautiful rainbow was there. It was so vivid!! How beautiful is that?

We had already seen the menu for tonight and none of us were crazy about it. It didn't take much to convince ourselves. 

We had been told Mazy took over the cafe and had noticed the food looked way better up there than it did last year. We hadn't been able to see Mazy yet but figured we would on Thursday since it's sailing day and we'll be on the ship all day.  Lo and behold I was walking past a drink station with two trays in my hand (mine and Bob's) and looked over and there was Mazy. We had been told he only worked breakfast and lunch, that we wouldn't see him for dinner. But there he was!! I got so excited and hugged him and the poor man didn't recognize me. LOL that's how gracious and awesome the man is. When I told him my name and that we were with the Riddles in Blu last year it started coming together for him. I took him over to where they were sitting and we had the most wonderful conversation with him. He sure remembered the missing shoes story. LOL. He's like an old friend. He bought us a round of drinks and hung around to visit as long as he could. But the man has a lot going on and he's very busy. We'll see him again I'm sure. He would do anything in his power for us. He's in charge of all the food now!

Ok. Pacing myself now. Tired. But almost done. I was the lone person in our group interested in seeing the show tonight. Everyone else was done and last night was so bad. That's fine. I went by myself. The was a full house. I found a chair on the end I the back at the bar. I had a glass of water I tried to set on the bar, not realizing there were some raised sections and some recessed sections. My water glass tipped over and pour out on the couple sitting directly in front of me. They got pissed. I fled. Tried to find someone I could get a towel from but was coming up empty handed to just kept fleeing. 

Either way I was done and came back to the room to work my journaling. So nighty night..