Peek at a family Christmas.

More to come later, just heading for a nap to gear up for going out for New Year's Eve!!  

But hands down my favorite shot if the night......she loved the onesie!!!

Christmas with the Burdges.

Elliot didn't make it.  It was midnight, Florida time as we are still adjusting and we were all up at 5am - this was him at the end of a nice evening with the family.  

Burdge Christmas on Dec 30th.

I didn't get too many pictures of this evening.....but the kids had a great time...as they always do and the food, as always was awesome....and you can tell there were some very excited participants!

 The kids all would congregate behind the tree.....it was cute.

Home tradition transition continues.

It happened.   

I woke up in the middle of the night and had no idea where I was.  

Wrong side of the bed, I thought.  

Bathroom not where it was supposed to be, I thought. 

I got my bearings relatively quickly, I thought!!!!  It was fun to feel my brain recover and confirm, "It's ok sharon.  You're just home, bathroom is over there".  

Almost home!!!

Was this just this morning????  Oh man, 4:30am seems like a long time ago....

Walked away from the car rental easily...security guards shuttled us to the front of a new line.... They scanned the sand I brought back thinking it could be "something" else?  That was fun.  

Isaacs dizzy spells have increased today. It hasn't even fun for him at all, for any If us really.  Here he is just after one of his spells on the ferry.  His key words that he uses to let us know is "girls eyes! Boys eyes!!"  I heard him yell this from behind me and I ran back and held onto him. Poor kid. 

We headed up to the buffet upstairs in this ferry.  It was amazing.  Yummy food, beautiful food, very good ending. 

So nice to see family on the other side of this long day. 

We stopped in quickly to see marg who had had a migraine that day so she was resting at home.  Here is Isaac telling her stories!  Chistmas dinner at their house tommorow night!

And because we have a light shining down on us, Tanya met us at her office to check Isaac over.  Today was the most brutal day for his dizzy spells. Swimming, luggage, flights.....kind of a perfect storm for his neck/back/ears.  She spent an hour on him.  

There was a big difference in the neck pain he had before she put her hands on him.  She did a big neural test on him to rule a few things out, lots of talking and 

figuring things out.  She stretched out his neck and even I could see a big difference in him afterwards.  

And then it was home with a nice welcome from our friends and all is as it should be.   So nice to be home.  But I'm freezing!!!!

Thoughts from the road.

As we are currently in the middle of our homeward bound stretch, I am reminded of just how incredibly blessed we are to live where we do.  Words do no justice really.  But canada, BC, the island, imadene..... No better place on earth.  Don't get me wrong, we saw some amazing scenes while we were away and met some really nice people.... But they weren't our people.... Our community... And that is what (or whom) I missed most.  

Being with my parents for that mid-holiday spell was important because I felt home with my family.... But the Bahamas....now that is a different world!  I felt like a typical white tourist.  I felt very on the outs in a community who all seem to know each other, I was the outsider.  I envied their apparent closeness and loudness!!!  

I didn't envy how dirty most towns were and how unsafe I often felt.  But it was a really cool experience, one I am glad that my kids got to experience too. 

Amazing trip and very happy to go home.  

Final day - heading back to Orlando!!

Today was a travel day. We woke up in the Bahamas, had lunch with my folks in West Palm Beach, and made the long trek to orlando where we crashed at the most luxurious worldmark.  The day was quite seamless. We've been quite blessed.  

Here is the highlight reel: 

Mama Bahamas stealthily trying to get another $100 out of lowly tourists because I bought Chris's airline ticket with the name Chris and not Christopher like his passport says.  I won and kept the $100.  

Their record book made me laugh;

And I just love how far Elliot has come on his travel ability. He signs his own documents, answers (quietly) when asked a direct question....it's just nice. 

Security check;

On our way!!!!

Excited for home!!

Time for lunch!!!! I love the Olive Garden.  

Great lunch.... So nice to spend a bit more time with mom and dad. 

The boys have gotten quite attached to Nona and grandad this past month with the amount of quality time they were all able to spend together.  

After a long afternoon of driving, ending up at the worldmark was the biggest treat ever!!!  It felt so luxurious!!!!   First up was a swim!!  

Always the first one in!!!!

Launch!!!!

Chris enjoying the heated pool while I watched from the hot tub......ahhhhh!

Final swim!!

I want a bed like this at home....

The boys didn't enjoy their bed as much as I enjoyed ours!  Elliot was happy but Isaac said it hurt his back.  

Happy to be heading home to have isaacs team look at him.  It's been quite un nerving being in the US with a $1000 deductible for any medical treatment he needed as well as away from Tanya.  His dizzy spells have increased and we will be thankful to be back on home soil. 

But what an incredible trip.  

Power went out on the morning of our departure ....

And your mind starts racing about upcoming travel plans.  Chris though, is much like his mother and jumped straight to "was there an earthquake ?".....which makes me jump right to "oh crap, tsunami?"..... Which then makes me jump to "do we have enough food to survive on if we are stuck here surrounded by water and chaos?"....the answers were no, no, and maybe. 

Power goes out but sunrise is still on. 

The clouds have come on strong today, hiding the sun..... And the sea seems angry this morning.  It's a nice day to be homeward bound.  

Thanks abaco towns by the sea.....it's been a week for the books.  And thanks for getting the power back on. No tsunami today. 

Treasure Cay.....

We weren't able to have a do- over of Christmas Eve day with the perfect weather, but from all our exploring, this beach was the most beautiful.  So we decided to spend our last day here. 

Finally he sleeps.

Dear Carrie.

I am sitting here this morning before anyone else is awake so I can catch these amazing sunrises!!

You should be sitting in this lawn chair next to me.  We'd both have a cold glass of orange juice mixed wih pineapple juice in our hands with ice that I made yesturday with the last of the filtered water!

We would talk about our night and how happy we were that everyone slept so well because they were so tired from the day in the sun. 

This time change has played havoc with our time together this month and I am feeling the loss but it will be better soon. Soon we will be talking again during the hairy times of the day even just having each other on in the background of Skype....you know, just being in the same time zone would be enough. 

You would love it here....it's taken me awhile to get accustomed to the speed, which is no speed.  I think it would take you longer to relax here .... And I know how to relax, or so I thought. Here I am on my last day and it's with mixed emotions.  I haven't really seen anything here .... We've just been doing nothing, together.  Which is good for us, right?

Chris doesn't want to come back again bit I think it'd be much different with a group of loved ones. We could explore a little more but with kids who are just happy to sit in a room and play video games, we haven't been eager to pay $80 for a boat to explore the other islands.  So, we rented a car and had a few adventures that way...Chris loves to drive you know!! "Ring finger to the curb" advised Bruce.  Drivers here are crazy and drink while they drive and kids sit in the back of the trucks, and music is loud and it's all good once you get used to that!  Our first walk to the grocery store "Maxwells", was terrifying!!! Where to look?  Cars were on the wrong side of the road so you were always caught off guard to where they were coming from!!  Chris was funny to watch that first day, yelling at the kids "Watch !!  Stay beside me!!!!  Don't DIE!! ( ok not that last one, but his tone screamed it!!).....

Yesturday, we were driving out of town looking for "sandy beach", a beach known for their conchs, when we saw this big tourist father standing behind a wall, peeking around the other side of it timidly to see if a car would come barrelling through!!!  It reminded me of ralphie and his friends in the back lane trying to see where Scott Farkus was going to jump out at them!!  We drove by and I yelled to him "IT GETS EASIER!!!!".... He turns at the sound of my white voice with hope in his eyes and yells back "Maxwells???" And points down the road, like "am I going the right way or am I going to die?"  I point the same direction and say "Yup, keep going!!"  And we continue driving like the seasoned Bahamians we have become.  

So sis... I miss you and think of you everyday.   Glad you had a fantastic Christmas.  We did too..... Love me.