Vacation! (Part 2)

In my last post, I showed you the first 3 days of our Viking Rhine Getaway River Cruise. In this post I will share the next 2 days. On Monday we docked in Braubach, Germany. We started our day with a tour of Ehrenbreitstein Fortress.

 The tour was conducted by a guide who took on the persona of a English spy living at the fortress. 

The size of the fortress was quite impressive. 

So were the views of Koblenz from the top of the fortress.

We spent the afternoon sailing the Rhine on our way to Rudesheim. There were pretty towns, castles and vineyards along the way.

At night we once again had dinner off of the ship. We dined in Rudesheim and enjoyed dinner and music in the sweet little town. 

Tuesday found us docking briefly in Mannheim and then sailing on to Speyer. We were taking a tour of the gardens of Schwetzingen Palace. These gardens were spectacular. 

All very formal, but with walkways off to the side to take you to various statues.

 The intricate design on the ground above is actually a birdbath. There were fountains also.

There was also a small open air ampitheater that was quite beautiful.

The "temple" at the top had a beautiful statue and ceiling.

This night we enjoyed dinner and trivia on the ship. Our team came in 2nd place in trivia and won a box of Lindt chocolate that we all shared.

There are still two more days for me to post about, but I am very slow with uploading the photos to my computer. There are a lot of photos and I am labeling them as I upload them.

I  hope you enjoyed this second installment of our vacation.

Thanks for visiting!

Craft update

 I still have to write the second vacation post, but I haven’t uploaded all the photos yet. You can see the first vacation post here. I decided to write a short crafting post instead. My travel craft didn’t get all that much attention. We were too busy and I was reading on the flights. This is how Cinnamon House currently looks. 

Since we’ve been home, I’ve finished the stitching and beading on Charming Santa. 

Assembly will be next. My least favorite part. 

I’ve finished quilting another Block of Having A Ball and I’m almost finished with the pale pink block that you can see. 

When that is done I will have 12 of the 36 blocks quilted.

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching and Frederique at the Quilting Patch. Make yourself some tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Vacation! (Part 1)

Hubby and I were in Europe for 8 days last week! We went on the Rhine Getaway Viking River Cruise! Oh what a great vacation it was. We flew in to Amsterdam on Friday, June 20th. Viking staff met us at the airport and we were on our long boat the Viking Eir by lunchtime. Thankfully our room was ready so we freshened up, enjoyed a buffet lunch and then set out to explore a little bit of the city near the dock.

By Saturday, the boat had traveled to Rotterdam where we got off for our Dutch Cheese Making and Kinderdijk Windmill tour. The cheesemaking was interesting. We were a little put off by the production aromas, but the cheese was tasty. Hubby and I got our picture taken with one of wheels of Gouda cheese. 

There was also a small store where the locals refill their milk bottles and buy cheese.

We toured the farm where the cows live that produce the milk. The farmer offered a wealth of information. There were a lot of cows.

There were even some newborns. 

Once our tour of the farm was done, our group set off for the Kinderdijk Windmills. It was wonderful to see these windmills in person.

They are extremely small inside. 

Sunday morning we took a tour of Cologne, Germany. There were plenty of sights to see including the Cathedral. 

It is a pretty city. 

In the very hot afternoon, we took a tour of the Bruhl UNESCO Palaces. This is the Augustusburg Palace. 

The Entrance Hall was quite ornate.

Most of the rooms were also. This one is covered in blue and white tile. 

It was 104 degrees this day, yet there were brides having their photos taken in the gardens.

 

We also saw the nearby Falkenlust Hunting Lodge.

It was also extremely ornate inside.

This was a small temple on the grounds.

This was the busiest day for us as we also had tour of Cologne's Beer Culture and a dinner off of the boat. We had a traditional Beerhaus dinner with Kolsch, the local beer. Afterwards we visited two other beerhauses to sample other Kolsch brands. 

I don't usually drink beer (I don't really like it), but I had a .2L glass at each stop. Our guide ordered a 5L tube that we could serve ourselves. 

We had a wonderfully fun night.

That is the first installment of our 8 day cruise. As soon as I upload more photos, there will be another installment. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Stitch Along Update Once Again

 After the small happy dance of three weeks ago, I have added a decent amount of stitches. This is where Three Boats on a Tropical Beach was for the last update.

This is where it is now.

I have made it to the bottom of the third boat and have added some sand below the second boat.  

This Stitch Along is hosted every three weeks by Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea who kindly sends us the needed posting reminders. 

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. There is a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world, so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post.  

Avis, Claire, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,

 Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, 

Cathie, Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen

Thanks for stopping by!

Some stitching and gardening

Happy Father's Day for all those wonderful fathers in our lives!

 I have finally planted some flower pots for my front porch and back deck. It is about time I think. When I went to the local nursery they had a somewhat sparse selection of flowers. I always put geraniums on my front porch steps.

 They do well there. 

I filled one hanging pot myself this year. I had saved the pretty pot from last year just so I could fill it this year. It is a smaller pot than what I have been able to find lately, which I like. There are a couple of other pots on display. They will fill in as the summer goes on.

I have a tiger lily that is in bloom.

My Kousa dogwood really put on a show this year.

So did the astilbe.

There are now 9 blocks quilted on Having a Ball. I have started marking the tenth block. There were a few days where I just wasn't interested in working on it lately.

Charming Santa's face and beard have all the beading done now.

 I have almost completed the minimal cross stitching on his hat. 

Most of this is beads.

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching, Frederique at the Quilting Patch and Alycia at Quilty Girl. Make yourself some tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

A birthday trip and some crafting

 If I didn’t comment on your blog last weekend, it’s because I was in California and was a little busy enjoying my two grandchildren. We traveled so Hubby could meet our new granddaughter and we could celebrate our grandson’s 2nd birthday. Here are a few pics. The birthday boy had some fun with his dad in the local park.

Grammy and Grandpa got some cuddles with our new granddaughter who will be 3 months old soon.

 We had a wonderful time. 

It is finally getting warm here. Our pool was opened on Friday. Here’s the view from our living room of the pool and our new outdoor dining set.

I have done a little bit of crafting over the last two weeks. Charming Santa’s face has almost all of his beading done.

 

I have crocheted 16 of 221 granny squares. This is my TV watching craft.

 There is no timetable for its completion. 

Two more blocks have been quilted on Having a Ball. 8 out of 36 have now been quilted. 

The teal green block is the next one to be quilted.

Hubby and I went for a walk after dinner and found this little fledgling robin sitting on Hubby's car as we went out. 

By the time we returned it was no longer there, but the parents were flying around so it must have been in the flower bed. Later on I saw it on the fence on the side of our house with one of the parents. It could fly a little bit. The parents were watching so we just left it alone.

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching, Frederique at the Quilting Patch and Alycia at Quilty Girl. Make yourself some tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by!