It's Pink and it's green!

This week is going really fast. It's already Thursday, only 1 more week till Christmas eve. I am sure a lot of people will be posting wonderful yuletide tablescapes so make it a point to visit Susan at http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/ .

I have 3 sets of Christmas dinnerware but I decided to create a pink and green tablescape instead. Our dining room tree adorned with peacocks and pink and green balls and the pink and green table runner I just brought from St. Maarten, served as my inspirations. I love the ruched pink ends of the runner and the raised flowers. Usually, I use this Emma's Garland Spode dinnerware set in the spring but I thought the colors would be perfect for what I had in mind.
Don't you just love those flowers? They are created out of thin silk ribbons and fuschia jewels.
I used green goblets and pink wine glasses. Both have gold scrolls on them.

I moved my etched crystal cloche filled with a gold cherub and a pink and green ball from the kitchen table.

I have a matching vase and tea set in the same Emma's Garland pattern so I used them also. In addition to them, I added my peacock figure which was sitting on the bookshelf and added a green and pink Lladro Christmas bells.

Doesn't the table match the tree?

Silver salt cellars which I will use to serve pepper and the little green and pink ceramic salt cellars for salt

I only have 4 plate chargers in the same pattern so I alternated them with my plain green glittery glass plate chargers. I dug through my linen cabinet and found 8 of these napkins. I thought they match perfectly.

Christmas ball place card holders

I hope you liked my not too traditional holiday table. Thank you for coming. I really appreciate your visits and comments.

Thank you, Susan for this fun event.

Sailing on a Maiden Voyage

I am so glad to be able to participate in Outdoor Wednesday again. Susan of http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com/ is making it possible for us all to share our outdoor photos so to see more, go visit her and her participants.

As most of you know, we just returned from an incredible and amazing maiden voyage aboard Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas. We sailed off from the port of Fort Lauderdale. and stayed at Marriott's the night before to be sure we do not miss the embarkation, in case of any flight delays. These 2 photos is the view from our hotel balcony.

That's Florida alright, lots of palm trees.

I took the next 2 pics while in the shuttle bus as we left for the port and there is the "Beast", according to the bus driver, LOL! Oasis of the Seas is the biggest ship in the world. She is truly majestic!

It is fun to sail on a maiden voyage. Not only is the ship sparkling clean but presents such as hats, bags, photo albums, recipe book, etc. are always awaiting on our bed everytime we go back to the cabin after dinner.
Since this is Outdoor Wed, I would just like to show you the ship's Solarium. It was John's favorite place. It has a big jacuzzi pool with 2 big TV screens on the Sports channel, in addition to a pool and 2 more smaller jacuzzis. It also has a cafeteria so that you can snack or eat your meals there if you want to. They served healthy food here so AJ and I did not really like it and so we did not eat here. LOL! But we tried it once. Can you see how much bigger the Oasis is compared to the other ships? But oh, you can't really see the Oasis, can you? I am taking the picture from one of its solarium's windows, but you get the idea of how high I am shooting the pic from. The oasis has 17 deck floors and I was shooting from deck 15.


They have cabana chairs that rotate and AJ was just enjoying the spin while John turns it for her. Then we just sat there and relaxed while looking out. Not really a nice view cause we have not moved yet and we were facing the parking lot. Exploring the ship was a lot of fun. You meet everybody with cameras.

Hope you enjoyed my little introduction to the most amazing cruise that we have taken. I am posting more pictures for Sightseeing Saturday this weekend so please come back.

Deck the Halls or Rather, The Peacock Room

It's the second week of Susan's Deck the Halls party at http://thoughtsfromovertherainbow.blogspot.com/ . Mary is also hosting Mosaic Monday at http://dearlittleredhouse.blogspot.com/. Lets have fun, get some decorating ideas, and visit them both and all their participants!

I am taking you today to our dining room. We have a bold wallpaper there with birds. I call them birds of paradise but some say they are peacocks. Anyway, it started my peacock obsession since I did not really want to take the time to peel off the wallpaper and replace it. Here's a smaller green tree with green lights.
I adorned it with a few peacock ornaments.
and inserted peacock feathers in it

You probably have seen my snowman ice cream shop keeper on Pink Saturday. I kept it on the dining room buffet with a bigger snowman. Doesn't he look like he is the supervisor with a whip? LOL! That little snowman better do his job right!

Thank you Mary and Susan, for hosting these 2 great parties!

Thank you all for visiting. Please forgive me if I do not respond to comments right away. I am sailing on the Caribbean sea aboard the biggest ship in the world, the new Oasis of the Seas enjoying its maiden voyage! Check out the ship at http://oasisoftheseas.com/, it's huge! If placed vertically, it is higher than the Empire State building; it is larger than Queen Mary 2, it has a
Central Park place, a boardwalk complete with a carousel, 2 rock climbing, zip line, water skiing, 25 shops, etc.

I am posting this in advance. See you soon!

Seaworld in Orlando

I almost missed posting for this week's Sightseeing Saturday because I am cruising away on Oasis of the Seas. But I am committed for this meme so I am posting in advance again. I have to post so many blog entries in advance so I will keep this short.

These pictures were taken at Sea World in Orlando. Here you will see AJ feeding and petting the dolphin.
These are really pretty flamingoes. They are

more orange than pink. How about these penguins? Aren't they pretty?

And here's Shamu, or maybe children of Shamu.

such smart mammals!

And this walrus is humongous!

Hope you enjoyed this short trip for a change. Thanks for coming by. Sorry for not having been visiting but just as I said earlier, I am sailing away and internet on the sea is very, very slow and expensive, so all I do is download messages. I hope you are all having a nice week!

Snowman's Pink Ice Cream Shop and Athens

It's time for another double post, Pink and Sightseeing Saturday. But before I begin, I would like to finally take up Beverly on the challenge of visiting someone new. I hope you will visit Kerri also at http://princessmommychronicles.blogspot.com/. She is new and I think she will be an asset to Blogland. Just look at her contribution to Pink Saturday last week. Isn't this really adorable?

What a busy time of the year! I hope you all had a nice thanksgiving celebration with your families. Now it's time to prepare for Christmas. I had my Christmas decor taken down from the attic and I pulled my Snowman pink ice cream shop to show you for Pink Saturday. Go over at Beverly's at http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/ to see more amazing pinks.

I saw this at TJ Maxx last year after the holidays on a clearance table. You wouldn't believe that I paid $3.00 for it and it is made by Lenox. It is big and heavy. Just look at all the details.

It is now sitting on my buffet in the formal dining room. Not sure yet if it will stay there permanently for the holidays.

Beverly asked that we share childhood memories of a special holiday with you. What I miss the most about Christmas in the Philippines are little children caroling at night outside houses, especially in the provinces. I remember that all they had for accompaniment is a gadget that is home made out of crushed soda bottle caps with a hole punched in the center and then strung together with a wire. They would shake this like a tambourine to make noise to accompany them while they were singing. After they sing, we would give them just a few coins, like 50 centavos and they were happy.

I also miss what we call "Simbang gabi", which is a series of masses at dawn for 9 consecutive days which end on Christmas eve. The mass usually starts at 4 AM. The church bells start ringing at 3 AM to wake people up so they can go to church. I used to always look forward to the vendors waiting outside the church with their delicacies after mass, especially "bibingka", which is a mixture mostly of rice flour, eggs and sugar, wrapped in banana leaves and then cooked in between coal and then topped with shredded coconut. Yum!

Ok, now it's time for Sightseeing Saturday.
Today, I thought we should explore Athens, Greece and focus on Acropolis. Isn't this just a majestic site?

I went there with my youngest daughter Tina, my oldest granddaughter, AJ and my son in law, Scott.

And here's AJ just enjoying the spectacular view.

And who wouldn't enjoy this breathtaking view? It's the bird's eye view of the city of Athens from the Acropolis.

The Parthenon is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, an enduring symbol of ancient Greece. Its construction began in 447 BC and completed in 432 BC. It is a temple of the Greek goddess Athena, who is considered their protector. It was damaged in 1687 by Venetian bombardment. The surviving sculptures, known as Elgin Marbles or Parthenon Marbles were sold to the British Museum in London in 1816. The Greek government has been trying to return them to Greece with no success.The Theater of Dionysus was used to host the City Dionysia Festival. Renowned dramatists of the classical era competed there. The open theater fell into disuse and was later renovated by emperor Nero.

It was announced by Greek authorities that they will partially restore the ruined marble theater, a 9 million project set to be completed by 2015.

According to crestock.com, the Erecthion sits on the most sacred site of the Acropolis where Poseidon and Athena had their contest over who would be the Patron of the city. Poseidon thrust his trident into the rock and a spring burst forth, while Athena touched the ground with a spear and an olive tree grew. Athena was declared the victor and the great city of Athens was named for her while Poseidon was given a small village in Syros after it was discovered he had merely ruptured a water main. (not really).The building itself contains the porch of the maidens or Caryatids which are now copies, four of which have been placed in the Acropolis museum, hopefully to be reunited with a fifth taken from the Acropolis by Lord Elgin and put in the British Museum more than a century ago.

Caryatids are figures used as supporting columns.

Since the end of the 70', the five original Caryatids are displayed at the Acropolis Museum and are replaced in situ by exact replicas. One was sold to the British museum.

This is the original Olympics stadium where games were celebrated from 776 BC to 393 AD. It was uncovered by a German archeologist from 1875-1881. It was here where the first modern Olympics was also held. The Panathinaiko Stadium, also called Kallimarmaron, is located near the heart of Athens, has very impressive marble seats.

Below is the Temple of Olympian Zeus, also known as Olympieion, is located (whatever is left of it) very close to the ancient Olympics stadium. It was dedicated to Zeus, the king of Oylympian gods. It was known to be the largest temple in Greece during the Roman periods. Its glory was shortlived, however, was disused after the barbarian invasion in the 3rd century.

It kinda reminds me of the Windsor Ruins in Mississippi. I hope you enjoyed a little bit of Greek history. Thanks for coming. I am still amazed how they brought all that gigantic and heavy marble to the top of the mountain in the olden days, to build the Acropolis, when there were no machineries invented yet.

Thanks Beverly for hosting another pink Saturday!