Happy Birthday Mom

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Laura Visit

After graduation I got to Laura's by 4.  We talked about going kayaking at the new location in Waltham so eventually we made our way down there.  We drove, got there just after 6 which was good because I forgot to bring my quarters but the parking was free after 6.  We walked along Moody St and stopped in to Paint n Pour where they were going to do animal pictures that night.  I looked them up the next day and they came out really good, look here.  The painters had emailed a picture of their pet and the staff copied them onto canvas using a projector.  I'll need to get one of those for when I start painting, after I write my memoir :)

We walked up and down the walkway by the river and then decided to eat at Margarita's.  There were 11 ahead of us for sitting outside so we decided we didn't want to wait.  Instead we sat outside deciding on where to go to eat and then decided to eat there anyway.  Now there were only 9 ahead of us.  We waited an hour.  Well worth it.  It was a beautiful warm night.  The last one before 3 days of gray and rain.  It looks like we were in 2 different climates.  I have a jacket on and Laura is sleeveless but she put a sweater on shortly after because the sun was going down and it was getting cooler.

On Sunday Laura did an early morning oil change, then we went to the gym.  Yoga for me and Zumba for Laura.  I talked to Penny after class about her hip surgery.  Poor girl has to do it again.  She's going to a new doctor this time who does the Anterior technique - doesn't cut through muscle.  We went to Marshall's after that and I found a great top for $7.50, Laura got a tray for her earrings.  The main reason to go to that area was to go to Market Basket where I stocked up on Schweppes Diet Tonic.  We bought a bunch of other stuff for our meals for the rest of my visit.  That night we had turkey burget salad.  Once home I revealed my Williamsburg nightmare to Laura.
Laura did work that night and I organized my scanned pictures on my new laptop.

On Monday we went to Wrentham Village Premium Outlets and scooped up lots of good deals.  Laura got the pants and skirts and I got the tops.  Chicken quesadillas for dinner and baked tomatoes with the tomatoes I brought from home.

When I first arrived, Laura greeted me with this can of Coke that she happened to get - perfect timing.  I'm taking it home with me.

I brought her cuttings of her plant that she brought home from college after her freshman year.  Don't know if it will grow or if she'll have it the next time I'm here.

 I cut back the rest of the plant and this is what I have at home.  It reached the ceiling before I trimmed it.

Now I'm off to Greta's.

Fix for iPhone messaging crash bug - 13WHAM ABC Rochester NY - Top Stories

Fix for iPhone messaging crash bug - 13WHAM ABC Rochester NY - Top Stories

Port St Lucie

We were finally back from all our cruising and were going to spend 2 weeks in one location, finally!!
The first week we were there, at the Sheraton PGA Vacation Resort it was really hot - in the 90s.  The second week was more like the 70s.  Something in between would have been nice.

We had to change villas after a few days because we had a number of problems.  One was that there was a gap under the door and bugs kept wandering in and the other was that the air conditioner had some kind of problem that made the rug in the dining room soaked.   Before the air conditioner soaked the rug this disgusting lizardy thing came in the door.  The guy at the resort said it was a skink.  Unfortunately I couldn't get a good picture of it.

We went to our favorite restaurant in the area, Shucker's on Hutchinson Island, twice and got our favorite fish tacos.

We stopped at BJ's on our way back one time and found this hummus which has become our favorite, especially with Kettle Popcorners.

Larry played golf a couple of times, my cousin Michael came to visit (what no pics???) and we did a lot of walking.
We took a hike at the Oxbow Eco-Center.  They need to put a sign up that says "watch out for floods after heavy rain."  We had to walk around a lot of mini lakes along the path and in one spot we had to turn around completely and find another way out.  This was one we were able to walk around.

 We went back to Shuckers and had the exact same meal as always.  YUM!!!

 On Saturday we went to the Ft Pierce Farmers' Market.  Next time we're going to go hungry because there were so many delicious cooked foods being sold.

 I was going to have Larry take a picture of me with my arm wrapped through the statue of this woman

 until I read the plaque - then it was too sad.

 And some nice person took our picture.

More travels - April 17-22

We stopped in Delray at Doris and Michael's after our cruise to do laundry and spend the night before our short cruise to the Bahamas leaving from the Port of Palm Beach.  By coincidence they were going to be spending the weekend in Florida so we got to see them too!

We went to lunch at a great hamburger place, BURGERFI,

that wasn't there the last time we were.    Delicious!

We had dinner with Mary, Alan and Peter (who brought the yummy take-out Italian) and the next morning we went out for breakfast before leaving for the next port.

We were on the Grand Celebration to the Bahamas.  It used to be a Carnival ship but when the old ship this company used ran aground they bought this one,

I practically lived in this dress/cover-up, it was multipurpose for our cruises.

the worst part about this trip was that there was so much hanging around time.  When we got to the resort around 10 we had to wait until 3 to check in.  When we checked out at 10 we had to wait until 2:30 for our bus back to the port.  Larry entered a dart contest that a woman won.  We both entered the bocce tournament.  We didn't win but we became friendly with the couple that did and when they were leaving they gave us the bottle of rum they won because they were flying back to Florida.

It was our anniversary the night we sailed back and we

got to have a table by ourselves and got this special cake.

Western Caribbean Cruise - April 6-17

Our cruise started in Ft. Lauderdale

We had an aft cabin

Looking out through our cabin 

We met our next door neighbor Rick the first night and spent many nights

together on the deck of his suite enjoying the sunset with a glass of wine.

Larry winds up on stage on all our cruises.

We loved the glass blowing shows.  We live so close to

Corning and have never been there but now we really want to go.

We went to a complimentary wine tasting on our first sea day

On the days we didn't do tours, we walked did two miles around the deck.  That was 16 times around. Every trip back and forth to our cabin from the stairs (or elevator) was 1/8 of a mile so my fitbit really racked up the steps.  I usually always did the stairs when I wasn't with Larry.  His knees didn't like the stairs but my hip didn't mind.

Our first port was George Town, Grand Cayman.  We enjoyed staying on the ship that day with so many people gone.

On April 10 we did a city tour in Cartagena, Columbia.  This statue of a woman was given to Cartagena by Fernando Botero, a famous Colombian artist. It is made of bronze and everyone wanted to get their picture taken with it.  Larry made me do it.

We bought Columbian coffee from people hawking it on the street and it wasn't until we were in Florida almost a month later that we got to test it.  I still like Starbucks.

The most amazing thing we saw was this ring around the moon.  By chance I happened to look at the sky, don't know why, but was so surprised to see this.  It wasn't until I had an internet connection that I could find out what it was.  It looked like a rainbow ring around the sun.  It is actually called a "halo" and can be seen around the sun or moon.  They occur when high thin clouds are drifting 20,000 feet or more above our heads and they contain millions of tiny ice crystals.  The halos are caused by refracting and reflecting of light.  The crystals have to be oriented and positioned just so with respect to your eye, in order for the halo to appear and depending on where you are standing will determine what you see.

This is only one of the pictures we took but it is the only one we were able to capture the entire halo

Coming and going to the ship we walked through an area filled with all kinds of birds and other creatures.

On April 11th we were in Panama but since we're doing a Panama Canal cruise in October we decided to stay on the ship.  The next day we were in Puerto Limon, Costa Rico and did a Greenway Tour which included a hike in the rainforest and a river boat ride.

 Below is a poisonous strawberry frog.

 I don't think this guy was poisonous, one of the few things that wasn't.

This is called a walking Palm Tree because it's roots are above ground and it is said to move and follow the sun.  So just now I was looking up information about the tree and saw that it is a myth that tour guides like to tell tourists.  Well, I was taken in.

This millipede wasn't poisonous but it was big and fat. 

 This is a handful of termites.  If you're ever stranded in the

rainforest without any food, this is a good source of protein.

Here we have the poisonous green and black frog.  All these creatures were

so tiny.  It was amazing how our tour guide was able to find them for us.

This is either a two-toed or three-toed sloth.   I don't remember which we saw first.  We were riding along the highway and stopped so we could get pictures.   An interesting fact in case you run into a sloth and can see it's face, the three-toed sloth looks like it's smiling.

 We're on the river here when we saw the rest of these.

 Here's the other sloth, in a tree along the river.

 All of these boats were seized from Columbian drug dealers.

Columbians say the cartel is now in Mexico

Our final tour was in Belize where we did cave tubing.  We couldn't

resist having all the guys stand under this sign and take their picture.

 Here we are in our tubing outfits.

18 tubes were tied together and our 3 guides had to push/pull us through the cave. 

"Butts up," was a frequent call since the water would be really shallow in spots.