Rena's IT Girl gift

This is a final IT girl gift for Rena in the Art Venture yahoo group. It was due June 2009.....and she has been SO Patient. I hope she enjoys this little book. Her topic was "Children"



Front cover





Inside front cover



Inside back cover



Back cover

An Artful Voyage with Tim Holtz and Wendy Vecchi - Cabo San Lucas

This is our final day in port before heading home. I Enjoyed Cabo San Lucas the Most of all 3 ports. My reason follows.................. :-)

It is Another Beautiful day as we come into port. We take a "Tender" ashore here where the other ports we just pulled up to the dock. This worked Amazingly Efficiently and was fun.

I loved the docks & all the boats. Our friends Paula & Mal from Orca's Island have a home here and have their boat docked. I couldn't remember the name however, so I didn't visit & leave them a note as I hoped to.

AND, Something Else caught my Eye! Finally...........Jetski's!!!! Warm Sun, Blue Water, and a Jetski! I am in Heaven. :-) With my Limited Spanish I managed to choose from the 100 different sales people offering anything from "waverunners" to ATV tours, to rent myself a waverunner. :-) I don't know if I got a deal or if I got taken, but it was $60 per hour & I rented it for 2 hours. And I had the TIME of my LIFE! I've only been out on a jetski a couple other times and it was in a very calm Lake. The Ocean was a Whole Different Game. WHEEEEE. FLYING over waves and wakes. I Loved it. This was my Favorite adventure of the trip. All by my self. ;-)

I took this picture of myself.

And Somehow, Bev recognized me from the ship and got a couple of pictures of me also. She recognized the orange hat. :-)

I stopped here & there & took some pictures from different places I got to. Once out past the rocks, the ocean swells were bigger & crashing into the shore and the rocks near the beach. FUN! :-)

When I rented the waverunner, I asked to be Sure I would have enough gas for 2 hours. They said SI Senorita, I had enough for more than 2 1/2 hours. And there was a clock on the thing, so I Know I returned at Exactly 2 hours. And my gasoline warning beep thing started going off around 1hr 45 minutes. I Suspect, they thought some silly American old lady was going to putter around slowly in the bay. I pretty much went full throttle the whole time and even quite a ways out in the ocean & along the coast. I'm Happy the Beep didn't mean I was Out of gas. LOL I Did make it back without mishap. :-)

I then took a small boat out the the beach with the same people I rented the waverunner from. I think it was $12 round trip. Something reasonable. I spent the next couple of hours in the water, Wishing I could see where people were renting Kayaks and Snorkeling equipment. Turned out I had my swim goggles with me, so I did a little fish viewing through those. Funny though, if you have ever snorkeled, Instinct is to Breath. But I didn't have a tube to breathe through. LOL I only drank a Little sea water. ;-) And unfortunately, I never did get a chance to kayak. That and doing an ATV tour were the 2 other things I So Wish I had located. But if I had a choice out of the 3, the jetski would have been my Favorite and I did get to do that! :-)

From here we head back home. What a Wonderful trip it was! And I haven't even Begun to post the projects we worked on with Tim & Wendy! That is Probably because I haven't finished them yet. LOL I will add pictures of those as they come along.

This picture leaves me watching from the ship, people still out in the water with their waverunners and I fondly remember my day. I didn't get to see much of Cabo..........but I Did get to see it from the water! :-)

I had never been to any of these locations in Mexico. I spent much time in college in Tiajuana and Ensenada as I lived in Southern California. We took day trips there. Dave & I found & Love Isla Mujeres recently although we haven't been back for over 2 years now. It is Time. And my brother built a home in Puerto Penasco Mexico which we have seen being built but have not yet seen it complete. Out of These 3 locations, I would Love to return to Cabo San Lucas, just for the water activities! I didn't find that in the other cities, but then, they weren't right there where the ship came in, so I suspect I just missed them. I also would love to return to Puerta Vallarta & visit the jungle. NOT the zip line. LOL But the mountains looked intriguing. Mazatlan.........maybe to visit my camera. I don't think we really saw much of Mazatlan really.....between taking jitneys and reading maps that we only got once we got ashore. The thing I would Definately do next time..............is know more about the areas where we dock and Have a Plan. Maximize my time there. :-)

This was a Wonderful experience! I met many new friends and we have all been keeping in touch. Several of us have signed up for the cruise Next October with Tim which will be from New Jersey to Nova Scotia and back in the fall. Should be Beautiful! I'm looking forward to it already. :-)

An Artful Voyage in Mexico with Tim Holtz & Wendy Vecchi - Leaving Puerta Vallarta

We leave Puerta Vallarta around 5 this evening. We decided to enjoy the last of the sun, and some of the various lounges all over the decks. This is Phyllis & Bev.

Phyllis & Bev moved Up a deck.

Me with one of the several Pina Colada's I managed to have on the ship. :-)

An Artsy picture After the Pina Colada. LOL

A few pictures of the Beautiful sunset that night.

On our way to Cabo San Lucas.

An Artful Voyage in Mexico with Tim Holtz & Wendy Vecchi - Still Puerta Vallarta

A couple more bronze statues on our way back to the ship.

I heard someone say there was a beach very near the ship. The wonderful girl who took care of us and our room told me it was just across the parking lot, so Although there was some discussion about me not leaving the ship alone...........I did. :-) I spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach just beyond the white hotel. There were chairs & tables & thatched umbrellas. The water was warm & wonderful. I bobbed around out there for probably 2 hours.

And came back sunburnt, straggly, well searched before reboarding the ship........and Quite Proud of myself for getting to a beach! I LOVE the beach and couldn't Stand the thought of one being so close and I couldn't be On it. :-)

An Artful Voyage in Mexico with Tim Holtz & Wendy Vecchi - Puerta Vallarta

This is our second port on the cruise due to the tropical storm detour. It was a Beautiful day. It reminds me of LA in a way. Maybe the palm trees & much larger streets, traffic, shops. Quite different from Mazatlan. Lots of shops along the sandy beach. Also lots of interesting bronze statues.

This is Me, Phyllis & April.

Me in a Bronze statue chair. :-)

This is a beautiful church and square.

I just Love old bricks. I think this would make great background paper. :-)

We went through the open air market which was near a pretty river.

And This was a hanging bridge. I Thought it would be fun & I'd just bounce on over to the other side. Someone else had a More Bouncy thought & I ended up hanging onto the side to keep from falling. LOL A little more tricky than I thought it was going to be!

And I was Thrilled to find a street vendor selling lime popsicles. :-) My husband and I usually go to Isla Mujeres when we go to Mexico, and this is a favorite thing, a lime popsicle on a hot day. They are Delicious!!

Then on back to the ship.

An Artful Voyage in Mexico with Tim Holtz & Wendy Vecchi-The Ship & Things to Do

First of all, the ship was HUGE. There were Many Many Many things to do and discover. And for anything that was Not included in the price of the cruise, we had our Sea Pass to use like a credit card. :-) One of the Few things I was Familiar with, Using a Credit Card! LOL This even bought me my new camera. :-)

There were 2 different pool areas, one for everyone including families & smokers, another for adults and non smoking. Both had jacuzzi's and bars and many, many people most of the time. We did swim several times and did get into the jacuzzi a couple of nights after meals & classes. Things I never did get to do were miniature golf, ping pong, the Exercise Room which as of day ONE was going to be a Huge part of our time on the ship! Seems Eating took up that time. LOL Hmmm, see a movie, ice skate, play basketball or climb the rock climbing wall (those 2 actually were Not on my list)..........

FOOD most Definately was a BIG part of the cruise. And presented Amazingly. I just loved these carved watermelons as we entered the Windjammer Cafe (the buffet). I lost my pictures of the dining room unfortunately. We ate only 3 meals there mostly due to the 2 hour time it took. However during 2 of those meals, we made friends with Table 300 and are looking forward to sailing with many of them again next October. :-) Stephanie, Andrea, Eileen, Sandra..........I think all have signed up as well as Bev and I. Also there was Barb and Barbara.........Hmmm. I need to get out my list. I have Forgotten again. :-(

This plate was just too funny to pass up. This was what April had for breakfast most Every morning. She Loved those rolls! And the Cookies. I never got a picture of Those.




And the Promenade. I was a little disappointed with the shops here. I thought there would be more general items for sale. Mostly they were bars and selling alcohol. Which I Love. No problem There. LOL But I left my book at home and had hoped to be able to pick up a book to read. They Did have a "library" but I didn't actually end up with time to read anyway. There wasn't really a general store with magazines, etc. that one might have expected. But it was fun to walk through every once & awhile, just to see what was going on.




And of course, get a Tattoo. LOL



We had a balcony room on level 8 which was Wonderful. I talked Bev into calling her husband after we heard about the Tropical Storm we were either going Around or Through. It Felt like we went Through it. I found it actually quite Fun. Seasickness didn't seem to hit me. Although I Did take pills the first few days. Then stopped since I kind of Liked the feel of the ship tossing about. I Did keep up a bit with my email onboard. But I didn't make many calls due to the Cost! I kept my phone off. There was an internet cafe not far from our cabin so I checked in pretty much every day & let Dave (my husband) know we were fine in the storm & our change of port plans.

One thing I had Imagined WAS..........having a glass of wine on our balcony in the early evening before dinner. Kind of what I do at Home, but without a balcony Or a Ship! LOL But NO..........That was one of the Hardest things I ever had to try to figure out! I bought a wine package with a bottle of wine for each night for Bev & I (although I found, Bev doesn't drink much..........I had to have it all for myself. LOL). But it was a GAME trying to get that bottle of wine to the cabin! They wanted to bring it at dinner only. They would Not bring it to the room. I Could however, have a glass with dinner, then drag an Open bottle back to my room. Quite elegant. ;-) I did do that a couple of times, but mostly ended up Enjoying Sharing wine with our table. In order to have my wine ON our Balcony, I ended up just going down & getting a glass at one of the Numerous bars before dinner. It just seemed the balcony was made for that. :-)



We Did go in & play Bingo once. That was Fun, other than the most Irritating MC. LOL I can see why they might want someone to lead it and have some personality, but they should have asked Tim! He would have given the whole thing Class. This unfortunate guy...........gave it quite the opposite. LOL But we had fun playing. Didn't win, but had fun. :-) Oh & This is Bev & April.




And Wooo Hoooo.........Air Hockey!!!! We even hit the teen agers room & played some games! April & I got into a couple of pretty Good games! We left it at 1 to 1. We need a Playoff sometime in the future! Another night we also went to the Game Room & played a game called "Apples to Apples" which also was much Fun. Lots & Lots of things to do!

And Bev, rocked the Air Guitar and..............I'm not sure What the other machine is. They had lots of games in the arcade room. :-)

And of Course.............Classes with Tim & Wendy! This is me, Jacqui and Chris with Tim. I have known Jacqui and Chris for several years now on a mutual art swap yahoo group. What Fun it was to get to meet them along with Loretta, Carol & Lai Sie (I should Check the spelling here, but if I leave a blog post, I seem to loose it, so my apologies if I have misspelled names here).

Next post, Puerta Vallarta.