Pat's 80th Birthday Celebration

This past summer our eldest brother, Pat turned 80 on July 18. To celebrate this momentous occasion many of his family planned a little get together in Marystown to toast the first of our siblings to reach that great age. Quite a few family came back to Newfoundland to visit at the time including Junior from Chapleau, Ontario, Kevin & Diane as well as their son, Cory as well as Cory's 2 boys, Eli and Isaac from Moncton.  Gerard and Kathi came from their new home in Osoyoos, British Columbia and they brought with them their Granddaughter, Ophelia who was a delight to have around. Ophelia is Gerard's son Aaron & Sonja's 5 year old daughter who lives in Calgary.

Pat's special friend Jackie as well as his daughter, Pamela and son Colin along with Colin's daughter Hope and her baby Kaiden came to celebrate with us too. Many of Pat's friends came by to wish him a happy birthday as well. His first cousins Maureen 7 her husband George from Petite Forte as well as Bernie & her husband Ron from Allan's Island came along as well.

His birthday was Friday July 18 so we celebrated with an open house in the afternoon at the Lions Club which was well attended. We followed that up with a little get together at Barry's after supper. On Saturday we attended mass for mom, dad and our sister Pamela at Sacred Heart Church at 4:00pm followed by a lovely dinner at Wong's Palace Restaurant. After dinner everyone came to my house for a chat and a sociable drink. 

Terry King and Gayanne cooked a fantastic Blue Goose fish & chip dinner on Sunday afternoon for a large group of us. We finished up on Monday with duck stew and lasagna at our place.

All in all it was a great celebration for a great guy. Pat has been the glue of the Stacey family for years and he continues to stay in contact with all of us. We hope you have many years of good health, brother.

Below are some photos taken from that lovely weekend. My apologies for being late in getting them posted.

Cheers

 

Birthday Cake with TTC Bus

 

Birthday Boy With a Toast

 

Pat & Jackie

 

Pamela, Hope, Kaiden, Pat, Colin

 

Pamela & Pat

 

Hope, Kaiden, Pat, Colin

 

Siblings: L to R: Kevin, Gerard, Junior Pat, Barry, Joan, Bernadette - Ophelia in front.

 Stacey Clan including front L to R: Diane, Eli, Isaac, Anderson, Ophelia, Isabella and Cory.

Pat with Junior on the left and Kevin on the right.

 

Barry, Pat, Gladys

 

Joan, Pat, Reuben

 

Terry King, Pat, Gayanne

 

Pat with Neil

 

Ron Strickland, Pat, Bernie

 

George Power, Pat, Maureen

 

Lloyd Smith, Pat - old trucking buddies from years ago.

 

Pat with Mary Jo Stacey

 

Pat with Reggie Hillier

   

 Pat with Reuben

 

Pat with Eric Ayers from Lamaline

 

Roy Shea from Lamaline along with Pat and Bill Hynes

 

Norbert Brake, Pat and Barb.

 

Table 1 at Wongs Restaurant

 

Table 2 at Wongs Restaurant

 

Table 3 at Wongs Restaurant

 

Gladys with nephew, Tyler who came from St. John's for Sunday's dinner at Terry Kings.

 

Terry Kings

 

Dinner served at Terry's.

 

L to R: Terry King, Kevin, Junior having a chat.

 

Drinking at Toast to Pat - L to R: Pat, Ray Drake, Terry King, Reuben, Kevin

 

Relaxing at Barry's - Pat with Diane, Kevin and Cory.

Thursday May 8

At Sea

We are on our final approach to Amsterdam today. Again it's a nice day outside but cool. It's kind of a rest day before we travel back to NL tomorrow.

After breakfast we dropped by the art auction but didn't stay too long as there wasn't much there to interest us. lol After lunch Gladys went to Bingo and I went up to take part in a putting contest on Deck 15. There were about a dozen participants in a 2 hole contest and 3 of us tied for the lead so we had a playoff. It was fun and 2 of us went to a second playoff round and we were still tied so they left it at that. We both got a medal. :-)

When I was on deck for the putting contest I noticed on the horizon a lot of windmills so I took a photo on my phone where you can see some of them in the water in the distance. I tried to count but there were too many of them.

For dinner tonight we had a Cobb salad to start us of and we both had prime rib steak for our main followed by a sticky caramel pudding for dessert. It was all great. Jorge also brought us some chorizo linguine to try as well.

Signing off for now as we ready for bed and an early rise in the morning. We leave the ship at 8:30 for our ride to the airport. We fly from Amsterdam at 12:15pm arriving in Toronto at 2:15 EST. We leave Toronto at 5:15 pm EST arriving in St. John's at 9:39pm NST.

Cheers to all. See you soon.

Golf Winners

Art Auction

Windmills

Ships Captain and Crew introduced last night.

Wednesday May 7

Lerwick, Scotland

This morning when we arrived in Lerwick with a population of around 7,000 people the weather was the best I've seen for around 7:00am in the morning. Even though the temperature only got to around 13C today it was fabulous outside. After an early morning breakfast we took a 5 minute tender ashore to check out the town of Lerwick. We spent about 5 hours exploring the lovely little town situated in the Shetland Islands. We visited a couple of churches, Fort Charlotte and many of the other sites around town. This week there was a special event going on related to WWII. Apparently during the war many of Norway's children were taken by boat to the Shetlands area for safe keeping and three of the ships used for the transport were here in Lerwick for the past few days. As well an old Norwegian naval ship turned into a WWII museum was here too. It was free to visit each of them and we went to the museum along with one of the small boats.

It's a very pretty little town with a field of windmills located not too far from the town.

We had a busy day in town and got back in time to ready for dinner. Today we both had a Tomato Soup Bisque for our starter and lobster tail for our main course. Jorge, our waiter also brought us Duck L'Orange to try as well. I found it very good but Gladys just ate a little. For dessert we had Baked Alaskan which was quite good.

I took a fair number of photos around town which I will share with you tomorrow.

Gladys with her Proseco.

Tomato Bisque

Lobster Tail

Duck L'Orange

Baked Alaskan

Our Server Tanya from Zimbawbe.

Few photos while the ship was coming into Lerwick.

A few of the streets in town.

A few of the walkways between streets.

A few of Lerwick's buildings.

St. Margaret's Catholic Church

Methodist Church

A few of the boats in port at Lerwick.

Fort Charlotte

Few photos of the downtown area.

Gladys's kind of dogs.