Time for a road trip!!

I am just finishing up my packing and heading out first thing in the morning for my annual summer road trip!! Off to Calgary to see the little cutie -- Hunter. A side trip to Saskatchewan for a family picnic. Another side trip to meet up with a blogging friend in Alberta.

I will be away from the computer most of the month of July - so I will try to catch up with all my favourite blogs when I return. I will try to check in when time permits.

Just a quick photo of the fabric I bought to make myself a bag - the Professional bag. I have most of the pieces cut and I will finish it when I return. Love the fabric!!




Have a happy and fun summer and see you on the flip side!!!

A gift from Argentina

I hadn't worked much the month of May -- only one day. So when May was finally over and it was time to go back to work - I worked 5 shifts in 9 days!! That was a bit of a shock -LOL. So I am still recovering a bit from the last week of work.

I did get to have a fantastic visit with Wendy on one of my days off. You can read all about it on her blog. It is so great to finally meet Wendy and she lives so close. I am looking forward to going on a bit of a shopping trip out in her direction next time. There are a few little quilt shops out in her area that I have never been to before and I really would love to see them.

I am getting ready to head off for another trip to Calgary and a visit with little Hunter. I hear he is over 10 lbs now and really alert and happy. I need more pictures!!

I received a package from my blogging friend Andrea from Tierra del Fuego before we left on our cruise. Andrea and I have been visiting by email and MSN for the last year or so.



She sent me a wonderful package - full of pieces of fabric from her fabric collection. I had sent her some fabric from my collection as well. We both sharing our collection of butterfly fabric and we are planning to one day make a butterfly quilt. As you can see she also sent a lovely cushion cover that she made and she sent a little cute little t-shirt for Hunter as well. Andrea writes her blog in Spanish but we are able to talk to each other on MSN in English - which is great because I have no ability to do anything in Spanish - I was thinking maybe Andrea should start teaching me a bit here and there -LOL. Andrea's daughter Lucia - sent a beautifully written letter in English and Octavio made a picture just for me. It is so amazing -- this world of blogging!! Who could have imagined that a you could meet and talk with people from all over the world - places as far away as Tierra del Fuego and as close as New Westminster.

Shopping in Skagway

We arrived in Skagway at 7 AM. We were very amazed to look out our stateroom window to see that there were 4 cruise ships docked in Skagway!! This is a town of 800 people.

We were schedule to go on a 3 hour White Pass Railroad train ride at 8:30. We quickly got ready and off to catch the train. Then the plan was after the train ride we would go to the two quilt shops in town. We sat on the train for over an hour waiting for it to get moving - about 9:15 there was an announcement that the first train out of the station broke an axel on the track about 5 miles out and all the morning trains would be canceled. There were probably 6 trains waiting to go out with a lot of people - with nothing to do but head into Skagway and shop. Was it ever busy in Skagway!! The best place to be was probably the quilt shops.

There are two quilt shops in Skagway - almost next door to each other, The Changing Threads also carries cross stitch patterns and wool and such as well as fabric. The Rushin Tailor carries mostly fabric. There was a lot of Alaskan theme fabric and kits.




Here are the men standing outside the Rushin Tailor waiting for the women :))

Jim was quite happy to join me in the shop and decided to pick out a couple of Northern themed kits and said they were my birthday present ( I thought the cruise was my birthday present - but I certainly wasn't about to argue the point -LOL)



I got two kits in the Rushin Tailor. The kits are all made up with the Hoffman batiks and good quality fabric. The Quilt Alaska "Sun Seekers" was the one that Jim chose. It comes with buttons as well but I have some very old "Mother of Pearl" buttons that Jim's mum had collected. The salmon tablerunner is a pattern by Lisa Moore and her husband Dave Moore from the Sitka area. It comes with beautiful Mckenna Ryan fabric.

I also bought a few half yards of Northern themed fabric. I just love the Hoffman batiks that were in the shop - with the native artwork as the batik design.



Changing Threads -- just two doors down -- making shopping very easy!!




I bought some more half yard batiks and some half yards of Northern Light fabric - very pretty and I bought a Barbara Lavallee quilt kit -- "Three Sheets to the Wind" She is an Alaskan artist and some of her work is becoming quilts. Both shops were great places and well worth the visit.

The streets of Skagway were just packed with people and we left the quilt shops and wandered over to the Skagway Brew Pub for a pint and a nice lunch of Fish and Chips for the rest of the afternoon while we waited for our bus tour. We didn't rebook the train trip but instead took a bus up to the summit of the White Pass. It was beautiful - we had lots of stops along the way to take pictures - saw a few Mountain Goats. The trip goes into B.C. and then back into Alaska. It was another beautiful sunny day and I took lots of pictures.

Back from the Cruise

We had a wonderful time!! I certainly recommend a cruise to Alaska. The weather for us was beautiful and sunny and quite warm the entire cruise. I took lots of pictures - it is hard to decide which pictures to post.



Here is a picture of Vancouver as we were sailing out on Saturday - this is the sunny weather we had all week.



Here we are sailing towards the Lions Gate Bridge. I got some great shots of the under side of the bridge as we sailed under.



Here is our stateroom. I just loved having a balcony - we would sit out on the balcony in the morning and drink our morning coffee and watch the whales. We saw so many whales!!!



Here is a picture of the Centrum. There were 13 decks on the ship and we were on deck 8. Lots of walking up and down the stairs -- the exercise of the day to make sure we could eat all the desserts!! The food was really great in the main dining room. We didn't eat very often at the Buffet - the Dining room was open for breakfast and lunch (on sea days) and it was much nicer to sit at a table and get waited on rather than wait in the buffet lines.



And here is a picture of the quilt pattern on the Centrum floor!! My quilt content for this post :))

I had a great birthday dinner and a very memorable 50th birthday!! I loved everything about the cruise and I certainly would go cruising again --- soon I hope!!

I did some shopping at the quilt shops in Skagway and Juneau - I will save that for another post. I am finding I am still quite tired - even today - and the floor seems to have finally stopped moving. I had no idea about the movement but it was quite interesting that when I finally got off the boat I kept thinking there were little earthquake type tremors happening in Skagway - and it seems that is something that people experience after being on a ship. I didn't get sea sick at all and the ship barely moves - the water was so calm most of the time anyway. The ship is so incredibly quiet as well - you can't hear any motors or engines at all is just glides through the water.

Thank you for all your birthday wishes!! It was a birthday I will never forget. FABULOUS!!