Day 6 Bonus—a hilarious celebration

by | Jun 22, 2026 | Uncategorized

Just a short post to wrap up day six. It had been a nice day in Ketchikan, but it was about to become a hilarious night on board. About halfway through dinner, our butler, Hilario, sent me a WhatsApp message asking how long it would be until we returned to our suite. I told him about 30 minutes, though I had no idea why he needed to know. We finished dinner, and everyone headed off to evening activities. Bob and Judy were going to the show, and Mike and Cathy were going to Dueling Pianos. Kathleen got back to our stateroom first (she took the elevator—I always take the stairs on a ship), and Hilario met her at the door and asked where I was.

She told him I always took the stairs so he let her go inside to a real surprise. It was a huge HAPPY ANNIVERSARY celebration that Hilario had arranged for us. I arrived a few minutes later and was totally mystified. Our anniversary is in late August, and I am not one of those husbands who screws up dates. So why was Hilario and the ship wishing us Happy Anniversary?

A few minutes later, it dawned on me. When we were filling out our pre-cruise questionnaire, it asked if we were celebrating anything. I checked the Other box and typed an explanation. I said it was the anniversary reunion of the original Martini Mates, who had started together on Infinity more than 20 years ago. Either someone at X or Hilario saw the word anniversary and thought it was ours.

I quickly sent out a group text and told the rest of the Mates to get to our stateroom as quickly as they could. We had to share the “anniversary celebration” with them. And they all showed up. Hilario was awesome, and he even serenaded us with a song he sang for anniversaries. It was pretty awesome, and even though it was supposed to be romantic, it fit us perfectly.

After everyone left, we moved some of the balloons around so we wouldn’t be freaked out in the middle of the night, then went to bed. The next morning, we heard from Mike that he had been called by the three Retreat concierges, who wanted to buy us an anniversary dinner in Murano. More about that in my next post.

Day 3—Icy Strait Point

by | Jun 18, 2026 | Uncategorized

Way back in August 2007, we last visited Icy Strait Point. Back then, it was a tiny tourist attraction featuring two things: the longest (at the time) zip line in the world and an old cannery that had been turned into a museum. Here we are, just under 20 years later, and we are back again. When we were here the first time, this was a tender port (for the non-cruisers, that means to get to the port, you get into a lifeboat and they take you to a small dock in the harbor where you get off, see everything, and then get back on). Not anymore.

We visited here with our Martini Mates that year on Celebrity’s Infinity. We came ashore and walked around for about an hour. We took the shuttle bus into the village of Hoonah (where, really, there was nothing to see), then it was back on the tender and back to the ship.

WOW! How things have changed in 19 years. Now there are two piers big enough to handle a cruise ship, so we didn’t have to tender. The two piers are fairly far apart (about a 30-minute hike on a nice trail), so they built a gondola that takes you from the pier where we docked over to the original area, which has now been built up. In 2007, there was a snack bar. Now there are at least four restaurants, a couple of snack bars, and coffee places as well. The Cannery museum is now less of a museum and more of a mini shopping mall. The zip line is still there, but sadly, it was too windy for it to be in service. And no, we were not going to ride it ourselves. Too long and too high, thank you. Plus, we are way too old.

When Solstice arrived, there was a Princess cruise ship on the pier we were to dock on, and because Celebrity has a deal with the locals and helped build the two ocean piers, they got first choice, so the Princess ship had to pull off the pier and tender the rest of her guests back to the ship. The other pier was occupied by Celebrity Summit, a ship we know well after sailing her from Newark to Québec and back in 2018.

Solstice had docked at the pier where you needed to either hike or take the gondola to see the Cannery area. So Mike, Cathy and I jumped into one of the cars and headed over. The gentleman running the gondola was very good at his job. He had three lines, and the gondola hardly ever stopped. You just got on as it slowly came through the on-and-off section. Really simple and easy to do. The ride took about 15 minutes, and we were dropped off at the gateway to the Cannery area.

It was a very short walk down to the Cannery museum and shops, along a really nice boardwalk with stairs that periodically led to the beach. There was also a great statue of an orca whale (see my pics below). We walked down, saw the shops, talked to some folks, were mistaken for someone on a whale watching tour, Mike and Cathy got a beer, and I set off to walk the trail back to the ship. Got lots of photos on the way and had a great time. There are bear warnings all over the place, but the path was well traveled and, as Bob says, “Don’t worry about bears unless you are the slowest person you can see nearby.” I stopped to buy some postcards on the way (yes, I still send paper postcards), and then it was back aboard and off to drinks and dinner.

Sadly, after an awesome sandwich we had for lunch that passed the Steve Test (see yesterday’s post if you don’t know what the Steve Test is) in Luminae, dinner was a total failure. Bob ordered a steak, and it was a huge, thick chunk of beef with absolutely no flavor whatsoever. I know, because he gave me a piece, and I tried it. It was like eating a chewy piece of nothing. No sauce, no grill marks, no nothing. Just a big hunk of beef barely seared on four sides. My cannelloni wasn’t much better. Two pasta tubes, stuffed with too much meat, too little cheese and too little sauce. This time the meal wasn’t fine. It was bad.

Lunch today was an adventure, but I will tell you about that tomorrow. And about our visit to the Hubbard Glacier.

Don't forget: if you click the first shot, you can scroll through using your arrow keys or by swiping. When you do that, you can also see the captions for the photos. These are the first shots of the trip where I was able to show off my photography expertise, so please check them out on a computer or tablet, not your phone.

 

"The more things change, the more they stay the same" —Jean Baptiste Alphonse Karr

Solstice Day 2—A Sad Sea Day & Your First Food Report

by | Jun 17, 2026 | Uncategorized

For years, I have been telling people that you are much better off taking an Alaskan cruise from Vancouver rather than Seattle. One of the main reasons is the Canadian Inside Passage. This is our 13th Alaska cruise and our eighth (I think) from Vancouver, and it is the first time we have not taken the Canadian Inside Passage.

If you have never sailed the Canadian Inside Passage, it is one of the most beautiful places we have ever sailed. Think of a river cruise on a very big river. Sloping mountains of evergreens come right down to the water’s edge. Eagles fly overhead, and you can sometimes see bears and deer drinking at the shore below the trees. Because this area is protected by islands on the outside and the Canadian mainland on the inside, the temperatures are warmer, and the sun is often out. At the top of this page is a map showing the area I am talking about.

Well, we were very sad to wake up to almost an open ocean. You could see land, but it was quite far to our east. This was not the Alaska cruise I had hoped for. My buddy Bob (who is a strong believer in the Canadian Inside Passage) thought it might have something to do with the size of the ship, but we sailed this way on Infinity a number of times, and that ship isn’t that much smaller than this one.

Otherwise, it was a pretty uneventful sea day yesterday. We had breakfast. Bob, Judy, and I went to trivia at 10:30, and then we met everyone for lunch. After lunch, I worked on a few photos, then did four miles on the jogging/running/walking track on deck 14. A major rant from me about walking on the walking track. This is a two-fold complaint. One small complaint I can deal with, but I will mention it so that maybe someone reading this can stop doing it.

Stop walking three people across a path built for three people. You are blocking everyone from going in any direction, whether they are walking for exercise or just getting from one end of deck 14 to the other. It is just plain rude. If you see someone coming your way and there is no place for them to go, walk single file for a minute or two until they pass. And while we are on the subject, maybe the real thing I need to say is this: BE SELF-AWARE! I can’t tell you how many people have just walked in front of me. Most of them were either talking to the person they were walking with, looking at the scenery, or looking at their phones. WAKE UP! You are not the only person on the ship or in the world.

My other quibble about the walking track is with Celebrity. And this happens on all the Solstice-class ships. Why is it that people walking, jogging, or running to stay healthy have to pass through one of the only smoking areas on the ship? WTF? Move the smoking area or shut it down. Every time I came around the track to that spot (about 35 times), I choked on the fumes from more than 20 smokers. There is a large smoking area in Sunset Park (one whole side of the aft of the area). That should be enough. Let’s close down the smoking area that coincides with the track. OK, rant over…back to yesterday.

After my walk, it was back to the stateroom to change for dinner (it was chic night). Kathleen says she saw some formal dresses, but I didn’t see any men in tuxedos and very few in ties. All of us had jackets on, so we were looking sharp. There was a pre-dinner reception with the captain and senior officers in The Retreat Lounge, which was very nice. Drinks and nibbles. The captain is a very nice guy who has been with Celebrity since before it became Celebrity.

I thought this might be a good time to talk about the food. So far, we have eaten in three venues on board. We had lunch at the Sunset Bar Cafe on deck 15 during embarkation. The salads and sandwiches were great. I do wish they had a bar there as well, because if you want something to drink besides water, you have to walk to the back of the Sunset area to the Sunset Bar and get your drink either before or after you get food. Now, it isn’t that far, but what was a pain was having to stand in two lines. One for food, one for drinks, and they are far apart.

We had dinner at Trattoria Rossa, and it was wonderful. If you go, have the lasagna or the lamb. That’s what we had. Dessert was also amazing with the made-at-the-table cannoli and tiramisu. It does pass the Steve Test with flying colors.

The rest of our meals (so far, 2 breakfasts, 1 lunch, and 1 dinner) have been at the suites’ restaurant, Luminae. The food has been just fine. Nothing amazing to write home to mom about, but fine. So far, Luminae does NOT pass the Steve Test. For those of you who are new readers, this is what the Steve Test is all about:

The Steve Test

After our disastrous Celebrity Millennium cruise in May 2022 (the food was horrible), my brother Steve came up with a way to rate food and restaurants while traveling, which I have found to be more effective and easier to understand than any other method I have encountered. From then on, I have called this the “Steve Test”.

Here's the test: If you eat at a food venue during your travels, either on a ship (main dining room, buffet, grille, or a specialty restaurant) or on land (hotel, restaurant, street food, etc.), and that restaurant was near you once you returned home, would you go there again? Would you become a regular? Would you go there for special occasions?

That’s pretty simple. I think it's the best way I've ever heard of to rate food on vacation, and I will rate each place I eat while traveling using the “Steve Test”.

I have high hopes that they will improve. My personal feeling is that they are trying too hard to make the food look cool. It takes nice photos, but at the expense of taste, and things that could be great are just OK. My hope is that this will improve as the week goes on. I have included some photos of the food below, with comments to show what I mean.

Breaking news! It’s Tuesday (our day in Icy Strait Point, which I will report on tomorrow), and we had lunch at Luminae. We had a sandwich that not only passed the Steve Test but also made me want to drive across town to get this particular sandwich. More about that tomorrow.

We also want to thank two new friends we have made, Richard and Randy, who told us a secret about Luminae—you can order off the Main Dining Room menu if you just ask to see it. Thanks, guys.

Here are some food pics for you. Enjoy. Don't forget: if you click the first shot, you can scroll through using your arrow keys or by swiping to read the captions and see what you are looking at. And feel free to look at these on your phones. I took them with mine.

"Do you remember when you were younger, and you used to take photos of your food, send them out to be developed, get back prints and then send them to your friends? Neither do we." —Popular internet meme

Solstice Day 1—Embarkation

by | Jun 15, 2026 | Uncategorized

Good day to all of you! It’s a sea day (haven’t had one of those in a while), and we are sailing up the Canadian Inside Passage (which is usually like glass) on a cloudy day. After the 80+ degree temps in Vancouver yesterday, this is welcome weather to me.

First, I have to make a quick correction to my last post. Mike and Cathy's flight was canceled, and United Airlines didn't even tell them. Thank goodness Mike checked. If he hadn't, they would have arrived at the gate and been told, "Sorry, no flight for you." But this meant I didn't have to make the trip from Chilliwack to YVR (Vancouver International Airport—all Canadian airports start with Y) and back again.

But that was only the start of their woes. Their original flight was from FLL to SFO, then SFO to YVR. Their new flight was SUPPOSED to be from FLL to ORD (Chicago), then ORD to YVR. But when they got to ORD, they were told their flight to YVR had been canceled. In case you are keeping track, that is two canceled United flights. So they rebooked them on a flight to Toronto. Which sounds crazy because they had flown west and were heading west, but now they were flying east. Once in Toronto, they would switch to Air Canada and fly west to YVR. A totally miserable flying experience. They did make it to YVR and out to Chilliwack…eventually, but the original plan was for all of us to go to dinner before they went back to their hotel for the night. They had been scheduled to arrive at YVR by 2:00 pm. That would have put us back in Chilliwack around 5:00, just in time for dinner. They actually wound up arriving at their Chilliwack hotel around 11:30. That’s a long day when you get up around 5:00 am in the EDT. It would have killed us.

That gets you up to date on everything before yesterday. And that brings us to one of the smoothest embarkations on a cruise ship we have ever had, from Canada Place (Vancouver’s cruise ship terminal) or maybe from anywhere. The last time we had embarked from Canada Place was two years ago. It had been the absolute worst embarkation experience of our cruising lives, worse than most airports. It had taken us 3+ hours to go from luggage drop-off to being on board. We totally missed lunch, and by the time we had finished all the safety stuff and unpacked, it was time for dinner.

Not this time! Bob had hired a van and driver to take us into Vancouver. He picked us up right at 9:00, and we were on our way. After a totally uneventful ride, we arrived at Canada Place at almost exactly 10:30, drove down into the parking garage, unloaded our luggage, got Kathleen and Judy into their wheelchairs, went through Customs and security, and then checked in. By 11:05, we were standing on the ship. That may be a record.

I do need to add (though I don’t think it made THAT much difference) that we were in a suite, which did get us through even quicker. The wheelchairs helped as well, since you can pretty much go to the head of many of the lines.

Once we were onboard, we were invited to leave our carry-on bags in our suite (it’s not really a suite, as you will see in the photos. For something to be a real suite, it has to have more than one room—not counting the bathroom). I have included stateroom photos below in the gallery. This was just a bigger stateroom. Then the six of us met up in the new Sunset Park on deck 15 for lunch (see photo at top). It was a glorious day, and we really wanted to eat outdoors, so that kind of made our choice for us. On past Celebrity cruises, when we boarded, we could pretty much eat at the buffet, and that was it. This worked out so much better. They had a variety of salads and sandwiches, and the nearby Sunset Bar provided the Aperol Spritz (for you cruisers out there, when you get a suite, you get a Premium Beverage Package). And the roast beef sandwich I had was delicious. There’s a picture in the gallery of the selection we had.

At this point, people were just getting on board, so the ship was still kind of empty. Which brings us to the only thing we don’t like about this cruise so far—TMP (TOO MANY PEOPLE). It has been at least two years since we were on a ship this big, and we had forgotten how many people were on board. And we try to forget that cruise two years ago, so it has really been four. When all beds are occupied, Solstice can accommodate more than 3,100 guests. My guess is that we are pretty close to that on this voyage. Another thing we aren’t used to is kids. This is the first full week off from school in many places, and there are a TON of children on board. That’s another thing we just aren’t used to. Most of our recent cruises have been on Viking (either ocean or river), and they have a rule: no humans under 18. So seeing this many kids (an estimated 200-300) is just crazy for us. To be honest, I never understand why anyone brings kids on Celebrity. If you have kids, take them on Royal Caribbean. It’s a nice cruise line owned by the same people, with about 1,000 times more activities for kids. Here, there is a kids' club, but that’s about it. And it certainly can’t handle all the kids on board at one time. It’s much too small for that. It’s supposed to serve every kid, from toddlers to teens. Not sure that is going to happen. So if you haven’t cruised before, take my advice—when you cruise with your kids or grandkids, choose RCL or Disney; ships that cater to kids.

Speaking of first-time cruisers, there are a lot of them on board, including a lot of first-time Celebrity cruisers. We ran into a couple while we were checking in at our muster station. She was happy to be on a cruise, and he just wanted to know where the nearest bar was. Seriously, he was thrilled that he could get 25 drinks a day on his Classic alcohol package. We told him he was on the wrong cruise line. That Carnival didn’t sail until Monday. She told us that her mother had bought the cruise, so they wound up on X. OK, if his MIL was on board, maybe that’s why he was drinking so much ?.

After lunch, I walked around the ship taking photos (see gallery) until about 2:30, when Kathleen called to say our bags had arrived. I went back up to the suite to unpack. Kathleen had read online about someone complaining that there wasn’t enough storage in the Sky Suites. We can’t imagine how many clothes she must have brought with her because we have SOOOOO much storage. Two full dressers and two full closets. I have four drawers that are so big and deep that I am using one just for dirty clothes. Usually, I have to put those in a plastic bag. By the time we had unpacked, it was time to meet the gang for sail-away at 4:00.

We had decided to meet at the same table in Sunset Park where we had sat for lunch, but Sunset Park was now JAMMED with people. No chairs, no place to even lean. Cathy finally snagged us a table and four chairs, and we hung out. Bob and Judy told us they were going to stay on their own veranda. We finally gave up. The crowd kept growing. We headed back to our stateroom, and Bob and Judy joined us on our veranda.

At lunch, a member of the food staff stopped by our table and offered us a 35% discount if we wanted to eat at a specialty restaurant on our first night. We had previously discussed skipping those, but I secretly (OK, it wasn’t a secret—I told everyone) wanted to try the new Italian place because I had seen they made cannoli at the table. We all thought about skipping it, but then Mike said he was paying, so we had dinner there last night. It was delicious. And it’s a beautiful restaurant (pics below). And the cannolis were amazing. The rest of the dinner, the ambiance, and the service were all top-flight. I would eat there again. It passed the Steve test.

We had decided to meet for pre-dinner cocktails in the Retreat Lounge. The first (and last) time we were on this ship, it was called Michael’s Club. It is now a cocktail lounge for Retreat (suite) guests only. We found it to be just what we were looking for. We had a table for six. There was no loud music, so we could have a nice time conversing. For the first 20 minutes, we were the only people in the place, so we received amazing service from our bartender, Christian.

Speaking of service, that is the one thing Celebrity has ALWAYS done well. The people who work on Celebrity ships are truly amazing. From the woman polishing stair rails who greeted me with a huge smile to the bartenders, waiters, counter staff, and everyone else, they provide some of the best service at sea.

Dinner was excellent. I had a decent octopus appetizer. I had lasagna Bolognese as my entrée. Kathleen had lamb, and of course, we got the cannoli for dessert. All of those were superb. The octopus could have been better. Our server said it was steamed for two hours (to make it more tender) and then thrown on the grill. But the problem with that is that the steaming made the outside kind of mushy.

After dinner, Kathleen went off to bed, and I joined the rest of our crew to see the first night’s main entertainment in the theater, a comedian named AJ Jamal. If you ever get a chance to see him, DON’T! While introducing him, the cruise director told us he had been on HBO. He must have meant he was playing Scrabble and dropped the letters h, b, and o and sat on them, because this guy was horrible. He had no actual set; he just kept trying to make a fool of audience members or find something funny to say about them. When he wasn’t doing that, he made all the usual cruise jokes about booze, food, embarkation, etc. Not a single original and funny line in his 45-minute set. Sad.

That about covers our day. A gallery of photos awaits you below. Don't forget: if you click the first shot, it will fill your screen, and you can scroll through using your arrow keys or by swiping.

"Money doesn't buy happiness... but it buys a cruise ticket, and that's pretty much the same thing."   —Captain Stubing on Love Boat

The best and worst of 2022

by | Dec 30, 2022 | Uncategorized

To quote Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Isn’t that just the way life works? I always thought so. How would you know what the highs were if you didn’t have any lows? And sometimes, the lows lead to the highs. This brings me to the high and low of 2022.

To start the year, a quick substitution was just what we needed.

This one kind of slips in from 2021. If you have followed this blog for a while, you know that we booked a Christmas Market river cruise with Viking River Cruises that was expected to sail in early December 2020. Well, we all know that didn’t happen, so we postponed to December 2021, but then the Delta variant of COVID showed up just before Christmas. Even though Viking still sailed the cruise, we let them keep our money for another year because most of Europe shut down their Christmas Markets. But that second cancellation killed us. And that’s how we ended 2021.

But that brought us to one of the high points of 2022—our Sail with Seth cruise on Holland America’s Nieuw Statendam that we booked as a quick replacement. We went with my brother and sister-in-law and had a Neptune Suite (a last-minute upgrade), some incredible food, found new parts of the Caribbean that I actually liked (Bonaire and Grand Turk) and just generally had a great time.

Old condo problems lead to a new home that we LOVE.

Our disillusionment with our former homeowner’s association started a long time before Spring 2022, but that’s when things went from bad to…we have to get the hell out of here. We had lived in our condo for 23 years (two months before we got married), and to be honest, we really loved living there. So we made the decision to start looking for a new place. To be totally honest, I was sure I would never leave that place and making the decision to move from our close-in, easy-to-walk-anywhere condo where we had the best neighbors anyone could ever want was both tough and quick.

Kathleen and I have always made joint decisions quickly. When we bought our condo back in 1999, we weren’t even looking. We just stopped to see an interesting model home, liked what we saw, went for coffee for half an hour and then went back and bought it. Moving this year was no different. We already knew the area we wanted to move to (Trilogy Redmond Ridge, a 55+ community about seven miles from our condo), and we found an awesome realtor (Hi Linda) who took us to see a grand total of one house—the one I am sitting in right now. We walked in, looked around for about 15 minutes and told Linda to make an offer. Then we went and looked at another place so that we could see what else was out there but to be honest; it could have been wonderful (it wasn’t); we still would have bought the one we now call home.

We love living here! And I would say this was the best thing that happened to us this year. Of course, there is always a downside. We had two big downsides. One, we had to leave behind the world’s best neighbors, Jayesh and Lisa. Sure, they are only 15 minutes away (we are having our annual New Year’s Eve dinner with them on Saturday), but it’s not the same as sticking our head over the fence or having drinks on the spur of the moment to celebrate that it’s Friday. And two, we actually had to pack and move. But that’s another of this year’s highlights.

A Moving Experience

I hate moving. In my past life (BK=Before Kathleen), I moved a bunch. But since we bought our condo in 1999, we haven’t moved. Not for 23 years. The idea of taking things down off our walls, packing all our belongings, dealing with multiple trips to and from the new house, getting the condo ready for sale, and getting all the stuff done we would have to do to move into the new house…I hated all of it. But sometimes, good things come from bad things. Like the day in April when all our kids and grandkids showed up to help us patch walls, touch up paint and clean our old place to get it ready to sell. It makes a dad and grandpa very happy to have his entire family coming together to help.

Unless you have been to our house, you have no idea how much art we have hanging on our walls. Just the downstairs powder room alone had 84 framed pieces of art on the walls. We know because Maylee (our awesome granddaughter) counted them for us. And in our kitchen, we had more than 60  decorative plates hanging on the soffit. Those all had to come down, have the holes spackled and then have the paint touched up. There were other things that needed doing, including moving a bunch of stuff to a storage shed. But everyone pitched in to help, and we got it all done. Special thanks to our eight-year-old (at the time) granddaughter and our eleven-year-old grandson because we struggled to figure out what to have them do, and they just grabbed the spackle and the paint and went for it. They did an awesome job.

We should add that they all returned again a month later to help us move out of the condo and into our new house. And all of them worked their butts off that day as well. As I said, it brings a tear to this old grandpa’s heart.

Our travels: some good and some bad

As I mentioned at the top of this post, we had a great time in the Caribbean on Nieuw Statendam in January; then, we sailed on a May cruise on Celebrity Millenium from San Diego to Vancouver, BC. And we had our BIG trip of the year—our Viking Ocean Mediterranean cruise from Athens to Barcelona that took us to Europe for almost a full month.

Since I have detailed so much of this travel before, I will just list the tops and bottoms of that travel:

The WORST parts

  • Kathleen falling and breaking her elbow when we were in San Francisco on the Millenium cruise. Six hours in the emergency room, two long cab rides, one surgery and about ten weeks of recovery, all while we were moving, was not fun. All of this happening on a cruise that proved to us beyond a shadow of a doubt that our favorite cruise line (Celebrity) was not what it used to be and that this might have been the worst cruise we had been on in years. It is just sad.
  • Catching COVID in Venice or at least realizing we had COVID while we were in Venice. No awful symptoms (just a slight sore throat), but still a pain. Kathleen’s cough went on for a month.
  • Kathleen getting food poisoning on Viking Sky and then being quarantined because of something the cruise line did.
  • Us realizing that 28 days is too long to be gone from home.
  • Being on Nieuw Statendam with our good friend Seth (Sail with Seth) and finding out from him that he had been let go from Holland America on the day before the cruise, with his last day being in July. That was not cool, HAL. They then expected him to do his job helping the sixty or so people in the Sail with Seth group have a fun time.

The BEST parts

  • Most of our Viking Sky cruise around the Mediterranean was great. We had a great time, and we enjoyed Viking, but our expectations were a little too high.
  • I had at least two ultra-amazing photo-shooting experiences, one in Venice and one in Tarragona, Spain.
  • We spent another amazing five days with the grandkids at the beach (we have been doing this for a few summers), celebrated Maylee’s birthday and played MULTIPLE games of Skipbo.
  • Going back to Amsterdam and the Banks Mansion.

Hopefully, I will be back tomorrow to finish the year with my best photos.

The good times of today, are the sad thoughts of tomorrow.
—Bob Marley