Princess' Birthday Cake

My favorite daughter is celebrating her 25th b'day on Feb 21st. My son-in-law is hoping to pull off a surprise party for her at his grandmother's in Roswell, tomorrow night. I was asked to make the cake. Making a cake suitable for a 2 hr. car ride is tough! DD loves daisys. Bright colored daisys. Making her a book cake that included Gerberas seemed the obvious solution. The little round pedestal is for a Precious Moments I purchased last summer in Missouri.The down side? The Precious Moments has a heart on it. No daisys. Guess I didn't get the theme to work out very well. The PM does mention "princess" so I guess that part worked out okay.

Jo won't notice or care. The guys (Bill & Travers) voted no leaves.

Our DD may be the queen of Richard's heart but she'll always be our princess.

BTW, one side is strawberry the other is chocolate. His family prefers chocolate.

The guys in our family prefer anything but chocolate.

Chocolate Buffet

Chocolate, anyone?

Norwegain offers a Chocolate Buffet from 11 p.m. - midnight one night of each cruise. In most csaes, it's a Thursday. Imagine walking into a room with subdued lighting and THIS is the first thing you see??!! All chocolate!!!!We arrived a little early and was able to watch the staff setting up.

I'm glad we did! Once it opened and the crowds arrived, forget it!

We feasted on chocolate filled eclairs, cakes, chocolate covered fruits, cookies, brownies... the list goes on and on and ON!!! They even had 2 chocolate fountains:

one milk chocolate and one white chocolate.

Please, don't ask what my blood sugar was the next day.

I will say I'm back under control. :-)
Good thing it wasn't a 14 day cruise.

Chocolate Lighthouse

Chocolate King Tut

...and a couple of impressive ice sculptures. Someone asked what they do with the

ice after it melts. DUH!

Roatan

Roatan was our first stop on the cruise. Our ship was "tethered" a few miles out to sea and we used the lifeboats to go onshore. Each one is supposed to hold up to 90 people. From 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. people were ferried back and forth to the shore. They did have a pier suitable for docking but another cruise liner was docked there.The man in the white shirt facing the camera was there to help us salely climb inside. They had people in and outside the craft helping us along.
It was a different experience for us but definately fun! You can see the tourist village in the pic below. They keep all their tourist attractions all cleaned up and nice looking.

Entertainment in the village. We enjoyed it. It was brutally hot that day (to me!) mid 80's and very humid. MISERABLE!

This is a pic taken behind the tourist village. It's the fenced in area/ security check-points. You have to remember, this is a 3rd world country. Security is tight.

We saw a lot of bicycles, mototcycles and 4-wheelers. Don't recall price of gas but I'm sure it wasn't cheap. Most of their gas comes from Venezuela (sp)

A glimpse of homes on the left and security check-points to the right.

We didn't stay on shore long. Honestly, I was hot and miserable. I wanted back in the comfort of an airconditioned ship!

Costa Maya

Thar' she is!!! The Norwegain Jewel!

She was a beautiful ship and we had a great time.

We never saw a single pirate in this part of the Carribean :-)

Costa Maya, Mexico was one of our last stops on the cruise. We didn't take any tours or wander into the city. This was a location where a couple of our fellow cruisers broke legs on the zip-line. Above, is a picture of one part of the tourist village, including a few of the shops. It was all designed to entice tourists. There was even a big pool with a bar near-by. No Pepsi. Only Coke products. :-( I'll try to add a few captions for the pics .

We never agreed on what these were but they looked interesting. Figs maybe?

A pic of the Tequila Museum. Everyone had to drive or walk through a checkpoint to get here. We were told it was more of a store than a museum. Regardless, it didn't interest me.

We didn't take many pics of the shops but maybe this helps explain why it was a tourist village. The pic below is of a bar located near a pool in the middle of the complex. Okay. I admit it. I have blonde roots but people kept talking about the "underwater bar" people could sit at. I was/am clueless!

Each port we stopped at was geared specifically towards tourists. If you left the immediate area, it was recommended you travel in a group, preferably with one of the tour groups. The currency was Pesos- after all we were in Mexico. They had no problem, no problem at all, accepting our American dollars and giving change in American dollars. In contrast, when we were in Prince Rupert, British Columbia (Canada) in Sept, they would accept out dollars but change had to be in Canandian currency. Hmmm...

Stay tuned tomorrow for some pictures of Roatan or maybe the Midnight Chocolate Buffet on the cruise. A 3ft. tall chocolate Eiffel Tower! Mmmm Mmmmm Good!

Belize City

Sorry. This post is all out of sequence. Just try to skim through my notes below. For some reason, I can't seem to cut and paste. Sorry!!!!


Every citizen of Belize is given a plot of land on which to build a home. Most people build as they live. Interest rates to buy materials is too high for most people to afford. Weekly salaries are $75 a week. Most of the homes in Belize City are built on stilts. It helps to keep the creepy crawly critters out. Some of the homes had no doors or windows. Many of them had clothes hanging outside to dry. Gas was over $4 a gallon! Our $2.69 won't seem as bad next week.

The Mayan Ruins. See more of an explanation below. Sorry I got these out of sequence.

This is a pic to the entrance of the ruins. The country cannot afford to do any excavation (is that the correct word???) work themselves. If they let someone else come in and do it, Belize has to let the other country/company keep any artifacts.

We are returning from our western Carribean cruise. I was making all these plans for tomorrow but God had a better idea.

Due to fog in Lubbock, we're spending the night in Austin, TX. We're supposed to make it out tomorrow morning, landing in Lubbock at 10 a.m. In the meantime, we're at a Marriott. No luggage. They THINK it's in Houston or maybe even Lubbock. I've trying to visualize it safely in the hands of God and not some airport employee. :-)

In the meantime, here are some pics from Belize. I would love to return someday and stay a few days. They are an English speaking country. Severely poverty stricken!!! The schools are all operated by missionaries. The government gives the churches property for them to build the church and school on. The government does give the churches a small amount of money for the schools. Interesting...Wish I had a few pics of them.

I need to go. More later....

pmb