Cruising

My husband and I tried something new last week - we went on a cruise to Alaska.

This trip was taken with several of my husband's family, making us a group of eleven.  My sister-in-law and her husband are the only ones to have been on cruises before in the Gulf of Mexico, and none of us have ever been to Alaska.  It was a week of new experiences all around.

My husband and I flew out to Seattle a day early so we could see some of the city before we sailed.  We spent Saturday doing a lot of walking, trying to see as much as possible in the time we had.  That was fun! We spent some time in Pike's Place at the fish market and the shops down there.  We took a picture of the original Starbucks from outside for our daughter (there were so many people we couldn't go inside) and stopped at a couple more for coffee.  They really are everywhere up there!  They make great places to stop and rest for awhile. 

Everyone else arrived Saturday evening. We all stayed at the same hotel so we could all go together to the ship on Sunday.  It is quite a challenge to organize even that many people to be ready to go at the same time.

I'm very glad that tatting is so portable.

You notice how dressed up I am?  My husband and I figured we were going to Alaska so we would dress comfortably and fit right in :-)

I couldn't think of any patterns I wanted to work on during the trip so I just made sure I had a some thread and several shuttles.  I didn't tat a whole lot for the first few days - there were so many things to do on the ship!  But I had it with me all the time.

To start with I decorated a few buttons and did an short edging to put on the card holder on my lanyard.  I wore this all the time on the ship.  It had my room key, tatting, crochet hook and scissors, the schedule of events on board for the day, receipts, a pen and cash for when we went ashore.  You see that it was the last day of the cruise before I realized I didn't have a picture of it.