Provence

Our first stop on the M/S Sirena was Provence (Marseille), France. And we got right into the rhythm of the trip: enjoy a wonderful breakfast on board looking out at the new location, head out on a land excursion, and get back in time for lounging around, high tea, happy hour, and dinner. What a life!

This was a Van Gogh day! Or as our guide kept saying, Van Gog. (That's not to be critical, just got a giggle. Our guides for the entire trip were generally fantastic.)

The town we started in was Saint-Rémy, an ancient Roman town. In it is the Monastery Saint-Paul de Mausole where Van Gogh was treated from 1889 to 1890. Today's outing also included the Carrières de Lumières in Les Baux-de-Provence. It was a magical art show inside a huge cave system where all the images were projected onto the cave walls. C'est fantastique!

All the day's photos are here.

Van Gogh's room at the monastery.

Carrières de Lumières

Rob and Vickie at a little cafe in Les Baux-de-Provence.

A string quartet was with us the entire boat cruise.

Lynn and one of her best artsy buds.

Barcelona

This post is about our days in Barcelona, ending with boarding the ship. It was during this period that I lost quite a few pictures somehow in the process of trying to copy them to a USB stick for back up. Among other things we visited was the Gaudi House and Museum for which the pics are gone.

Turns out most of our time in Barcelona was all about Gaudi, including much of what we ran into around town. We visited the Sagrada Família (pictured below), a basilica he designed and started in 1882, and is still being finished today. Fascinating story, and even more fascinating basilica. It's definitely not like your typical basilica. Get tickets ahead of time online: https://sagradafamilia.org/

All the photos from these Barcelona days are here.

We stayed at a great place that Paul Hess found: Gallery Hotel. It was right in the best spot for us to explore Barcelona a bit (up a ways from the main tourist area by the water). Another cool spot turned out to be Dry Martini. A watering hole, actually.

Dry Martini

By the end of the day on the 11th we were aboard ship and took advantage of one of the specialty restaurants on board: The Red Ginger.

Red Ginger

Ryan at Seven Falls

Ryan visited Fina for a few days this weekend. So among the many things that happened, including seeing Fina in Little Shop of Horrors, was a trip to Seven Falls.

Little Shop of Horrors

DCC High School Theatre
Directed by A. Keating
Serafina: Skip Snip, Ensemble
October 3-5, 2019

Homecoming Dance

Fina's first Homecoming Dance...

Pikes Peak Air Show

I took the three older boys to the Pikes Peak Air Show today. AJ was worried he'd be bored. He wasn't! Really a fabulous airshow. We were all chatting very excitedly on the way back to the car after 4 hours on concrete in the full sun having a great time. All of the performance shows were great, but by far the best was the F-22 demo. I've not seen fighters do some of that stuff before. And it was not shy about flying close, overhead, from behind, whatever. And the best part of the F-22 show was when a P-38 joined it for a heritage flight. The two flew in formation for several minutes, buzzing the crowd (thousands of people) which was whoopin' and hollerin'. The minute AJ got in anything he began running scenarios, dialogue and all. Sam took a couple of these pics.

AJ busts out with, "Look! Chiari!"

F-22 and P-38

Under the B-17

B-17

F-7 Tigercat

B-25

DCC Homecoming: Thunder wins 35-21

It was an all-play outing to the Homecoming Game (except for Matt who was in Brazil). Fina blew past us once or twice, but spent most of her time yelling and screaming in the student section. Yelling about what we don't know as she said she didn't really ever watch the game. Over in our world we were having a blast. Particularly the twins, and particularly Jonny. He practically belly-laughed his way through the entire game. Never really knew what tickled him so. It was very hard to get a picture of him as he was moving so much. Turned out to be a little chillier than we thought, so some of the kids got some new Thunder-Wear.

I doubt he could even tell you he was at a football game. But he did
notice the cheerleaders and wanted his picture taken with them.

The high school choir sang the national anthem.