Sylvia's Scenario

Because of Grandpa, we are on this cruise with Bruce’s siblings so I want to take a moment to dedicate this blog post to him for his generosity. He has taken us on many, many cruises in the past. But this one is a first. It’s the first without Grandma who passed away in August. She is here in spirit, though, as family members reminisce the many stories about her. Grandpa mentioned at dinner last night how lucky he was to have found her. I’m sure he is thinking of her constantly, as are Bruce and his siblings. Being on this cruise, makes one feel grateful for many things; like Grandpa even having the means to provide this cruise for us. We all have large suites with large balconies. We were amazed when we walked in, champagne ready to pop.  We were soon gathered in Grandpa’s room, partying on his deck as the ship pulled out of port with a few appetizers.  Our rooms came complete with espress...

Bruce completed another 8 mile run with Raven  on beautiful South Beach.  He remembered Bruce, sort of, after they started talking.  Bruce wore his  Raven T-Shirt  that Raven mailed to him after he completed his first run with him. Two years ago, Bruce was runner number 1,942.  Now that Bruce has run with him twice, he is among 1,500 people who have run with Raven more than once.  If Bruce could run with Raven three times, he'd be among 1,000 people out of the 2,500 people who have run with Raven over the past 41 years.  We have noticed that Bruce, or nicknamed "Permission" by Raven, is now listed in Raven's  website  on the map as one of the runners from all over the world who have run with Raven. He is tagged as a runner from Idaho since that's where we lived during Bruce's first run. Bruce does not feel nearly as sore this time as he did two years ago after the run.  Back then, he could barely walk since he usua...

We have returned to South Beach, Florida, after our last cruise two years ago when Bruce first ran with  Raven .  This time, we are going on another cruise so we decided to schedule time in South Beach again so Bruce could run with Raven a second time.  We noticed now that on Raven's  website  you can see that Bruce (or "Permission", as he's known by Raven) is on Raven's map of people from all over the world who have run with him.  We lived in Boise then, so that's where "Permission" is marked. The beach is gorgeous here, as usual.  Above, Bruce is standing at the guard station where Raven begins all his runs.  We were checking things out today as we did our own little walking tour of the Art Deco area of South Beach. Sometimes they have old cars out front that match the building. And sometimes there is a business named after the district. I can just imagine all the parties going on in the 1930's in...

It's time once again to get out my cruise attire for our Caribbean cruise vacation.    It takes longer than you might think to organize cruise clothes if you want to plan properly.  Part of the process is to try everything on to see how it fits and see how things look together since there is a lot of mixing and matching. This time, I took photos of all my outfits so get ready to view lots of cruise poses of myself!  (I'm really taking a leap with this blog post since I usually think I look bad in photos)  Taking photos of outfits actually helped me weed out certain pieces and actually helped me get my clothes organized, which I'm all about these days. I have a lot of "cruise clothes" since we've been on many cruises in the past which means a lot of clothes to try on. Also, summer is my favorite season to dress for so I basically have a lot of summer clothes, period.  I haven't had to buy anything new for this trip since my closet is full of opt...