Cruise Montreal to Charlotteville 2017

Cruise Montreal to Boston 2017

St. Lawrence seaway from a Quebec Hill

We're taking a cruise!  With the family!  Starting from Montreal, stopping in Quebec City, Charlotteville (Prince Edward Island), Sydney (Nova Scotia), Bar Harbor (Maine), and ending in Boston.

You know how food on a cruise ship is always too much?  We decided we should start by eating on land-lol!  Fun salad at Mandy's.  Casual spot, with outdoor seating for people watching.  Boarding is fun and easy and the first couple hours are spent getting to know where everything is on the boat.

First stop is Quebec City, full of history and public art.

Being right on the river everything is uphill which means good views of the river once you make it to the top.

Great job on the public flowers and park spaces Quebec City!

Public art that has a soundscape!  Not as melodic as wind chimes but not annoying, along the lines of leaves in the breeze.

Sorry there is no translation- but it is basically suspended necklaces of steel hooks.  It is representing the Quebec Conference of 1864-key time in Canadian history.

It's massive and tucked away but in a good windy spot.

Singular clock-specially made as a gift from Switzerland.  Great display of the inner workings.  Pretty cool just to watch the time go by.

Particularly liked this public art which feels like it is incorporating multiple different aspects of Quebec into one statue/fountain.

Gates into Quebec are a big theme.

And it is a fountain!

Day at Sea!  Spent the afternoon in the pool and then the cooking demonstration.  Nice kitchen set-up, learned techniques and got some good recipes.  Big excitement of the day was someone had a medical emergency and the Coast Guard had to come pick them up.  We were watching the boat approach, then all of a sudden they turned around and later a second boat came over.  Some bigger emergency called away the first boat-mysterious!  People watching is definitely part of what to do on a cruise.

On to PEI.  Home of Anne of Green Gables.  So one thing that everyone should probably do is see the long running play based on the books-I've heard it is quite good.  So of course we didn't do that ;)  Instead I signed us all up to visit Island Falconry Services.  OMG  So good!  These folks who run a falconry (!) show visitors their raptors.

They perch on your wrist!  You learn all about the birds and how they meticulously track what each one eats to insure a balance of protein, calcium and what not.

They fly to your wrist from a tree!

Plus we found this fuzzy caterpillar.

Movie night was a big family time.  A cute theater that had popcorn was the first stop, but if it was not something we were interested in they had a huge selection of DVDs for in room viewing.  We saw Beauty and the Beast, Boss Baby, Cars, Hidden Figures, WALL-E, Madeline and only the first 10 minutes of Shrek (too scary).

BGG 2017

BGG 2017

Here are most of the games that we played during the 4 day convention.  So. Many. Games.

Breakout star of the convention!  The alpaca game is so cute!!  The theme is on top of a 'bag-builder' game that can be won through a couple different strategies.  

This is now a tradition for us.  Great 2-player, easy to learn, hard to master.

Still haven't figured out how to win :)

The latest Friedman Friese game is actually a set of 4 different games.  

The entire game is laid out on the cards so there is no real rule book. 

Super neat idea, not sure about the execution, some play better than others.

We love the other CV games so had to give this a try.

Not bad-I still like the others more.

Both King and Queen domino were hard to get when they were super hot, so trying them a bit late.

Kinda cool, want to try King instead.

Easy to teach because we own it-entertaining and relatively short.

Often too short, just as you get an engine going it is over.

Oh Fireball Island!!  I love you so.

We got a good group game running next to the front door so attracted a bunch of on-lookers.  There is now a reboot that I hear turns this into more of a real game.  I just love this one for the lava flow.

Super interesting-but played it too late at night to give it a fair shot, maybe try again next year.

We have a large group and this plays up to 8. 

Oh man, so stressful as you try to follow the other teams submarine.

Classic!

We played the in space version.

New to us-co-op where you really can't plan ahead.

Liked it so much we purchased it.

Pretty!  But not as satisfying as Patchwork.

Ah ha!  The party game, but now for 2.

Purchased it!

Running a kickstarter.

Super cute components and very flexible in that you can easily play with kids, but you can also go very strategic.

Another previous years hot game that we are just now getting around to.

Intrigued by the puzzle/tetris aspect.  Somehow not as amazing as I was lead to believe, but maybe it could be, worth trying again next year.

Yes, I picked it up to try purely for the science theme.

Good co-op/competitive play, more interesting than it had any right to be for just picking it randomly.

Another game for the large group.

Again a bit stressful for being real time and played as a team...but where you can't communicate-yikes!

Oh this one is pretty!

And the theme is excellent, you grow trees from seeds to tall trees.

The sun moves around the board and provides all important light.  If you are a small tree behind a big tree you do not get the light!

And to win you need to actually cut down the trees.  Cool, will play again next year.

Another tradition!

Build your dungeon, stock it with monsters, drive out those pesky fighters.

So tired.....