Boxing Day Dinner set up in the livingroom and the diningroom as we where having 18 people!

Leanne, Lindsay and Alison all decked out in their holiday hats!

Trevor, Bruce's brother Earl here from Ottawa to spend Christmas with us and his son Morgan from England! It was great to see them.

Happy New Year everyone! We arrived back at the boat on the 28th of December after sitting through a few flights and finally getting on an Orlando flight. Jim and Karen were nice enough to make the 2 1/2 hour trip to come and pick us up in Orlando, unfortunately our luggage was not so lucky and had to be delivered to us 2 days later. I was not surprised that it was not on the flight with us as we had changed destinations 3 times! The surprise would have been if it had actually arrived with us. From the airport we only went home to quickly change our clothes as we were invited out to dinner on Choices (John and Mary's boat who used to belong to P.C.Y.C and who we had met the first year we were member's.) Although we were a bit tired, we had a great evening with them and a delicious dinner! We had probably not seen them for 3 years so we had quite a bit of catching up to do and Bruce and Jim helped them out by picking up John in Indian Town where they were to leave there car while they headed over to the Bahamas.
It was great to be back on the boat after a hectic schedule at home. We decided to take a few days of R and R and enjoy the beautiful weather as we had heard that a cold front would be moving in after the New Year and bringing with it, cool temperatures. We had temperatures in the 80's and spent a couple of days on the beach, went for dinner with Jim and Karen who had company visiting again from P.C.Y.C and decided what we would do for New Year's. We had been invited to a New Year's Eve party in this area by a former member of this Marina, but when we got back to the boat and started asking around, no one planned on attending the party. Since we didn't know the person hosting the party, we decided that if no one else that we did know was going, maybe we should just stay home too. The guys left it up to Karen and I to decide what we would do so we decided to pick up some mussels, shrimp and lobster and have our own New Year's party on the boat. We had a great time together but had a hard time staying up past 11:00 and I am embarrassed to say but this was the first New Year's Eve in a long time that we did not make it to midnight. At 11:30 we called it a night, said "Happy New Year" to Jim and Karen and went right to bed. We are really getting into the boating life as all boaters seem to go to bed early and get up even earlier! We made up for it the next morning as we took our champagne and orange juice to the beach and celebrated New Year's Day together. In the afternoon we attended our first low country boil which consisted of every type of seafood imaginable but together in a pot along with potatoes, sausage and corn and boiled and then dumped on a piece of newspaper on the table for all to enjoy. What a feast!

This is the tiki hut where all the boater's can get together and socialize.

Low Country Boil. What a feast!

We have started to get into a routine here and try to start each day with a bike ride or a walk and have been finally getting some exercise after about 6 months of inactivity on the boat. It has felt good to finally stop travelling for a bit and take some time out for ourselves. We have also been kept busy with company. Dave and Judy Burns stopped by on their way to Ft. Lauderdale and we had dinner with them and Jim and Karen on our boat and they stayed overnight with us. Amy and Ken (Mary T) visited us as they were having transmission trouble and had to bring the transmission into Stuart to have it fixed so they stopped by on the way home and invited us to their marina for Sunday brunch on the weekend before they left for the Bahamas . Brunch was delicious and it was great to see them one last time before they left. Don't know when we will see them again so we will miss not having them around. We are going to try to get some work done on our boat as well. The wood needs to be done again and we have some caulking to do around the windows as there has been a few leaks sometimes when it rains and we have yet to find where the water is coming it. We have enough to keep us busy for the next couple of weeks but still have time to enjoy the weather.

We have rented our car for another 3 weeks and will stay here until the 24th or 25th of January. Bruce is going home for a couple of days for a doctor's appointment. Jim is going home for a week to renew his passport and Karen's mom is coming for a week to visit so we will also be kept busy driving to the airport and back a few times! We hope to leave for the Florida Keys next and then possibly to the Bahamas in April or the end of March.