Flea Markets and Forty

 Last January, I had decided I wanted to do something for my husband's 40th birthday, but he flat out said, "No parties."
Well, for those of you who know my husband, I'm sure you can visualize him saying that with his monotone, nonsensical voice.

"Allllrrriiiight," I reluctantly agreed.
 Sooo, with fleamarket season around the corner with our beloved Vintage Gathering Group, I decided that I would save all my earnings from the flea markets that Sally and I did from May to September and surprise my husband with a trip to the world's best fleamarket!!

Oh wait, that's my dream.

So I got him this instead:














Yep, a great view aboard our very own...

...cruise ship! Needless to say, he was surprised. And kudos to my kids who never once spilled the beans.

We went to the Caribbean, where the bluest water and whitest sand I've ever had the pleasure of being on greeted us. This beach was at our first stop, Grand Turk. We were actually swimming here at 9 a.m.!

I didn't do a party for my hubby, but I did get some other folks in on the deal, some of his aunts and uncles from Minnesota met us on the boat

as well as my husband's good friend from Chicago and his family.

Our kids didn't even remember ever meeting (they were too little before) but within 5 minutes, they were talking Lego's and plants vs. zombies (don't ask). Four boys together is quite interesting!

We did a lot of this:

and a lot of sightseeing. This is the Fort at Puerto Rico, I loved hearing about the history of that island. I did manage to see a few antique shops, but my youngest son kindly reminded me that "we are on vacation, so no antiques."

Hmmph.

This lovely creature and it's family greeted us as we got off the ship at St. Thomas. They were very tame, I'm sure they're used to all the attention.

St. Thomas is a busy place, there must have been at least 8 or 9 other cruise ships docked there that day. Beautiful views.

Every night we went to bed, there was a different towel creature awaiting us in our room.

Oh, and we'd never been on a cruise before, but everyone kept telling us about the food.
They were NOT kidding.
I've never seen so much food in my life, and it never stopped! These pictures were from a Dutch Chocolate Dessert Extravaganza night, with every single kind of dessert you could imagine.

Nope, your eyes don't deceive you, this case was full of candy covered apples, any flavor you wanted!

I don't know if we burned enough calories during the day doing this (below) to be eating all of that (above), but we sure tried.

There's a pure white little crab in this shell, can you see it?

This is the newest member of our family, Dede, a.k.a. yum-yum man (he was in charge of the desserts). We saw his smiling face everyday, my kids got rather attached to him.

The majority of the crew is from either Indonesia or the Philippines, and after talking with many of them, I came to find out that they are making huge sacrifices. They all work 10-11 months on the ship then are able to go home for 2 months to be with their family, many who had little children. Like Dede, these are some of the hardest working people I've ever been around. It really puts our own lives into perspective, even when our economy is the way it is, we are wealthy in comparison.

So, thank you to everyone who came out and supported our flea markets as well as our love of those treasured finds. Each piece of repurposed furniture, each egg cup, each vintage book, each pink enamel baby bathtub, each pair of old opera glasses,  each 1930's soda fountain stool, each old photograph, and on..

...and on...

...went towards the love of my life's 40th birthday celebration, and for that, I thank you!!

It's not too early to be thinking about the upcoming flea season, is it??

;-)

Lisa