I think this is where I left off

This should have been posted weeks ago. I'll have a real time update soon.

What a few weeks it's been! All full of football, friends, surprises, kids, dogs, etc. As it stands right now, we are puppy sitting for the kids who are on their honeymoon in the Caribbean. Kind of where we should be right now. Mo is sitting here on the boat whining about his missing parents and spreading his hair all over the place. At least now we can say the boat smell is from the dog. Every time the cannon goes off at the fort the dogs next door bark and Mo gets all worked up and does his part. Remember, the cannons go off about every hour. Joy.

Mo really started getting into the cruising life

The little fuzzball took a while to adjust

I think I left off at the point where we were meeting friends from Hilton Head Island, and our daughter at the Bills/Jags game. This was an awesome time with Deb and Rick, and with Nicole and Jonathan as well. We had a parking lot full of Bills fans, and about half the stadium it seemed. One Jags fan commented about how we overran the stadium. A Bills win naturally added to the fun along with Ann O'Malley's handing out Buffalo/Rochester area brewskis for free. The chant of Let's go Buff-a-lo! was heard throughout the game and into the parking lot afterward.

Our good friends Deb and Rick

Nicole and Jonathan

Western New York Brews

It was a definite good time and great to see our old friends again. Not sure when we will be back to the Jax or St Aug area so it was a real treat.

Nicole and Mo came down to St Aug before Christmas to spend some time on the boat and maybe catch a glimpse of the city. We tried to go to dinner one night but as it turns out Nicole's clueless parents had no idea it was the Night of Lights, which means everyone and their brother was trying to get into the city to look at the wattage. We ended up on route one, circling the town and back out. All for nothing. It was a zoo of epic proportions. We ended up on A1A and made it to Cap's On the Water for a nice extremely expensive dinner. The setting is fantastic, but the prices for dinner are a bit extreme. Sixteen dollars for a salad is ridiculous. Everything else was animals and seafood. We did have a great time on a beautiful night along the Intracoastal waterway.

We also have met some internet friends. Anthony and Annette on Magnolia managed to catch me in a bar of all places. I picked an upscale place rather than my usual dives, though Anthony suggests next time I scale it down a bit. Meeting internet friends is still new to me. I have to learn to be more relaxed and to be myself, though I have learned to at least shower before meeting people. Something my old friends would have appreciated. The crew of Magnolia is heading to the Bahamas and enjoying every moment it seems. Very nice people to meet finally.

Another blog we follow is The Retirement Project where Deb and Tim are working their way down to southern Florida where they will winter and ponder the life they have chosen. We met them at a pub in town for drinks and dinner, then had them over for lasagna that I burned because I was too chatty and not paying attention to it. It was fun talking with them and getting their perspective on life afloat. I think they will do fine in their new adventure. We look forward to catching up to them this winter.

We had our lights up for Christmas above decks, but below it looked kind of bland. We were not doing our job to be festive. I read a post from Veranda regarding their skippers lack of holiday spirit and I felt I should do something as well to "get into it". So, I ran to the nearest craft store where the holiday spirit spills out in the form of chinese plastic. Pickings were slim, but I managed to find something at 66% off! So for a few bucks I came up with this...

Not bad eh?I thought of hanging empty Heineken cans as the colors are right for the holiday, but I really don't like the beer, so I opted for real ornaments. We had saved a few of our old decorations for a possible tree onboard but this is much better. Kind of a Festivus pole.

For Christmas we traveled up I95 to Savannah to Nicole and Jonathan's place. We had a wonderful two days with them and appreciate the great meals and hollywood showers not to mention the laughs. Good times.

So, here we are, dog sitting and waiting for the trip north to welcome our grandson. We will keep you posted on the arrival, and hopefully we'll have some photos! Don't know what it is but we are very poor at taking photos lately. One little note on photos - We had a spontaneous night out with friends a while back that was so amazingly awesome that when it ended we all realized we all forgot our cameras and never had a picture of the event. It then occurred to us that posing for a photo would have totally ruined the way the dinner unfolded. The French waiter you see, was so very entertaining to us all that interrupting him for a photo would have killed the moment. So, not all meetings or events require a freeze frame of time.

Oh, did I mention that Debra has announced her retirement!

Cheers!
P