Star Princess Cruise January 7-15 2006





"Welcome Aboard my mates to the lovely Star Princess", this is your Captain speaking. Please join me and my crew from across all lands, as we take you on a wonderful water journey to Cozamel, Grand Cayman Island, and Montego Bay. Put your drinking hats and sea-sickness bracelets on tightly for it shall be a very SMOOTH and fun filled trip atop the crests of our beautiful blue seas.
thank you and enjoy your cruise..........


Handsome husband and I toasting arm in arm to our first cruise in Mom and Dad's stateroom.








HOW CUTE!!! Mother Betty Shaffer shares a smile and beams happy thoughts in front of the flowers Dad bought for her in honor of their "dream come true" - a beatuiful boquet for the mother of his children - we are all here together!







Look at these two hunky devils - don't they just look like trouble dressed up as trouble!
Spud is the lean and lanky lusty Swedish Lover and his roommate Jake is his darkly tanned bedroom-eyed sidekick. Togther they were a force to be reckoned with :)









Many times in my life I have been told to "go to Hell"..........so I did. This is what is looks like!
Rumor has it that many years ago, an English Captain had been told the same thing and this is what he said" This place looks like Hell" - Hence the name.
Apparantly the coral that existed from so long ago basically petrified and other land began to form around this area. This formation is about half the size of a football field and does seem like a portrayal of what the dark underworld just might look like.

***Christian did manage to find beauty even here and photographed a gorgeous Iguana perusing the ashen reef of old.



"greetings from Hell" - C2 in front of the postoffice in Hell.





Although there really is a road to Hell, deep black roosters with piously plumed tails and bright red warblers that fight like hell, 3 souveneir shops that are smaller than hell, an old indescribable formation that looks like Hell, had it not been an overcast day, it would have been hotter than hell, there is also a Crismon barn with flames and bible sayings so you can stay out of hell...the native people were most definitely Christian - both in spirit and in faith.
Christine, our tour guide/driver had the heart of an angel and the mouth of an answering machine on speed. (Mom - I think we met our match for marathon words per minute!!!!)


What a plumpdilliumptios dinner.....again!
Note: there is simply not enough room on this website to list the menu items we ate ---- not to mention all that was available to us that we Could have eaten - many many times per day, many many portions at a time ANY time of the day......UUUGGHHH.

In fact, I think I am getting full again just writing about our gormet gorges!!!!


Well lookeee here......Ships of the past........ships of the present. Hmmmmm think ours is better!










Aren't we adorable! C Crowes are filled to the brim with food, fun and fabulous family!










"Cheers, Dears!" the Gangs all here
Poppa Betch and Momma Butty, Big Bro Chrishty Crowe and Super Sissy Bella, Lil' man Spud and our adopted, adorable Jake! Hip Hip Hooray!











The awe and wonder of the sky and sea......

We end our nights by the light of day,
the power of the ocean as our force; in control.
The comfort of family so near, soon so far.
The reality of love from above owns our hearts.


Merry New Year and Happy Christmas always!
----Bella Danee

Just arrived back in the USA

This is the first blog done remotely. Chelle thinks I'm a nerd, but I wear that name like a badge of honor. We have snuck into the Crown Club or whatever it is called. ( I have a Silver Medalion Delta Club Card, but it expired in December of 1999. ). I'm sitting in front of my laptop, but am using my Blackberry™ to post this blog. My wife doesn't understand why I wouldn't type this directly with the laptop instead of the Blackberry™. The answer is simple, because I can.

Anyway, we have just returned from a week long Princess Cruise with our family. Chelle and I are in the Ft. Lauderdale airport waiting to fly home to Los Angeles.
When we get a chance we will be up loading the photos from the trip, so stay tuned for more.

Christian Crowe

--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

It's Christmas Morning!!!!

Chelle and I awoke at 7:30 to open gifts and greet our house guest for the week.
We are so excited to be able to have cute little Lola with us. Her parents Amber and Nathan our going home for Christmas so we get to enjoy her company.





LA LA LA LA LOLA

It's Christmas Eve 2005!!!
HO HO HO! We just got back from the Chrismas Eve service at Bel Air Pres. It was beautiful, but there was no snow on the ground when we got out so I guess we won't get a White Christmas this year......oh well, we don't mind enjoying the 80 degree weather together amid our beautiful blue tree.

We miss you all and love you more. May all your wishes come true this year and may you know the blessings of our Lord ---- we do!
_Chelle Crowe

Brentwood Festivus!
Last night Apartments 101, 102, and 103 shared in a combined Christmas party. We gathered the multitudes to join us for food, drinks and joy! A great time was had by all. We worried that no one would come - but come they did - in droves. Sure does feel great to see so many new faces and different personalities in one place! Thanks to all who shared the Spirit of the Season with us. We had such a wonderful night!!Amber, Heidi, and Chelle
Heidi, Nathan, Susan, and Brandy
Ari
Josh, Lisa, Heather, Rich, Keirin, and Jeff
Heidi and Ken
John, Rich and Josh in front of the gang
Marcy and Ryan
Josh and Lisa

This weeks house guest include: Singer Songwriter Producer Ian Eskelin and Billboard Charting DJ to the Stars Trent Dean!

Introducing our first Christmas tree!

Chelle and I are very excited to have a real Douglas Fur christmas tree. We picked it up in Santa Monica on Sunday. We strapped it to the top off the car and brought it home. I made a Christmas radio station on www.pandora.com and we drank Chelle's special mix of Egg Nog while we decorated. It's so nice to smell the tree in the arpartment. The sense memory that a Christmas tree evokes is awesome. We've both been so fortunate to have had amazing upbringings. We are very blessed with great families.
This will be our very first Christmas all by ourselves, so we adorned the tree with only blue Christmas lights. We are going to have a blue Christmas. :-(
However, come January family a plenty!!!!

You can see the stages of tree decorating.

The Montana Christmas Walk

Judy and I

Ari, David, and Me. I guess we didn't take any photos of my favorite short girl. Once a year Santa Monica allows the patrons of the Montana Christmas Walk to walk from store to store with wine. We had to take the city up on this offer, so we went down with neighbors Judy and Ari. We had a great time.

Visited by the Dripps


The young Dripps

We were delighted to come home from Portland in time to enjoy a visit from Marcus, Lucy, Finn, Freddie, Samuel, and soon to be announced Dripps. Some very fantastic friends that moved back to Australia when they only had one son and one on the way. A few years later and there is a gaggle of Dripps for us to enjoy, and still one more on the way.

A very cool view of one of my favorite cities in the U.S. This was taken on the top floor of the US Bank building where met with Bob and Chelsea.



It hasn't changed much since I moved out of this house in 1987. This is where I spent my life from around the age of 3 until 17. It was a wierd feeling seeing again. It's amazing how the feelings and memories come rushing to your brain when you see something so familiar to you that you haven't seen in person in a long time.



A special treat. I had told Chelle how much I was hoping to see my good friend Tom Tuetsch, and as we were leaving the hotel, who should I almost step on on the way to the car!?! That's right! Tom Tuetsch. He was walking in to see the Christmas bazarre with his wife, son, and mother-in-law as we were walking out. It was a very cool couple of minutes.


We had such a great time with Eric and Margo. They are great friends.

Our Thanksgiving Trip to Portland


We had such a great time with my best friend from high school Eric and his lovely wife Margo. We were joined with their friends Lance and Kristen and their adorable son Aiden and baby girl.




This is the view of Portland from Eric's living room window. He has a very cool heart shaped swimming pool and hot tub. This photo does not do it justice. You can see almost all of Portland, Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood.





We had such a good time. We can't wait for Margo to give birth to their baby so she and Eric can come visit us in Cali.

So we went garage sale shopping this morning and we found some great stuff. First of all, we moved the new chaise in to the couch position and put it up against the wall. There are some new shag pillows to pull in the retro feel - Ah, we are too cool now.



We also got some new prints and frames for some more decor.




And finally, Chelle and I have been wanting to get a shelf to hang above the bed. We had looked at getting one from several different places, but for the size we wanted they were close to $50.00. We found this bad boy at a garage sale and only paid $6.00 for it. It is perfect. We are very happy campers.

My angel's birthday gift!

Never mind the fact that Chelle's birthday gift was several months late, it's here now.
She is the proud owner of the Janome 5124 sewing machine. This is the same sewing machine that mother owns, so we figured if Chelle needs any tutoring as she learns to sew it would simplify things if they both had the same machine.

The adorable wife is going to learn to sew and make adjustments to our clothes, gifts for friends and family, and quite possibly make us a small fortune. She is such a creative women, and gifted to boot. This might be the beginning of a clothing empire!

Only time will tell!

Sunset Ranch in the Hollywood Hills
Saturday at 4:15, 17 of us met at the Sunset Ranch for a horse back adventure.
We had horses hand picked for us by the great staff and once we were in the saddle we headed up the hill.
The ride to the resturant took nearly two hours and included great views of Los Angeles and Burbank, as well as the Hollywood sign and even a special treat passing by the set of the third installement of the "Fast and Furious".
After tying the horses up to the fence, we all sat down family style at a mexican restaurant for beans and margaritas.
At about 8:00, we got back on the horses and headed for home under the stars. The ride back only took about an hour. What a great time and a very cool experience. I had no idea that you could feel so outside of LA while you were in the middle of it.
I recommend this trip whole heartedly.
Visit the website for more info. www.sunsetranchhollywood.com/ 

The whole gang at dinner. 

The Hollywood sign. 

My girl is leading the pack with her horse Fox. Chelle was awesome! She was all over the place with Fox. 

Good Times in the dark!