Stores that carry "FIRE" season clothing

Oh, Margaret, how lovely is this skirt and how generous are you!?! Ladies, someone needs to scoop up this skirt! Size 12 was long ago for me, but if no one else can use it as is, I'd love to have it to remake the fabric into something else.

Kim, do you want Margaret to send it to me so I can take up the seams so it fits teeny-tiny waisted you?

FYI it's a small 12. You know how within a size there can be a whole size difference between brands.

Sure, I'll take it. Debbie and I can arm wrestle for it :')

Let's talk about where to send it, ok???

You can email me at folkdt at aol dot com. I'll pay the shipping if you promise to stick some cash or food in the next animal rescue donation can/box/whatever you see. :)

Debbie and I and our DH's are back from our cruise. It was on the RCCL Navigator to the A,B,C islands.

It was a great trip! My DH and I loved the ship and the itinerary was great. We had good weather and the ship, crew and food were very good.

We had never been to Bonaire before and really enjoyed it.

We only did 1 port excursion with Debbie and her DH and that was Aruba. So, I'll just let you know what my DH and I did :)

In Curacao we dove with the Dive Bus. We've been diving with them on all of our stops in Curacao. We really like Mark and Suzy. We usually dive with Mark, the owner, but, he's not in the water much these days. He put us with a Dive-master who was brand new. He's a young guy and personable. He lacks some underwater people skills though. He had the habit of seeing something, pointing it out and then just moving on. They weren't bad dives, just not as good as with Mark. After diving we took a local "bus"/minivan back to the ship. It was only $3 versus the $25 a taxi wanted. It was fun.

In Bonaire DH and I went with Woodwind on a 4 hour snorkel. It was FANTASTIC. The sites we snorkeled at were off Klein Bonaire and had beautiful coral and sea life. The sailboat was very nice and the owner and crew were phenomenal. We even got a really tasty noodle/chicken lunch. We would do this excursion again in a heartbeat. After that we walked around the town and shopped at the craft market. I found several things that were hand made and met the artist. LOVED Bonaire!

All 4 of us did a 3 hour+ tour in Aruba with Bully. He was just wonderful too. Such a great ambassador for his island. We have always just gone to the beach in Aruba so this time decided to do a tour in the morning and then DH and I went to the beach for the rest of the afternoon. Bully showed us the other side of the island, what I would call the rough or wild side. It's similar to Cozumel's East side (rough and more uncommercialized). It was lovely over there. Bully even found some nice birds for us (I'm a nerd birder). He treated us to some baked goods at a local bakery and we just had a great time with him!

After the tour Bully dropped DH and me off at a beach club on Eagle Beach. We've always gone to the quieter end of Eagle by the Amsterdam Manor. This club was much busier but, good people watching. sand and water :) We took the bus back to the ship in Aruba too.

I got dinner outfit photos of Debbie and me each night except Curacao. We didn't get back until 7 pm and just went to the Windjammer buffet--we were bushed!

The jeans in the Miami embarkation photo (with the bright swirly colored jacket) show black but, they're really just a dark navy with gold stitching.

The two formal dresses I wore were gifts from Marie, who posts on this board and gives away some of her dresses after she's done with them. They were lovely dresses and she's very generous! Thanks, Marie!

I especially loved the gold lace dress. It didn't photograph as pretty as it was in person. Actually, neither formal dress did. I felt like Cinderella at the Ball in the gold dress--went from rags during the day to that beautiful dress in the evening and then back to rags the next day;p! I received so many compliments that night. ;p

I wore Margaret's skirt on our last night. It is such a cute skirt and I love the pattern and colors. It didn't photograph as richly as it looked IRL. The top I wore with the skirt is the same one I wore the next day to Miami Beach. In the beach photo, the top's color is spot on. Thanks for the skirt, Margaret, I loved it!!

DH and I ended the cruise by renting a car and driving to Miami Beach for a few hours as our flight didn't leave until 7 pm. We've never been to Miami Beach before. It was a fun way to spend the morning and early afternoon before our flight. We even got a free up grade to a bright yellow Camero with a sunroof for our rental :)

Here's a link to our pictodiary:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/WG0z1ZtQyWzDSfCn1

Great photos! We loved Woodwind Snorkel in Bonaire! So glad you did too. We had an afternoon snorkel so we craft shopped in the morning. Did you see Charlie? . Melody

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Great photos ! That gold gown is to die for . You both look like you are having a great time !

Melody, is Charlie a 3 finned turtle? If so, we DID see him. I didn't know he was named or a regular! No one mentioned it to us.

Turtles are our very favorite sea animal. We love seeing them in Cozumel. This past summer while diving we saw a HUGE Loggerhead (probably 4-5 feet across) sitting on the bottom eating. I swam up to him very carefully and let all the air out of my BCD and just layed on the bottom next to him. It was amazing!!!!!

Thanks, Sally. Oh, that gold dress!!!! We had a great time :)

Yes, Charlie is a 3 fin. Dee on Woodwind told us his name. I love turtles too.

That gold dress is spectacular

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Yes, Charlie is a 3 fin. Dee on Woodwind told us his name. I love turtles too.

 

That gold dress is spectacular

 

 

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Melody, it was Charlie that we saw then! How funny is that? Did you take that photo or was it the photographer that swam along with the different groups?

The photographer took it, but I was right beside him when he took it (Les had our camera [emoji22])

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So fun to see all your photos, thank you for sharing. That gold dress is a stunner, isn't it? Debbie, my fave of yours is the one with the lace overlay and the shorter underlayer. Just lovely. I have to say that bright blue really is your color, don't you think? You look really happy in that dress. I think it really shows on our faces when we feel we are wearing something that captures our personal style and makes us look our best.

Happy to see "my" skirt being worn the way it should. :) You belong together!

Debbie, i have that bright blue dress too! (Kohl’s?) Haven’t worn it since Hawaii...need to move it forward in the rotation. Melody

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I took another look at the pictures and I have to say I love the dark blue maxi . It just screams island and it really flatters you .

Can I just say that I love all those pictures? I'm having so much fun planning out my outfits, and I love to see what others choose. I love to hear also if you would haven chosen differently or whatever. From the looks of it, they were all great outfits!

That gold dress just tugs at my heartstrings completely. I love formal night. Marie always has the most beautiful dresses. What really made me smile is that I will be bringing full length, lace formal night dresses with me on the next cruise.

Your cruise sounds like it was just wonderful. We did the ABC islands on our last cruise, and loved it. I can't wait to go back.

Debbie does look great in that shade of blue. Even though she's a soft FIRE, that was a great color on her!

Laurie, I was pleased with all of my choices. I'm usually just a jeans and shirt kind of dresser but, on a cruise I LOVE to dress up. I told Debbie it was like playing grown-up dress up. I don't really accessorize much and don't do much in the way of shoes (my feet and legs swell SO MUCH--only on cruises-- that I can't get into most of the shoes I bring. This cruise the Dr. gave me some medication to try for the swelling and it worked like a charm! I forgot to tell him it was a 10 day cruise and he only gave me 7 pills. After I ran out, my feet really ballooned up. So, next cruise- I want the meds!!!!)

The light bulb came on for me when you talked about accessories and plain dresses or prints. You love to accessorize and wear no prints. I, on the other hand, LOVE prints and not accessories. That's why I think. I don't really know how to accessorize so the prints do it for me. Glad you clarified that for me :)

This is me in Debbie’s dress (but I’m sitting down & have a shrug over it). Melody

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I think you are right about our dress, Melody. The blue looks like a good color for you too.

I wasn’t dressed nearly as formally as Kim on our two dress-up nights, but would have been hard-pressed to match that level in any event. Such a gorgeous dress!!! Kim looked like a dream in it.

I may not have taken a single new item on this cruise, but honestly, I don’t wear long dresses of any kind in my real life these days. Therefore, they may get trotted out until I tire of them, which may be a when they dry-rot. I like every single outfit I wore this time. Don’t like the way I look in the pictures, but it is what it is. Oh well.

My pictures were the iPhone variety, so there isn’t much to show. Kim’s poor DH was a champ being pushed into photographer duty each night. As Kim found out, the more comfortable my DH became with them, the more vocal he became about time spent taking our evening pictures. Even after all this time, he doesn’t get why we enjoy our color journey. Probably also why he wore FIRE, AIR, EARTH and ICE while on the cruise. LOL

Since we don’t dive, we spent our time in Curaçao exploring. We asked directions for the post office and were sent to the post museum instead. Lovely mistake! The volunteer curator (retired Port Manager) sold us a postcard, a stamp and showed us where to mail it. But, the best purchase was the First Day Cover of flamingo stamps for my DGD dated 1/8/1985! As a former rural carrier, it was a real treat for me.

We had a ball on a golf cart in Bonaire. Best excursion ever!?! Maybe. They give you a map and let you go play in traffic. We saw plenty of flamingos in the southern loop. Maybe next time we’ll see the rest of their beautiful island.

I agree with Kim. Bully was an excellent ambassador for his country of Aruba. The native bakery goods he bought for us were yummy. I’d highly recommend reserving a tour with him. We bought a few more souvenirs for the grands where he dropped us off and walked back to the ship.

We had a lovely time with Kim and her DH.

Debbie, I had to laugh out loud when you talked about your DH complaining about pictures. Mine purchases the photo package & then complains about taking pictures [emoji849][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]. The stamps sound lovely, I bet your DGD loves them. We saw the golf carts zipping along in Bonaire as we headed to our Woodwind Snorkel Trip, they did look like fun! Melody

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My husband is a great sport about all the photos. He knows it matters to me, so he goes along with it.

I'm glad you were happy with your clothing choices. As of right now, I'm feeling very good about the outfits I have picked for my April cruise. It's s good feeling when you start to figure out what you like.

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My DH is a real sport too about photos. He knows I'm particular about them and he does his best to take a good one, even if it means several times ;) :eek: He is always so patient! I am blessed.

Marie's dresses make it easy to look nice!!!

Looking forward to others pictodiaries :)

For me it's the opposite, I am DH's favorite photography subject. I have to tell him to STOP taking pictures of me. :) He was the unofficial (meaning unpaid) photographer for my dance company back in the day. He's pretty good, and he enjoys the technical aspects way more than I do.

Debbie and Kim, I enjoyed your pictures very much. With no vacation on the schedule, I appreciate the vicarious cruise!

I just got back from visiting Mom and Dad in AZ! I have several things to share...not the least of which is a good methodology for getting a good picture of your eye!! I think Mom and I figured it out!

Anita--spill on what the eye photo method is :eek: I'm still interested!

Kim,

It was a total fluke with the eye picture. Awesome! What happened was that Anita was in the bathroom when a friendly ray of sunshine just happened to be at the right location to light up a section of the mirror. So, by looking into the mirror, I was able to actually get a handle on what the camera was "seeing" and that ray of sunshine lit up my eye just enough to reduce the reflective nature of it. So, voila! The picture actually came out enough that Anita was able to see the eye color rather than the color of everything being reflected. I was taking pretty funny pictures, as I know you were as well. My pictures were reflecting the green of cactus, the white of clouds, the blue of the sky and the blue of the pool, the gray of the concrete.... well, just about anything and everything around me. In the house, I had all the doors, lights, etc. So frustrating! But it is an interesting situation that the Earth ladies were able to take pictures with little effort. There's just something about the FIRE, highly reflective nature of our skin that must be an inherent nature in the eye, itself.

So, in a nutshell. If you have a bathroom where the mirror will occasionally reflect the sun... go for it! I hope you do. Anita has been really busy with "life" but she was able to get an eye palette for me. I don't know if she has time to share. I'm really frustrated cause I've lost all my ability to share pictures. I've been too busy with other things to try to find a decent location on the internet similar to photo bucket. It's just a challenge at the moment.

On another note. I'm on a countdown to our Japan cruise. We leave in 25 days! We fly from here to Seattle and spend one night. The next day is our flight to Tokyo, where we'll be spending four nights before boarding Celebrity Millennium. We are on a B2B, so a total of 24 nights on board. Be still my stomach!

We disembark in Vancouver. We're going to Victoria for 4 nights. The trip will, hopefully, encompass the Cherry Blossoms of Japan and the Spring Bloom at Butchart Gardens. I'm beyond excited to be heading out on a cruise!

Pam, have a delightful cruise. We loved our 3 years in Japan. Shopping is good in Tokyo (everywhere). Melody

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