Today we were docked in Dominica. We had a river tubing excursion that was a lot of fun. We drove on a bus up into the hills and got on tubes (with ridiculous helmets and life vests) and floated down the river. The water level was low, so there was plenty of excitement in rapids and rocks that could be bounced into. We had a blast, and my experiences in tubing on the Prairie River in Merrill growing up definitely helped here. There were a lot of people just strewn throughout the river stuck on various rocks and in places where water wasn’t flowing, but we managed to avoid most of that and had a great time.

We are on Holland America for the first time, and the cruise line offers a few nice things that are new to us. The first is that each room has a DVD player and they provide a pretty comprehensive selection of DVDs that can be delivered, which is great, since we don’t usually go to the shows each night. The second nice thing is that to go along with the movies, they offer a “Ship Flicks” package of food – 4 sodas, 3 snacks (Snickers, Twix, chips, pretzels, etc..), 2 bowls of mixed nuts, a bucket of ice, and 2 packs of popcorn, all for $10, which in the cruise world is a smoking deal. Also, each afternoon they drop off a door hanger for breakfast, and you can pick what you want delivered, and at what time – fruit, juice, muffins, yogurt, and all sorts of other stuff. Very convenient, especially on days when we have shore excursions right away in the morning. Saves a lot of time having to elbow old people out of our way to get to the buffet.

Yesterday we hung out in our cabin a lot. This is the first cruise where we’ve had a balcony, and we are definitely using it as much as we can. It’s great to be able to just open a door and step outside to read or get some sun. Julie and I agree that we like this better than we expected to. Last night we dined at the specialty restaurant on ship – the Pinnacle Grill. We weren’t as impressed by the specialty restaurant on this ship as we have been with similar restaurants on other ships. Service was slow and overly “showy”. The food was, of course, very good, but we’ll probably just stick to the dining room from here on in. The food in the dining room is much better than what we’ve had on other cruise lines, so that’s an easy trade off. We’ve also enjoyed spending time reading and playing Scrabble in the library, although, as you can tell from the picture, the Scrabble set they have is a hodge-podge. This is what I am blaming for my losses the last two days.

Today we had our first on shore day, in St. Maarten. We had a shore excursion right away at 8:30, only about 10 minutes after the ship was docked. We were driven to the highest point on the island. We got a lot of interesting history about the island, which is actually split into French and Dutch sides, each with different currencies, laws, and culture. After we got to the top of the peak (about 1400 ft. above sea level), we hiked down through the rain forest (Buddy included), hearing all about the history of the island and it’s various exports in the past – sugar, salt, rum, etc…

We got dropped back off at the pier and stumbled across a patisserie right by the boats, so we treated ourselves to some macarons and spent the afternoon relaxing on the balcony.

Couldn’t ask for a better day!

http://player.vimeo.com/video/18288156

The spread of fireworks

Rockets!

Splash it up!

On Tuesday morning we were up and ready to go when the parks opened.  Justin and I spent the morning in the “Wild Water Dome” where the large wave pool was located.  The dome was also really nice, as the roof was all glass, letting plenty of sunlight in.  As John, Sarah, Luke and Cheyanne joined us, we all decided to explore the other water parks, which included quite a hike to the other end of the resort.  A few tube rides and the lazy river were enjoyed, including some additional time in the wave pool, and by early afternoon we were hungry and tired (and it started to get more and more crowded with Spring Breaking families).  We changed, had a relaxed lunch at Uno’s Chicago Grill, and then headed home.   While we had a great time playing and swimming and sharing the time with family, we all agreed that the Kalahari in the Dells was the better of the two resorts, as the water park is larger and all in one place, and a bit easier to get around.

Thanks, John and Sarah, for this fun get-away!

Today, in the “Les Halles” challenge, I made “soupe au pistou”, which is vegetable soup with pesto in it.  There was a lot of prep work that had to go into this, including slicing garlic, an onion, tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, a leek, and a fennel bulb.  The vegetables were all sweated down and simmered with a bunch of chicken stock.

Next, elbow noodles and beans were added and cooked.  Finally, at the end, pesto was mixed in to give it some extra “pizzazz”.  I cheated a bit on the pesto.  Julie had a bunch frozen that I used instead of making my own.  The end result was still really good.  Not quite as good as the onion soup, but, in my opinion, way better than the fungus soup from yesterday.  This recipe made a lot, so some went to the Kings.  I am interested to hear if it gets better or worse overnight.

I will be the first to admit that I am not a fan of mushrooms.  This is something I am trying to overcome, but I am thinking it will take more time.  Today I made mushroom soup.  This soup is made from butter, an onion, a heaping pile of mushrooms, and a little bit of sherry.

It was cooked down for an hour and then blended in the food processor until “smooth”.  I tried a bite and decided that my “soup” tonight was going to be Frosted Mini-Wheats.   Julie assured me that the soup was actually good, but I will just have to take her word on it, since I wasn’t going to try more than the bite I had.