A Christmas Party in an Antebellum House

I caught a bug in California and I just do not have the energy to create a tablescape here at home. I was supposed to have a dinner party tonight but had to reschedule that too. But, I did not want to miss Tablescape Thursday so I will share with you pictures of the party given generously to the Physicians and wives by the hospital last week. TT is hosted by Susan of http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/ and if you want to see more tablescapes to inspire you, head over there.

The party was held downtown in a very prestigious antebellum house, which is used solely for parties. I was in awe of all the beauty of the fursnishings. John and I were drooling over all the Sevres pieces and I wanted to take the harp home, lol.
Here is more to show you. You wouldn't believe the intricate details of all the ceilings and walls inside the hall. And to think that it was offered at an auction. Who would give up an elegant beauty such as this?
The food and the table setting.

The banquet was catered by All Cotton, the cooking school that I posted here a few months ago. We had crab cakes, lobster bisque. fruit parfait, roast beef, brie and many others and everything was so delicious.

What is more fun than food in parties is being in the midst of friends. Shown here with us are very good friends of ours, the CEO of the hospital and his lovely wife, Nit (my shopping partner!)and the hospital CFO, Melissa. Aren't they just pretty with their lovely dresses?

I hope you and your families all enjoy this holiday season and unlike me, stay well.

Thank you Susan, for hosting another fun meme and I appreciate each and everyone for your visits.

Deck the Halls, Better Late Than Never

Sorry, I am late but we just arrived home from California at 4:20 early this morning. Long flight and drive! Anyway, the important thing is that I made it and I don't want to miss this event. Susan of http://thoughtsfromovertherainbow.blogspot.com/ is graciously hosting this event so go over her site to check out her and others' Christmas decorations.
Since the ornaments are more than 3, I thought I would link with Tam at http://www.thegypsyscorner.com/ also.

I have shown you our dining room and a few accessories here and there. I would like to show you more of the formal living and the family room today.

Below is the living room!


See my medical santa? My sister from Illinois gave it to John last Christmas. The gold crown is for the King of Kings. It's actually a tea light candle holder.
I keep the living room Christmas tree traditional. Here are a few of our Christmas ornaments from around the world. I buy one everytime we visit a country or a state.

Don't you just like the Russian doll and the Turkish slippers? The ball on the bottom left is from London. The T model car is from Henry Ford's museum in Fort Myers, FL and of course, we have some ornaments from the University of Michigan. Go Blue!

Now, this is the family room. I have 2 white trees here and a wire table top from Southern Living at home tree, where I hang orange balls and Lladro bells.

the family room mantel....I got lazy and been so busy with travels that I did not place the garland. It is still sitting in the garage.

This is my family tree. I made the ornaments. They were plain ceramic ones that I bought from Jo Ann Fabrics about 3 "after X'masses" ago. I painted something christmassy on them. They were 10 cents each. Hey! That's thrifty, I should have joined Thrifty Tues too.

BTW, if you wonder what my name xinex is, X stands for Christ and "ine" is ine, thus, Christine or xine and the last X stands for Cruz or cross, which is my maiden name.

Thanks for stopping by and I would like to wish everyone a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!! I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed holidays.

Oasis of Dreams

Are you ready for a triple post? It's Monday and I just cannot leave out any of these 3 wonderful memes so why not join them all? First is Blue Monday, hosted by Sally at http://smilingsally.blogspot.com/ . Next comes Metamorphosis Monday hosted by Susan of htttp://betweennapsonthe porch.blogspot.com and last but not least is Mary of http://dearlittleredhouse.blogspot.com/. You would not want to miss their wonderful posts and that of their participants so be sure to go and visit them.

This is part of the continuing saga of the Oasis of the Seas. There is still a lot more to see. I think I showed you this aqua theater in my other post but I would like to show you more of its features for it really is a fantastic theater. It is shown here with a stage but this stage opens up from a pool with shallow water to a pool that is 19 feet deep to accept the divers safely.

We were watching this team rehearse from our cabin balcony.
See it convert to a pool?
Shown below are taken from the spectacular show.

You can see the performers standing in shallow water

here.

Here the swimmers and their rhythmic dancing. The first picture shows them dancing on the stage, the stage becomes a pool. Isn't that amazing?

Now the divers are diving into a 19 ft. deep pool. Have you noticed the diver on the very high platform in the first picture? Yes, he jumped into the pool from way up there.

The talented performers!

After the performers did their part, the stage became a showcase of a magnificent water show. Truly spectacular!

Thanks to our 3 gracious hosts for these amazing 3 events in Blogland. And thank you all for coming. I hope you enjoyed being here. I am not done showing you about our incredible cruise yet so make sure you come back for more.

Th "Beast", the "Wow"...Just Some of Its Few Nicknames

Back to reality! That's right, we just got home from the most amazing and enjoyable cruise. We have taken so many cruises in the past but the Oasis of the Seas tops them all. We did not want to leave. AJ was crying as we got off the gigantic ship. This is the first cruise where I did not bother signing for internet while cruising. There was just so much to do and see that I did not have time even to check my emails.

Below is the view from our balcony looking to the left. The picture below on the right shows the aqua theater. We could watch the divers rehearse and perform right from our cabin balcony. Do you see the 2 very tall white platforms on each side of the blue Royal Caribbean logo? The divers jumped all the way from there. It was spectacular! The aqua theater was convertible into a stage and very deep water.

Let me share the pink Cupcake Cupboard for Pink Saturday. I thought it was just the cutest shop, like in a doll house. Beverly of http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/ also wants us share some Christmas memories with you. I shared my childhood memories when I was small while still living in the Philippines last week. Today, I would like to share what we used to do as a grown up when I lived in Ill.

We used to live in Waukegan, IL and actively belonged to the Fil-Am Association. Weeks before Christmas, we would take everyone in an RV that we used to own, and we would go to different houses to go caroling. I would be playing the guitar and singing with the group and we had so much fun, in spite of the snow and extremely cold weather outside. Of course, we were let in and sang indoors. After we sang, we were given donations for the association and in addition to that, quite a food spread was served for us. After 5 or 6 houses per evening, you can just imagine how our tummies would be bursting from fullness. It was truly a lot of fun and the spirit of Christmas was really felt all throughout the holidays.

For more Christmas memories and wonderful pink and red photos, go visit Beverly and her other participants.

Now, let's go back to the Oasis, which I might say, is a true oasis. There is so much to share that I will post the trip probably on at least 3 different Sightseeing Saturdays. Below are pictures of the cupcake shop, which is located in the Promenade on deck 5. On the left right of the mosaic below, you will see AJ enjoying the ride of the rising bar. Yep, the bar rose all the way from the 5th to the 8th deck, up and down......up and down. It was awesome! You can see the Cupcake Cupboard in the background.

Here is the "Beast" as our bus shuttle driver called it. It is gigantic, 17 floors all in all and very long and deep that we could hardly feel it move while sailing. It is amazing, stunning, extravagant, incredible, beautiful using state of the art electronic advance technologies all throughout. And I swear they took their best personnel and stuck them all in this maiden voyage. The ship smelled so good too since it is brand new. It was very hard to take a whole picture but luckily, while in St, Maarten, it was situated in an angle that it made it possible for me to take a few shots. Isn't she just gorgeous? Just look at the size compared to the 3 other cruise ships, which mind you, are not that small either. The port of calls had to build new ports to be able to accomodate it.
Below is our cabin that John and I shared with AJ. My sister and her hubby also cruised with us and you can see Fe here in our balcony checking out the view. Their cabin was an indoor one but they had a picture window overlooking the Promenade so it was pretty cool checking out the activites going on out there from the cabin. She also celebrated her birthday while we were sailing and you wouldn't believe the best birthday present she could ever receive. Being a Diamond member (meaning they have sailed at least 10 times on Royal Caribbean), she and her hubby were given a complimentary Bingo card each. And would you believe that the husband's card won a cruise for 2 on the maiden Voyage for Allure of the Seas, which is just like the Oasis, and is scheduled to set sail for the first time on Dec. 12, 2010? Lucky, lucky! And to think that he did not even want to go and play, she had to force him, lol.

This is AJ's bed.

Below is the view of the Boardwalk from our balcony looking down and to the right. We were on the 10th floor and the Boardwalk is on 6th. You will see the carousel on the right side which greets you as you enter. There is a Seafood restaurant on the right and Johnny Rockets on the left and many different stores. Every morning, still in my pj's, I would look down from the balcony and it would seem like I was living in a circus. LOL!

At the end of the building, are 2 rock climbing walls on each side. AJ really enjoyed the climb and made it all the way to the top. Do you see her ringing the bell at the very top?

Here you will see the attendant helping her with her gear and the right photo shows her coming down. AJ spotted this Water Park on Deck 14 right away while we were eating lunch in Windjammer Marketplace. Of course, John and she could not wait to put on their swimsuits to swim right after lunch.

Hopefully, this panorama will give you an idea of how the Boardwalk is set up.

Do you see the Peacock seat on the carousel? I had to wait until it was available for John and I to sit on it and ride. They must have made it just for me, lol.

More pictures while exploring the Boardwalk.

Johnny Rockets crew performing to rock and roll music.

AJ built 2 bears and named them "Rocky" for her making it all the way up on the rock wall and "Romina", after the sales girl who helped her build her.

I hope you enjoyed the first tour of the Oasis of the Seas. I cannot wait to show you more next week. I am saving the best for last so stay tuned. Next week, I will show you photos of Central Park and maybe some shows. OMG! I could not believe how lucky I was to see the Nelson Brothers perform. You probably don't know them but I am Ricky Nelson's #1 fan and the Nelsons are his twin sons who did a tribute to him, so they sang mostly Ricky's songs. I told my kids that if we went on the stinkiest ship and the Nelsons were there, it would have been still worth it for me, LOL! I will tell you more next week.

Thanks for coming by. I can't say I missed you a lot cause I was having so much fun but I did miss you somewhat, LOL!

A Birthday Party Aboard the Oasis

I am excited to join Foodie Friday again. FF is hosted by our most talented Michael. To see more scrumptious post, go visit her at http://designsbygollum.blogspot.com/ While we were aboard the Oasis, my sister celebrated her 72nd birthday. I don't think she minds me mentioning her age here because she kept revealing it to everyone on the ship, lol. Besides, I don't think she looks her age anyway.

To celebrate with her, she treated us to dinner in an exclusive restaurant in Central Park, not in Manhattan but on the ship. We had to eat early, 6 PM, because kids were not allowed to eat in this particular restaurant. They made an exception for AJ after my sister's pleading but we had to take an early reservation.

I thought this wall art is pretty cool. The discs and flowers look like Italian glass.

The menus were so fancy. And what a beautiful presentation of the food! I really like the round menu. Chef Keriann Von Raesfeld did a good job preparing the food. Enlarge the mosaic to read her accomplishments.

The whole party: the celebrant, Fe, and her hubby are on the first picture.

The appetizer, Seared Sea Scallop, won first prize in appetizer category somewhere. Sorry I could not remember what the waiter told us, lol.

The second pic is a butter container and I like the soup cup with its dome. And do you see how the Trio of Beet Salad was presented? Cute egg shaped bowls!

The main entrees: a cube of Halibut and Wagyu Strip steak, a Kobe beef, which came all the way from Japan.

Everything was so delicious! Happy birthday again, sis! Thanks for the nice treat and the wonderful time.

Thanks, Michael, for hosting another fun event and thank you all for visiting!