Lunch with the kids

I had asked B a while ago if he would be willing to have lunch with us over Labor Day weekend and since E and D were visiting, we thought we'd make it a family outing Sunday. After checking to make sure the Cubs weren't playing at home, we chose Rizzo's next to Wrigley Field. However, there was a Big 10/SEC volleyball tournament being held there and before we knew it the restaurant was filled with Nebraska fans. Andy lucked out with a parking space right in front of the restaurant.

The atmosphere would be fun for a bar visit on a game day but I'd skip the food.

I had to take the divided brownie pan to B that he requested I find (mission successful), a cartoony ramen cookbook I took from a free box at a yard sale and a few things from my Alaskan cruise - some jerky with reindeer meat, a maple cream-filled cookie and a Virgin Cruise hat he probably won't wear. After lunch we dropped him back at his apartment and drove E and D to the airport.

E left her gym shoes at the bride's apartment so she asked me for a pair to wear home and keep until Christmas. Here you go. And I told her she can keep them if she wants.

Saw this billboard along the Kennedy. Not sure they needed to hate on the Cardinals to get their message across.

Cute Saturday

We have visitors - the cute newlyweds are in town for their friends', W and T, wedding. Here they were Friday night coming back from the welcome dinner.

This is a really cute guidebook I assume the wedding couple designed. I found it on the coffee table when I was up early before my 6:30 a.m. coffee server donut shift (Andy did the 3 a.m. donut captain shift).

After donuts and a shower, I went to Allison's and we went to a few garage/estate sales. Maybe because it's a holiday weekend there weren't many sales. Two of the things I found were this Avon turkey votive candle holder and this music box nativity. I think the nativity is handpainted; I found similar ones on ebay with different paint schemes. Cute holiday decorations.

After yard sales, Andy and I finished up the grocery shopping for the week and picked up tortillas for the kids to take back to Seattle.

E had been in the city since 9 a.m. getting ready for her role as a bridesmaid so we drove D to the wedding/reception location at Schuba's/Tied House. Looked cute from the outside. I didn't get a picture of that but I did snap one of this interesting "green wall" of a Whole Foods store. Chicago's neighborhoods are full of interesting things to see.

On the drive back home we came across Suncatcher Brewing (at Chicago and Grand avenues) so thought we should stop in.

Perfect weather (sometimes a bit chilly with the breeze) to sit on their patio and enjoy a beer. How cute is this building? It's a former service station. I like the Art Deco-looking entrance.

I prefer the old Uno cards

On one of our "at sea" days on the cruise, Cindy and I were playing Uno with the kids when I had to ask what this green card was. I was told it was the "skip" card and when I said the "skip" cards have an S on them I was told no, it's always been this symbol.

Well, here's my easy-to-decipher Uno cards, with the S on the "skip" card. I read that distribution of the game was scaled nationally in 1981 and I'm pretty sure I first played it in high school, which was a few years ago.

More random Alaska

Thursday night at E and D's we went to dinner then stopped by Snoqualamie Falls around sunset.

Pic of the newlyweds.

Friday we caught our flight from Seattle and managed to get into the United Club on the passes I had. Here's the last of random Alaska (and Canada) pictures:

This sign was in the bathroom on the boat we cruised on durng our Sitka excursion.

And the bathroom sign at the brewery in Prince Rupert.

Fishing boats in Prince Rupert.

E with one of the glowing fish on Scarlet Night ...

and Cindy with a fish.

Cindy and me at a pier in Prince Rupert.

This was another the murals, painted by the Prince Rupert artist around town ...

and an eagle.

Speaking of eagles, this was in Prince Rupert. I posted the close-up picture of him earlier but look how big he was from a distance.

The burger place on the ship does an interesting sandwich each day. This pork patty with chorizo, pickled red onions and a couple other toppings was offered on Tuesday. E had it and said the black bun tasted like any regular bun. Kind of strange.

Cindy enjoying a boozy drink and a pretzel.

Lol. This was above a sofa in Sailor Services. We visited that a few times and they answered all of our questions.

Russian Orthodox church in downtown Sitka.

Eagle carving at the Sitka dock.

Last day at sea

We met up with our new Houston friends, E and D for Wednesday morning's speed puzzle challenge. We crushed the competition by putting a 300-piece puzzle together in 20 minutes, We joked that we could have done another puzzle before the second team finished (and we could have) but we didn't want to show off.

E, Cindy and I celebrating the win with our free drinks. D was off to a whiskey tasting.

When we got back to our room our blanket was folded into a heart. Cute.

In the afternoon we joined E outside, wrapped in ship-provided blankets, and enjoyed the fresh air. The waves seemed big (to me anyway).

Such a nice lounging space that we only discovered on Tuesday. It's too bad the rooms don't inclde a floor-by-floor map of the ship.

While we were in the lounging area, we were offered Alaska-inspired bites. E had something with duck, she and Cindy also had a carrot thing. I tried a lemon curd - can't go wrong with dessert.

The menu had some Alaskan drinks including an Alaskan IPA I had. Same company as the beer I had in the tour boat in Sitka.

Then it was time to do some shopping and spend down our "sailor loot." We found some magnets, a T-shirt, nothing too exciting and finished with $2.45 left. Now, to finish off that bar tab... .

We were playing a game of Uno with the kids when our Houston friends stopped by and talked us into particpating in a Family Feud-type game. It was fun but we didn't do well.

They had added a romance oackage to their ship fare so they could board early and had to get a bottle of chmpagne before disembarking. Nathan doesn't even drink champagne so he ordered the bottle, popped it open and let the rest of us drink it.

Cheers!

Scarlet Night

When we got back to the ship Tuesday afternoon, it was all set up for Scarlet Night, the ship's red party. I even brought a red sweater to wear. Some people were wearing some very, very interesting outfits. This red octopus was on the main stairs. It looked even better later when the lights were turned off and it was glowing red.

These fish were lining some of the halls.

E, Cindy and I got some fancy cocktails. We're trying to spend down our bar tab.

We listened to some performers. Therecwere different performanes all over the ship.

This was the sunbsetting around 9:30 p.m.

The back of the ship had red lights so the water looked red. This was taken from a lounge area E showed us. We didn't know it existed.

Even the hallway to our room was lit up red. Cindy and I were back in the room by 10:30 so we probably missed most of the party which was ok by me.

Stopping in Canada

The employees on the ship are amazing. The guy who cleans our room greets us by name (how does he do that?) and we stepped out breakfast and our room was cleaned in the short amount of time we were gone. Cute how he made a V with the blanket when he made our bed.

Our last port was Tuesday when we stopped in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada. We had to sign up to take a tender to shore. Each one holds 200 people comfortably, an employee told me, but in an emergency they could push that to 325.

We had time to explore the town and its shops, of course. E and D found us as we were exploring. We were in Cow Bay so there were cow designs everywhere, including this bench outside of one of the stores.

This picture shows how far put our ship was (not far) but zoom in on the picture and you can see seals sunbathing on those metal bars. We saw this on a short walk with E and D.

Our excursion was "Cow Bay Bites and Brews Walk." The tour guide was a college student who was born and raised in the town. He said he loves when the Virgin ship pulls in because it brings the party people ... and sunny weather which doesn't happen often.

Our first stop was Cowpuccino, a bakery and pot shop.

We were offered a delicious assortment of baked goods - no pot lol.

Our next stop was Dolly's, a seafood shop. By chance, Cindy and I were seated on a bench with the Cowbay Sites and Bites sign right behind us.

They served us clam chowder and cheddar biscuits. I'm not a seafood fan but the chowder was surprisingly tasty and you can't go wrong with a cheddar biscuit.

A local artist had several murals painted theought town. This was at an auto body/machine shop.

This was the entrance to the Sunken Garden in town.

Volunteers take care of all of these flowers. Our guide said it's a community gathering spot and has hosted some weddings.

We passed by two totem poles. He said once a totem pole is erected it's never touches so that's why the paint is faded. When the totem pole is done with its "life" it crumbles back to earth. I was surprised that tidbit wasn't mentioned in Ketchikan when we were learning all about totem poles. Perhaps different ribles habe different rules?

Here's our ship with a cool sculpture in front of it. This was in a park area where we gathered before our final stop - a brewery for a beer and pizza sampling.

Here it is - Wheelhouse Brewing Co.

They led us to an upstairs room and brought out three pizzas. They were all good. Funny, we found out later that E and D ended up at the brewery on their own for lunch. She said they waited a long time for their pizza, probably because the kitchen was getting ready for our geoup and cooking a lot of pizzas.

Cindy spotted this eagle in the bay after our tour as we walked toward more shops. Kind of weird to see one just hanging out.

The shops were cute. Cindy bought a "Wheels on the Bus" type book about hockey - "the pucks on the ice go bonk, bonk, bonk ..." Too cute. We didn't buy this hot sauce.

This was the back of a T-shirt. Tempting but I didn't want (or need) another T-shirt so I took a picture.

The only thing I bought was a box of maple sandwich cookies. One shop was handing out samples and these are individually wrapped so I thought it woild be nice to take one to mu co-workers when I'm back at the museum next week.