Beautiful plants, Laura. You have quite the collection! Love the Marmaduke and cowardly lion especially. I think the 5th one down might be 'big mac', and the 6th is Sinbad. They all look really healthy. Denise, you were literally five minutes from my house! If only I would've known. I'd love to have met you and shown you my garden. I'll have to look for that begonia tree! Terri, that is one beautiful angel wing! The color is so red. Looks great. Where is the nursery you mentioned? Is Lorraine Rd in Bradenton? I will really have to try to post a couple of pics tomorrow if I can. Anna

I heard several people that did the dog breeder and ride, and they loved the experience but I looked and looked and it and just didn't think it would be that much fun in comparison to the real glacier dog sled ride. I did get the salmon fishing excursion, but opted out of it. The Deadliest Catch cruise, has heaters over you, so you weren't cold, but to tell you the truth, on land it wasn't cold and by the time you go the weather should be perfect. I went in July last time. No heavy coat. Glacier Bay was cold when you were moving, and nite time on the open deck for the movies at 10:00 was cold. But lots were in the hot tub to watch the movie. Didn't take my swimsuit, gs did, but he didn't get in any of them. On the Deadliest Catch, they have coats for you to put on. Lairsville, it was damp, but not cold. Be sure and get on the deck and no on the upper level on the boat. I did layer at night to sit on the open deck. Used my raincoat lots, not due to the rain, but it was heavy enough to protect me from the wind, plus I had a jacket, light weight on underneath, plus long sleeve knit shirt. I changed clothes after dinner back to comfortable casual clothing. Balcony was great, and was an extended balcony. Only thing was that it was not covered, and the upper deck looked down onto you deck, cause it was extended. LOL, when gs was eating breakfast on the balcony when we were at Glacier Bay, people over us, were talking about gs enjoying his breakfast, and wished they had done that. The buffet for breakfast was great, but the buffet for lunch was disappointing. Dining experience evening was great. And the big surprise and biggie for gs was the Baked Alaska experience when lights were dimmed and the servers walked around with the lite baked alaska's and eveyone was twirling their napkins to the music. If you are on the GOlden Princess, you will find the International Cafe is ADDICTING! Their ham and cheese croissants are delicious, their mini desserts are fantastic, but the bestest of all was they kept freshly baked peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies coming out all day long AND in the afternoon a server would walk around with a tray of small glasses of milk and freshly baked cookies. I dare not tell how many pb cookies I ate :o) I had rhubard ice cream instead of a slice of baked alaska

DD's latest favorite breakfast is me making her a PB grilled sandwich. Butter one side each of 2 slices of bread (we like honey wheat) Stick the 2 buttered sides together so you can spread PB on the exposed plain side of one slice. Put that slice on the griddle butter side down and sprinkle chocolate chips on the PB which is facing up. Add the other slice on top butter side up and grill like a grilled cheese. DD doesn't like bananas but I bet it would be great to add banana slices!!

desertsteph! :) When it's completely cool the filling has the consistency of soft fudge, or the gooiest brownie ever--kind of like the chocolate truffles made with egg yolks--way back when we weren't afraid to use raw eggs. I shorted the sugar by a tablespoon, or so, from each cup, and it was still sweet. See pic #6, with the filled pie shells and crushed toffee on the counter? At that point the filling was so gorgeous and tempting, if it hadn't contained raw eggs that bowl would have been licked clean! We had an assortment of desserts for dinner (my mom's peach and cherry pies, cinnamon cookies I made with the pie crust scraps, and a peanut butter/chocolate mousse my FIL brought), so there was left-over fudge pie. I think it was even better the next morning. You should try it--it's so easy. Melt the butter in the MW, then stir everything else in with a whisk or spoon--no need to drag out the mixer. Use a purchased pie shell, or just butter the pie plate and skip the crust. Since it was the first time I'd tried the recipe I used AP flour in the filling, but next time I'm going to try whole wheat. And maybe some chia seeds sprinkled in with the toffee. ;) My yard is full of violets--I picked them the evening before, and left them in a bowl of water so that any bugs could wander out before the flowers were placed on the eggs. I always pick daffodils to decorate the tables, but this year they bloomed too early, and I wanted something spring-y. My dear FIL brought me a pot of forced, pale yellow daffs, so at least the dessert table had flowers.