Hello Monday ~ Hello Monday/Victoria - September 28, 2026

 Happy Monday!  My weekend was low key, but good.   Today's post is a quick recap and you guessed it, one more last post from my vacation last month.

Friday was a fun day when I subbed with a friend of mine in P.E. at a lower elementary school with ages 3-3rd grade.  It was a fun day!  That night, Jen and I got dinner at Tazikis and then hung out at my place afterwards.

After doing some lounging and cleaning Saturday morning, Jen came over and we went to a cute square in the city where a lot of my family lives.  There was a festival with booths, food and music.  We stopped by my favorite sourdough place there and then went to see a lot of my greats.  It was so fun for Jen to meet them since clearly they are a huge part of my life. Speaking of greats, I had a new great niece born on Saturday!  Yep, this is number 14 in total.  My sister has 12 grandchildren and now my brother has 2.  The newest one lives in Richmond, Virginia so I have been getting pictures and they are precious.

I cooked dinner and we watched the movie "Breadwinner" on Netflix. 

Sunday, I walked to church, spent the afternoon catching up at home and went back to church Sunday night for a dinner fellowship.

Okay, switch gears with me please to a day at sea!  Our last day on the ship was spent at sea.  We spent some time at a dance lesson, gazing at the water and looking at whales.  

One more lunch at the buffet, which was always good with so many choices

We ate an early dinner and went back to a restaurant we went to on day 4  of the cruise (this was day 6).  Our waiter, Donaldson, was so cute and funny.  We all laughed so much with him and our signature hand signal was "clock it"! I was insistent that we be seated again at his table :).

We got off the ship for a few hours to walk around Victoria, Canada. The bottom picture was taken after we walked back to our ship.  The girls did the chicken dance behind this sign which I have on video and it was hilarious.  It still makes me laugh so much and was such a fun night to wrap up the cruise.  

When you get off the ship in Victoria, you can take a shuttle into the town or walk the 1.5 mile into town.  We chose to walk both ways and so glad we did.  We had plenty of time and was able to see some other areas as we walked the easy walk. Below is the famous Empress Hotel.

The flowers were beautiful.  Do you see the Welcome to Victoria in flowers by the water's edge?

Below is the Parliament building

We all finished up the rest of the night packing and mentally gearing up to return to the real world the next morning. Disembarkation was so easy and we had a driver to take us from the port back to the Seattle airport.  We said our goodbyes there.  Isabella left on different flights and I haven't seen her since that day.  It is hard when your kids don't live close! Brook and I flew on the same flights back home. 

She and I had a 3 hour layover in Los Angeles.  Since we were doing a lot of sitting that day, we decided to walk the entire airport.  We walked for an hour and had been used to doing this on vacation, so it felt good to move in between flights.

This plane was huge!!  It is probably the biggest I had ever seen.  This was headed from Los Angeles to the middle east.

Last sight of an Alaskan Airlines flight for a while probably

We grabbed dinner at CAVA and boarded our flight LA to Memphis.  Thankfully, we had Delta Comfort on our flights and even a seat open between us on this flight.

We arrived into Memphis a little after midnight and was greeted by this sign.  It was Elvis week in Memphis, so this is not a normal welcome sign.  Brook's boyfriend picked us up and took us home that night.

I woke up the next morning and noticed my car in my garage had a flat tire.  Back to real life!

My goal was to finally finish my trip posts prior to October, so this concludes the highlights!  Again, this was a trip that I had booked for over a year, dreamed about for years and planned within the last 2 years.  It was so much more than a trip for me.  It was a life changing, life giving vacation experience.  I am so, so thankful and I will never forget this.  Thank you for following along and below are the post links to have them in one place:

 Day 1 - Traveling/Exploring to Vancouver

Day 2 - Exploring Vancouver

Day 3 - Sea to Sky Highway/"Virgin River"....My Favorite Day!

Day 4 - Whistler

Day 5 - Amtrak: Vancouver to Seattle

Days 6 & 7 - Bainbridge Island/Seattle

Days 8 & 9 - Celebrity Edge

Day 10 - Ketchikan

Day 11 - Juneau

Day 12 - Skagway

Today's post is Days 13 & 14

Thanks for reading and enjoy your day!

Hello Monday ~ September 21, 2026

 Good morning friends!  Life kept me busy the end of last week, so I missed blogging for a few days.  I hope you all had a good weekend!  I am recording today a little recap of last week and the weekend.  

I spend a little time each week with my mom while my dad is teaching a course at the medical school.  I took this picture last week when I was there which sums up my dad so accurately:  his bible and an anatomy book!  The only thing missing from this is a book on travel, which is also a passion of his.  My father has been an anatomy professor for his career and still teaches classes from time to time like he is doing this fall.  

Tuesday morning I waited online in a que to to score Harry Styles tickets.

My daughter started her full time job last week so I had a celebratory dinner to celebrate her, Wade's birthday and scoring Harry Styles tickets! I ordered the brisket from a local restaurant bringing Texas brisket to Tennessee. I served it with roasted veggies, roasted potatoes, sourdough and key lime pie for dessert.

Wednesday night, I started our fall bible study with some ladies from my church.  We are studying the book of Habakkuk.  This is all about how do we praise the Lord even when life is hard? What does it mean to trust God when life doesn't go as planned? This is a short book to read to remind us of God's faithfulness in confusing, hard times.

Thursday night I attended a Mahjong night with work.  It is held at a beautiful home in town.  Here are just a few snapshots:

I worked 12 hours this day, so therefore, there was no Friday blog.  I was completely exhausted.  I worked from home Friday and spent the day at home and it was glorious.  I did leave for a bit to join Jenn for dinner then we came back here to watch a movie.

Saturday, I walked outside and then spent the day inside watching some football and doing random things.  I went to Jenn's that evening for about an hour for a short visit with her and friends.  Then I came home to watch the Ole Miss/LSU football game.  It was the biggest rival game of the weekend.  Go Rebels! So glad they won!

Sunday was low key and here we are at another Monday.

Have a great start to your week!

Hello Monday ~ Ketchikan/ September 14, 2026

Good morning.  I hope you are doing well with the start of a new week.  I am joining today with Hello Monday with a quick weekend recap and then finally a post on our first Alaskan port from the cruise. 

I am counting last Thursday night as a part of the recap where I joined Jenn and some friends at the movie to see Practical Magic 2.  It was a fun night, cute movie and such a cool theater. 

Friday night, I joined Jenn and and these lovely ladies to celebrate their birthday.

Now on to our Alaska!  After our first day at sea, the next day we finally had our first sight of Alaska!

Our first port was Ketchikan. We walked this city and did some local shopping instead of any excursions.

This is a super popular place to eat, but we did not eat here. It is listed on all the Ketchikan travel pages. The line was long!  We just got a drink at a coffee shop and ate back on the ship.

Creek Street is the local shopping area of Ketchikan.

This sign made me laugh, as this place was called the Sourdough Bar & Liquor Store.

We got back on the ship and I loved taking this picture of my girls looking for wildlife.  Having binoculars was fun to use on the cruise!

From our room, we were able to see a plane land at the local airport, which I thought was cool.

That night after dinner, I enjoyed a mocktail strawberry daquiri, which was included with our drink package.  It was a good drink and I had another one on another day.

As we were walking around the ship that night, we saw our cruise director and it was fun to get a picture with him.

We loved our first day with our feet touching the ground in Alaska!

How was your weekend?