Ponta Delgada, Portugal- Le Havre, France- Rotterdam. The Netherlands

Wed. Hey after seven days a sea we are on land.  Ponta Delgada which is a small island part of Portugal.  It was great to get off the ship.  After breakfast we got on a shuttle bus and got left off at the end of the pier. We walked around an old Fort which the army still uses today and saw some taxies. We had one of them take us around the city.  As you can see in the pictures below.  There are many churches and cathedrals.  The town people felt that if they had places to pray they would not have as many earth quakes.  We went past some beaches, gardens, and cemeteries. He took us to an old village and across town to the newer part of town. They raise cattle and corn. There is still growth put a lot of folks have left for Canada and the USA. The driver was very informative and stopped every time we wanted to take a picture.  We all had a wonderful visit at Ponta Delgada.

 Thur. The seas have been calm and the weather warm. This is the day mom went to be with the Lord three years ago. The top pictures are the pictures of dad giving mom a rose. The next row rainbow, one of the ice carvings, dad and Linda on our balconies, a salmon they served for lunch.  Bottom pictures we had another formal night the one on the right is dad’s second dinner of lobster.  

Fri. They had a Filipino Fiesta Food Festival. Many of the staff helped. They had food from there country, did many native dances both old and new, sang songs, and showed us there customs.  The rest of the day we just enjoyed being at sea and relaxing.

Sat. We sailed all night and went to Cork (Cobh) Ireland. Port was far inland and land was very green. Picture below is us coming into port. There were a few massive churches and many homes along the way. They commemorated many things. The mother and two children is a statue here and in New York her looking toward Cork, a ship going in between two bridge pilings, a painted wall for Titanic 100 years ago (which was its last dock), and a statue of a saint guarding the harbor. We saw a unicycle between the boat and the train station. The boat docked on an island with one bridge on and off.

We took a bus to Blarney Castle which has Blarney Stone (if kissed gives you power of eloquence). Built in 1446 it was the strongest castle in Ireland. Picture below top dad and I standing in front of the castle and the castle. Second row where the Blarney stone is from the outside. Bottom right two pictures Linda and I after climbing 100 very narrow steps kissing the stone. Bottom left I had to turn my head for the ceiling was to low and Linda climbing the steps which we're very steep.

The picture below is the gardens on the property.  As we walked the gardens the sun was shinning then poured down rain. The area we saw was beautiful.

Sun. After our bible study we had breakfast then to see the Unique flavors of India. Pictured below some of the dances one they used sticks to keep time. Others scarfs on there arms.  They had traditional dances and modern.  They had food from four regions of India. Most of them desserts. The bottom right picture he rolled out the dough, thinned it like pizza dough then made it into a twisted ball treat.

Mon. We got to La Havre, France /temp. high 54 There was a trolley that took us to town square. Top left two pictures Tower of Saint-Joseph Church. Auguste Perret rebuilt the entire city which was leveled in 1945.  He is known as the “Concrete Promoter” This church was built to dedicate to the 5,000 who died there. The tower is made up of 12,768 Stained glass windows.  The hgt of the building is 107m   Top right is the Cathedrale Notre-Dame The only building to stand after WW2. rest of the pictures are of Place de l’Hotel de Ville which is City Hall, Town Square gardens, fountains, and statues.

Tues.  Now that we are in this part of the world we do not have as far to travel.  We had a nice slow trip to Rotterdam, Netherlands (Holland).  This is the second busiest port in the world.  The first set of pictures is our trip into where the ship was docked.  It took over an hour to get there and the last two miles the ship had to back into dock.

This second picture is some of the buildings.  Note the Bottom second one,  it was designed to have the same tilt as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Middle right Linda liked the “cube homes”.

These are pictures taken from our city tour from Princess, top left is our ship. Below it is the old Rotterdam that is now there all the time as a hotel.   Top middle is the prison. The picture below the prison is the old RR bridge.  They were going to tear it down but the people tied themselves to the bridge because they thought of it as history and wanted to keep it.

Across the top you have a man pulling a suite case. 2nd picture is four healthy trees  holding up a dead tree (representing future and past). Next since this port moves more crude oil than any where else in the world, barrels of crude oil statue. Right picture was done by a famous artist from here.  Second row left is the train station which looks like jaws and that is what they call the station today. Below that is bicycles which is how most people get around here.  This is the most used type of transportation as cars are very expensive to have here.  The rest are fountains, gardens, and delivery cycle.

Our ship left at midnight and this is some of the night pictures.

Getting a dream cruise on Regal Princess. seven Days at Sea

Wed. I was so excited for our trip that I got up before the clock went off.  After I got everyone up we left for Fort Lauderdale Everglades port.  We ate in Fort Myers at Cracker Barrel.  I dropped Linda, Dad and the luggage at the port then went to get gas and return the car.  Linda and Dad waited in a long line to get in and I just cut in line to catch up.  Our rooms were not ready so we went to the pool on the 16 deck and ate brats and cheese burgers. We got to our rooms and sat on our balcony till the ship left.  As we were leaving for dinner I noticed the ship going the wrong way. Then the announcement came over the speakers someone was ill and we were going back to Fort Lauderdale.  After dinner we listened to the music in the atrium then Linda and I went to the evening show and Dad came back to his room.

Thur. The weather in the sea is getting bad and toward Canada even worse. So changing directions.  Linda and I were up early so I got coffee and we did a bible study on our balcony. We took a walk on the glass boardwalk then Dad and I worked on the daily puzzles.

Fri. The map shows our change in plans going to the islands of Portugal instead of Canada. We had a chance to have hors d’ouvres in our room.  Tonight is formal night so we all got dressed and had some pictures taken before dinner.  Dessert was a chocolate truffle that looked so good and tasted even better. This is a night that they also had a champaign falls.

Sat. Another day at sea.  We got in line to eat Belgian waffle but a game was going to be played and they needed players.  One member wore a tee shirt  and the other stapled balloons to it there was four groups. We won our group. Then the winners put a spoon in there mouth with a ping pong ball in it.  We had a relay race up to the second floor and back down. Both Linda and I dropped the ball on the way down the steps (lots of fun). At dinner there was steak on the menu so Dad asked if the steak was tender. Then ordered cajun creole.  Our server wanted him to taste the steak so he ordered him one so that is the picture with him and two dinners.

Sun. There is many things going on, on board a ship. We took in the fruit and veg carving.  As you can see from the pictures below the men are very talented.  They say that it is handed down from generation to generation. Each man did three in twenty minutes.  The rest of the day we played cards, ate and ate, then enjoyed the evening show.

Mon. and Tues. We went around the boat eating and eating.  We went to a Indian cuisine culinary demo which had some hot (spicy) main courses and gave us samples.  We also had hot tea made from grass weed, ginger, and ect.  Which actually tasted like chocolate. We went to one dance class, the Waltz. From time to time we played cards and watched some movies.  We have made four time changes so far. At dinner tonight they had rhubarb and ice cream for dessert (Linda bottom middle yum yum). For tonights entertainment they had two champion jugglers.

Dad's & going to cruise ship

Thur. We moved the rig to a new spot so the tires will not go soft on one side.  We then drove to Tammy's had dinner then watched Bryce in a baseball game.

Fri.  We did our final packing for our trip and weighed the suite cases.  It was funny the little suite cases weigh the same as our big ones.  We will have to adjust on our trip home.  I washed the truck and we did some laundry.

Sat. After moving the rig we di not put in one of the slides.  Top left is where we ate in our tit quarters.  We went to Hope's county wide archery tournament.  She place 7th in middle school and will be going to the states in two weeks.   We then went to Tam's for dinner. When we got home we packed the truck got the rig ready for us to leave.

Sun. After church we left for dad's.  We got there with out much traffic problems.  We unloaded the truck with 5 suite cases four for the trip and one for 

Mon.  After breakfast at Skidder's we came home and I put up two fans for dad and Linda took his new phone and I-pad and helped to get it set up.  We took another swim and watched some more TV.

Tues. After breakfast we went to Dad's and we both got the final things done before our trip.  Before we went to get the rental car we went to the fire pit to cook smores.  It would have been Dad's first smores EVER!!!!  As we went to turn on the fire we see a sign saying it is broken.  We picked up the rental car and went home to make smores on the stove!! THATS DETERMINATION!!!  We are happy that they cooked and the even tasted good.

Easter

Thur. We went to the bank to change in our coins ( $17.91).  Then to computer class at an other Apple store.  When we got home we were do drained we went right to bed.

Fri. We took the kids to the Science Center they got to touch a snake (top 2nd picture), make paper air planes and used a machine to launch them (top right picture), worked puzzles (middle left), built towers and let them fall on the boys(middle 2nd picture), use there skill with  the game operation (middle 3rd picture), built things in the sand ( middle right picture), built boats out of lego's (bottom left picture, see how a drain works using balls after they built their pipes (middle 2nd picture, Ate freeze-dried  ice cream sandwich ( bottom right picture), and many more things.  When we left there we met Kenn and Tam at Jason's Deli then to their church for a Easter program which Kenn and Hope were in the chorus.

Sat.  We met Tam and Hope for lunch did some shopping for easter meals.  As the girls prep the meals I met the boys at a card shop.  We colored Easter eggs (see pictures below). We had a chance to play with the kids.

Sun. HAPPY ESTER. We got up and went on a Easter egg hunt (first six pictures). We went to church where Kenn and Hope were in the chorus (middle 3rd picture) and Kenn sang a solo.  We came home and had our Easter dinner (middle right picture) and dessert (bottom left picture) a cake which we got at church.  then time to relax (bottom 2nd picture and the kids went swimming ( bottom 3rd picture).  We went on a walk to their park and played basketball.  Bottom right picture is the for sale sign. 

Mon. We spent the day doing laundry and getting our affairs ready for our trip next week.

Tues. We got up and Linda made some delicious pancakes (yum yum).  After our walk we did a load of laundry then I cleaned,washed, and waxed the front and back of the rig.  Linda did some cooking and we enjoyed the evening relaxing for we were both very tired.

Wed.  When we woke up we ate then cleaned the rigs roof and body.  The roof had a lot of pollen which was hard to get clean.  When I got to the sides Linda came for reinforcements.  She wet it down before I washed it and then she took the soap off.  When we got done she dried the bottom and I did the top. We were both happy the rig still looks good.  After a little rest we ate then to church.

Niebrugge's

Thur. Worked at the camp then we played cards with some of the sojourners.

Fri.We went to computer class.  It was an other intro class and we both got a lot out of the class.  Either we are getting  alzheimer's or they are teaching different things. After class we picked up Hope from school.  Tammy and Brendan went to a concert and the rest of us had dinner and I helped Kenn get ready for the floor threshold.

Sat. After a late start I helped Kenn with the floors some more then to the boys ball games.  Their teams both tied.  Kenn and Tammy went to Hope's school for dinner and a action.

 While we were at the butterfly place beginning of March Tam's family got some caterpillars which made there cocoons.  They hatched out of the cocoons to butterflies which the kids are releasing.

Sun. After church service we had a pot luck dinner, a dessert auction(we bought five!!), clean up, and early evening church. We went to Chris and Tonya (boys children home) for dinner and to use their new fire pit (yum yum smore's)which we built on the sojourn.

Mon. and Tues. After breakfast we started packing for our trip.  Helping out at the camp and enjoying cards with a couple (sojourners).

Wed. I mopped the eating area at camp and finally finished the last touches on my home made pegs and jokers.  We went shopping and Linda found a gold mine at Goodwill. Linda got something in her eye on the way to church and it took four cleansing before it got better (thank God it came out).