Boxing Day exploring!!

Christmas beach fun.... Kind of !

We went exploring abit this afternoon, it was colder today but we were really trying to re-live Christmas Eve day!  But alas, each day is so different.  We explored another beach that ended up being quite dirty, quite a bit of garbage and broken bottles .... But the water was beautiful.  So the boys swam!

Chris did a bit of metal detecting while the boys played in the beautiful water. 

I am going to miss having sandy feet. 

Chris washing up all his "treasures"!  

The boys in their happy place.  Bleh,...I have such a love/hate relationship with those electronics. 

Very low key day..... Never really had a Christmas quite like this.  We had slow roasted ribs that cooked all day wih caesor salad and green beans.... Such a good dinner.  We made chocolate chip cookies after dinner and brought them to our neighbor .... And we crashed into bed at 9pm (just when most of our friends were only starting their Christmas dinners!!)

Merry Christmas.

Just enjoying watching my husband treasure hunt. 

Oh Christmas Chair.....

As our family was trying to decide on a type of tropical Christmas tree the other day, Elliot dragged out the chair from his bedroom and said "how about this?"

We all laughed and last night, Chris and I concluded that we would put the gifts under the palm tree outside our deck.  But we woke up to this: 

A pretty major windstorm.  

So....we went with Elliot's idea. 

Nona got Elliot a coveted bubble gun from Epcot last week.... He was pretty excited;

Isaac: Calvin and Hobbes book, 10$ google play card so he can finally buy the full version of minecraft, Elliot got a magic marker coloring book that he likes, and we contributed the additional money he needed to buy his skylander swap force game he has been asking for for months (it was on sale in Florida).....both boys got 3 in 1 Lego sets, a little Lego box to fill at the Lego store at downtown Disney this weekend, 3 DS games from used cowichan before we left and a box of trix.  

Chris got me a cozy onesie that I am enjoying right now - perfect timing as I, too, received my monthly gift this morning and everything aches. 

Kids are now playing with their stuff, I made a smoothy and Chris is happy on the beach metal detecting;

But we are all safe and happy where we are.  Indeed a merry Christmas.  

Christmas Eve

With my parents back in Florida, and the disappointment that accompanied that, we were pretty thankful to get invited to a Christmas Eve dinner with their old friends Bruce and Heather.  Their daughter Megan is getting married in a week and they were hosting dinner near their boat dock.  I used to babysit meg, so it was fun to catch up a bit. 

I made the beach trek over early from our place to get my salad put together.  Chris and the boys were going to join me closer to dinner (less chit chat for my hubby! :-).  My Christmas gift to him!  Haha

My favorite part of the night was how I loved how peoples faces lite up when they learn who's daughter I am.  That never gets old... I have always been pretty proud of my folks.  Everyone loves them....as do I.  But to be with people tonight who have known me since I was little and especially at this time of year, was actually really special. 

Wrapping presents.....

"Hey honey.... Remember that Christmas Eve we wrapped the boys presents all in abaco newspaper...."

....and caution tape that Elliot found and loved?  

I love you. Merry Christmas.  

Had the most amazing day.....

No words needed. 

Today was amazing. 

Christmas Eve morning Lego building.

Thanks to the rentons we have fallen in love with the 3 in 1 Lego sets!!!  Isaac is on his 3rd build this morning (a beaver), and Elliot, who needed a lot more coaxing to take his hovercraft apart to make another build), is on his 2nd (airplane).

Chris left for the grocery story to grab more milk (we went through 2l in one night!)....and after my attempt to make the boys pancakes (even with so little baking powder needed, I learned it's quite crucial)....they still ate them!!

We leave for the 10:30 ferry to Hope Town today.... Should be fun!

10 hour sleeps.....

Can't seem to stay up past 9pm these days.  Which is sad because the Christmas story was so fun to watch the boys watch last night.  You know what dawned on me last night?  Our boys are now THOSE boys!!  Around 7 and 9!!!!  Sorta changed the movie a bit for me when Elliot would laugh harder at what the little brother was doing, and Isaac seemed to think ralphie was hilarious.... Uh oh!

Today we head to explore Hope Town.  The first settled area that apparently has really kept it's roots.  We can walk the whole island or rent a golf cart..... Haha. 

Christmas Eve morning..... Hard to believe.  

 I stayed a little longer and saw the most beautiful sunrise.  I have never really sat and seen one from nothing to this, intentionally anyways.  

Amazing. 

First full day in the Bahamas ....

We are still aclimatizing to our new environment - we explored around this morning - met the resort hosts, got some maps and some advice, walked to the local coffee shop (decided to crack open my own coffee stash for tommorow). ...we thought we would take a ferry over to a little island at 1:30.... But we crashed around 1 and decided we were probably a lot more tired than we thought.  

We had lunch at the house, and heather popped by for a nice visit.  Then it was time to venture out for groceries.  I suppose many others had that idea as well!!  It was loud and busy and though we spent about $180...that's about 4 meals out around here!!!  And so far we have had 2 today!  And lunch is already packed for tommorow!  So....we are ahead.  But it's scary because everyone is closed tommorow afternoon til Friday!! Yay for holidays?  Gulp!

Took a fun shot of the boys in dated telephone booths....

Isaac wanted me to take a picture of this truck for Paul.  He said this is what his mini truck will look like when it's all grown up. 

Dinner was pineapple/strawberry/banana smoothies and homemade corn chowder (saved last nights rotisserie chicken for stock and left over meat).....it was amazing soup - we all had tons. 

It's beautiful here. 

The sunsets and sunrises here are amazing.....

We are all waiting til 8... We get CBC here and the Christmas Story is playing tonight!!!

Bahamas Bound....

The day was quite seamless....returned the car, checked our bags onto Bahamas Air, grabbed a coffee and our electronics and we were all happy for the hour we had to wait.  I caught up with my sister on facetime while the other boys all played on their phones/tablets.

The flight was short (40 minutes)......

Waiting to go through Bahama customs......

The only snag was when the customs lady officer threatened to not let Elliot into the country unless he kissed her.....he almost lost his mind!!  I nicely told her that he barely kisses me....so then she turns her attention to my other sweet boy thinking she could get a little further with him?  He gave her a high 5...and she laughed and stamped his passport.   A taxi driver, a nice bohemian woman, scooped us up as soon as we stepped out and drove us to the resort.  Sunday everything is closed.....and my email wasn't working that had the code that had been emailed to me for the door to our unit!  After talking to a few of our new neighbors about wi-fi (they couldn't get on either, their codes were wrong)....I was able to figure it out and mooch off the neighboring resorts code for a few minutes while on the beach.  We let ourselves in and figured out our next steps.

Its a nice unit (thanks again Kelly)......and there wasn't a soul around anywhere.  A little un nerving....but we were starving by now and headed to a local restaurant.  We waited in that restaurant for our food for over an hour.  We ALL almost lost our minds!!  I haven't been that hungry in a long time and you forget what its like when you can barely no longer deal with yourself.  When the food did come, it was amazing (of course).....after lunch we walked across the stress to the local market (convenience store, where everything is 7$ and up).....there was really nothing to eat in there even though it said "now fresh fruit/veggies and meat available!!"....umm...nope.  It was 3:30 by now and she told us that the bigger supermarket was a 15 minute walk down the road and was closing at 4.  We raced outta there!!  We were almost there but had doubts at this one corner, so we flagged down a truck that happily opened their door to show us the glass bottles of beer in their crotches, gave us directions and good naturedly said we "better hurry, they are about to close".  We said thank you, and they showed off their skills by doing the biggest burnout out, kicking up stones and shells our way....they really were just happy guys.....but ummm....

We got to the market and it was like that game where you fly through the supermarket to see how much food you can get into your cart before your time is up!  Bread, milk, eggs, a roasted chicken, ketchup, potatos (should have re-thought the 5 pound bag, THAT was no fun to carry home!!), corn, juice, frozen strawberries for smoothies and bananas...oh, and mini-wheats (of course).

We all lugged it home, nice to work together.....kid swam and then we just crashed at the house. (its our "house" for the rest of the week).  Griswolds Christmas vacation was on tv, so we watched part of that before bed..tonight is the classic "A Christmas Story" my favorite!!  Ralphie!!!  

This was on Elliots bed.....thanks Flora.....he has been keeping elliot company....to feel like home.

So, it turns out that the window fully closed for mom and dad to come over.  They will be staying in Florida, which I think is for the best for them (not for us, I wanted to be with more family for christmas!!).....but their friends are here so we may spend some time with them, but perhaps we will just stick to ourselves.  Its a little un nerving being here...its only the first morning so change and the transition to a new place is sometimes challenging right?  But we are all unpacked, now I need to figure out meals for the week since restaurants are terribly expensive.  It is beautiful here, very windy......but here we go; third and final leg of the holiday!!

Christmas on the boat.....

It was a phone call at 5:30 with the news that mom and dads window to travel across to the Bahamas had closed that put us all back into the car to spend a bit more time with them before our flight the next morning.

It was just under 2 hours to get back to the boat, but if we weren't seeing them for Christmas, we wanted to squeeze a little more in...... the boys were excited to give them their gifts!!  As you can tell from the top right collage, Nona was happy to receive them!!  (Just kidding, that was a "YAW" showdown between Isaac and Nona.....Viking Style....

We didn't stay too long as it was a long drive back to West Palm....and there is a small chance of a window for Monday morning at 6am, but that would put them into Spanish harbor in the dark, which doesn't excite my dad at all.  Its nice he is so safety minded, I don't have to worry about him doing something just because he planned to go somewhere.  If the weather isn't good.....he isn't going.  Thats that.  We shall see about that Monday window.

Final day on "In Tune"....

Saturday morning the boys were still pretty passed out on the couch....but they aren't one for sleeping in, and were up bounding about shortly after this picture was taken....

cereal in the sitting room......

Reading the back of the cheerio box.......

Fishing was soon after breakfast while the rest of us packed up to get ready to hit the road.

Mom and Dad were packing up to leave Sunday morning.....and its much easier to work around in a small space with 4 people and their stuff out of the way!!  They have been watching the websites for the waves and weather for a window to head over to the Bahamas.  Its been a time with some anxiety about the crossing, prepping the boat to its upmost safety standards, provisioning the boat with food and supplies - they have been busy!  The plan is that we are flying out Sunday at noon, and their plans are to leave Sunday morning....so we will see how that shakes loose.  The weather changes on a dime around here.

So, we left for West Palm Beach after saying our good byes.....the boys were full of energy and it was a little stressful on the boat prior to our departure, it was hot, chris and dad were unable to get the wi - fi cords to work (turns out it was a faulty cord), the boys were not listening to well and making the boat feel a little smaller than it was....so we hustled out of there around 10:30.  We got to West Palm around lunch.  We always like to go to Red Lobster at least once during our holidays (or Bubba Gumps)....so Isaac and I shared a seafood plate and chris had his steak and elliot was happy happy with his chicken strips.

We checked in to a really nice Best Western that had a pool in a beautiful courtyard.  The boys swam for hours in the heated pool while I caught up with Susan and Laura on facetime.

Chris slept.  I think he is pretty wiped out.