Life before facebook

I've noticed that I seldom update this blog now because I've joined faceboook. Just doesn't seem to be enough time for both. So many of the photos I sued to upload here, I now upload there.

More pics of our awesome cruise!

These photos are of the outside pool area at the top deck of the cruise ship. Amazing!

These are of the enclosed glass-ceiling Solarium (pool area at the top deck of the boat.) We spent a lot of our relaxing time here reading. I read the entire "Tipping Point" book by Gladwell. Good stuff.

Some Pics from our trip

The top two photos are of the formal dining room where we had our evening meals served by our own waiters Manny (Philipines) and Lawrence (Romania). You could have as many entrees as you wanted and desserts etc. We ordered from the menus which were different each night. (Our other meals were held buffet style in another area. Again with an abundance of options.) The bottom three photos are of the Centrum in the center of the boat. It was circular and went up 11 decks. The elevators were glass and so you could see out all the time. Everything shined and glistened. There was a band or duo or trio always there to entertain, play music and people danced as they felt like it. A really cool spot. More pics later

Our Cruise

Here are some of photos from our cruise. One of the ship we were on, one of Dee and me during the cruise, and one of our World Ventures Group who were on this awesome trip to Nova Scotia for 6 days.

Virtual Tour of our Cruise Ship

We're beginning to look forward to our upcoming cruise in just one week. We've never been on a cruise before. I thought I'd look up the ship we'll be on and I was blown away! It's one of the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines newest ships - Jewel of the Seas. Here's a virtual tour if you'd care to check it out. Little did I realize what a great deal we got! You may have to select, copy and paste this link, but it's well worth it!http://www.royalcaribbean.com/multimedia/virtualTour/ship.do;jsessionid=0000OC7H0bJ3LEnzQNzSvlXlEU6:12hbioan0?shipClassCode=RD

Mission Vison "Cranberry Days of Caring" Project

This weekend was a busy one. On Friday I went with some of the Bogmeisters in support of ht eCranberry Days of Caring. Our community service project was the repair of used eyeglasses for use by an eye doctor who is going to Ghana to help people there with vision problems. He'll do surgeries, and also test people's eyes to see if they need glasses. If they do, he'll give them prescription glasses that are appropriate for their vision needs. We repaired (aligned and cleaned and recorded the lens powers of hundreds of glasses during our brief four hour "service time."

Here are some photos of our time there.

I've also been learning more about Facebook and trying to learn how to get the most out of it. I'm continuing to work my online travel business as a "Leisure Travel Consultant" and look forward to being a "product of the product" as we get ready for our Dream Trip Cruise to Nova Scotia later this month. Can't wait!

Penn's Colony Festival

Well the last two weeks of September find the Bogmeister chorus setting up shop at the Penn's Colony Festival in Saxonburg, PA. Evidently it's been happening for a very long time. It's like a village of shoppes where people have colonial items and all the vendors (including us) dress in colonial garb for two weekends.

We were fortunate to be asked to take over a "booth, which is really a small permanent hut" called the "Turkey Foot Inn". We sell turkey drumsticks for $5. They are smoked and cooked and then frozen. We heat them up to a hot temperature for serving. We serve them with a square of tin foil and people hot the turkey leg in one hand and gnaw at it. Also on our menu was beef sticks (cheesy, hot and regular beef), we sold three varieties of cheese (smoked swiss, smoked cheddar, and a Kojak. We had root beer, mulled and cold cider and bottled water.

This was all done to raise $ so we can purchase music, bow ties, other uniforms and accessories, and pay the music royalties to the music arrangers for arranging our music, as well as for advertising. We're all volunteer and we have expenses. This will go a long way to help us stay solvent as we share our gift of music with the community. Plus it is lots of fun.

My costume for colonial days was that of a padre. It seems I had a cassock (like a monks robe with hood etc.) that was given to me when I entered the Air Force. Even though I wasn't Catholic, they still gave them to all the chaplains. It's beige linen weave and looks great. I wore a cross with it. (I looked for a hat to match, but no luck yet this year.) Here are some photos (I'm not in these)of our time there the first weekend.