Too Quiet?

Have you missed me? I know that I entitled my last post "Keeping It Quiet", but you might have noticed that I have been very quiet over the last few weeks-- too quiet! The truth is that we have been gone, cruising the Pacific and enjoying the sunshine of the Hawaiian islands. Our flight back to the east coast was anything but quiet; flying from Los Angeles to Atlanta on Saturday was one rowdy airplane ride full of Rams fans on their way to the Super Bowl! 😲 This was one scenario that we never, ever would have even considered when booking our flight late last summer. Timing is everything. We did have a wonderfully relaxing time away, catching up on some reading and taking in some movies that we had wanted to see. I spent the afternoons on board the ship working on some hand embroidery which I will show here soon. As always, Dorothy knew best: it is great to be home again, there's no place like it!

I will certainly miss English teatime in the afternoons, though. 

My latest mission includes searching for the ultimate scone recipe!

😉

Life is Good!

Floating...

Where in the world have the Goodneedles been? Floating. On a boat; a big one. We sailed out of Los Angeles on Monday evening, January 24, bound for the Hawaiian Islands. Little did we know that there was a surprise waiting for us; a big one, as big as that afore-mentioned boat!
My brother-in-law captured this moment, in the boarding area, when I discovered that he and my sister were sailing with us! Can you tell that this surprise was successful? We had a great time together. I am going to post pictures of our time away below, with little, if any, text; enjoy. I don't have any photos of the very long sea days across the Pacific, over and back, only of the port stops-- you can use your imagination, believe me there was lots and lots of water.

Sailing into Hilo on the big island of Hawaii, snow-capped Mauna Kea is visible. 

The original Volcano House hotel, at Volcanoes National Park, HI. 

 Dressed for dinner, still on Hawaii; my sister and I bought handmade leis from a local lei-maker.

Day two on the islands saw us on Oahu, at Pearl Harbor. Sadly, we were unable to take the small transport boat out to the Arizona Memorial that morning, the choppy water made passage unsafe. 

 Early morning of day three of the island tour saw us porting in the harbor at Nawiliwili, Kauai. 

Morning sunrise on day number four, over the island of Maui. 

 The massive Banyan Tree at Lahaina Park on Maui, this tree has sixteen major trunks supporting it.

There were signs here on the beach warning against cairn construction (rock stacking) but that certainly didn't seem to faze this gentleman. The one on the left here fascinated me, how did he do that?

Our last port day, the day before disembarkation in Los Angeles, was in Ensenda, Mexico. It was a windy and rainy day there. We didn't leave the ship, but enjoyed seeing some of the locals from our balcony; they were noisy too! 

Our last day together. My sister provided the matching T-shirts, commemorating our combined vacations.

We arrived home again in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, to another adventure; stay tuned. 

🌴~Aloha!~🌴

Life is Good!

Home Again

I took this picture of Mom and Dad at their doorstep just before I hopped in the car to return back home to NC yesterday morning, we always have a lot of fun when we visit them in New Hampshire; the time goes by much too quickly and it's never easy to say good-bye. I'm happy to report that they're doing great and we'll be back again in a few short months. Where they live now is not the home that I was raised in, they moved "up country" (from Massachusetts) a few years ago. But, for me, being back in New England and with my parents is going home again; wherever that place happens to be.  We spent time together over meals, at quilt shops, touring the area, playing cards and on a sunset dinner cruise on Lake Winnipesaukee's Mt. Washington last Friday evening along with my sister and her husband; it was just spectacular.
Here we are: me, Mom and my sister on the top deck, before dinner. I took the shots below as we progressed on our three hour tour (no Gilligan's Island reruns for us.... the weather was perfect).We disembarked "the Mount" to a vibrant fireworks display!

Of course, no trip to New Hampshire is complete without a stop at Mosquito Bridge in Winnesquam

for fried clams. This may be the single reason I am now on a cholesterol reducing drug. 

It's okay, it's worth it; this only happens once a year. Oh. My. Goodness... were they GOOD!

Life is Good!

Inspired

Hello from the ship! We've been back home from our Caribbean adventure for almost two weeks now; but I wanted to share some of the ship-board fun and inspiring sights from our time away with you.
  
This was our cruise routing, sailing out of, and back into, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. The ship was the largest one we've ever sailed on, the capacity was somewhere in the vicinity of 5,000-- 3,500 passengers and 1,500 crew members.  With that many people on board you might think that it was impossible to be anywhere that wasn't over-crowded, that wasn't the case at all; it is a really  BIG boat! The Regal Princess is the newest addition to the fleet and in a weeks' time we explored every bit of her.

At times the corridors outside of the staterooms looked like this...
empty except for the house cleaning cart!

Mid-ship the elegant Grand Piazza dominates the public space; comprising three levels, this is where you will find all of the the on-board shopping, food venues and, at times, musical entertainment.

The Grand Piazza, another persective.

It was in this area that we discovered "Alfredo's", a wonderful Italian restaurant specializing in brick oven pizza and salads. You may think that the quilter in me was inspired by this table. You'd be right, I was.

But then, take a look at this tile wall; can't you just see a fabric version of this in similar-hued batiks?

But, wait; this was the best inspiration of all! I'm already drafting this one up... someday, someday
I'll make a quilt inspired by this wall; the color, shapes and movement appeal straight to my heart!

This was the view sailing into St. Maarten, we docked on the Dutch side. In case you're wondering where all of the ship's passengers were in the previous photos, I'll tell you. When the ship was in any port we would disembark, walk around for awhile and enjoy the local sights and tropical breezes, then get back on the ship and take advantage of the pools on the top decks without the crowds of people; it was nearly deserted at those times and extremely peaceful and relaxing!

This  photo and the one below show the pools, and view off the ship, during peak hours on a sea day.

This was taken on our last evening, at dinner; all good things must come to an end. Our post-Christmas R&R was just the thing to start off our New Year on the right foot with a great adventure and to jump-start those creative juices that were inspired by all that I saw and experienced while we were gone! Now, it's back to reality~

Life is Good!