Thursday, December 31. 2009
New Years eve 2009 with me!
I am going to take a bit of a trip down memory lane here. WWWaaayyyy back when, about the time that I first started learning how to SCUBA dive in Canada, and started going through MY mid life crisis...(it was not a short one either!) about maybe 17 years ago, I started going up to Tobermory to help teach diving on the weekends. I met a girl called Karen, that was very friendly and also had a sarcastic sense of humor just like me. I believe at the time that both of us were at the stage of getting out of marriages, so we gravitated toward each other and became firm friends, doing everything together, probably with a drink in hand too many times!
My younger sister Sydney is 9 years younger then me, so we had really not hung out a heck of a lot while we were adults, and we lived on opposite ends of the country. Surprise, Surprise, my sister was also going through a marriage breaking up (she followed along my path quite nicely...) and when she was in the stage of "Do I go or do I stay" she decided to come down to visit me for a week and see if it helped her decision. Yes, she came down to see the two girls who had now ditched their husbands and were still hanging out together creating chaos between Canada and Cozumel.
As usual, I was late picking my sister up at the airport that morning. Why? Well, because Karen and I MIGHT have been up drinking or perhaps crocheting the night before. My sister shows up, all little, blond and cute, looking for words of wisdom from her older more mature sister and instead she had us lot who mercifully teased her as she was regaling us quite proudly of making "homemade cinnamon buns" for "dougie" before she left. This left us in peels of laugher... (yes, I know, I made cinnamon buns quite often on the yacht!) We have never let her forget that. Now there were 3 of us.....although, I may have to admit that my sister has always been slightly usually more responsible then I (I am sure you have all seen my black wool and the scarlet S on my forehead!) and Karen did not have children...but anyways. My sister moved down, and we continued on our merry way. Of course we eventually all found a man, of some type or other (and interestingly NONE of the 3 of us are with the ones we found then. At least I did not marry that one, I think I was getting fairly embarassed about the amount of marriages under my belt) however, both Syd and Karen did.
Time moved on, I moved down south, Karen followed, my sister moved to the states with the new husband and we all got together over the years in various combinations. We probably mostly all went through periods of not talking to each other in different combinations, but in our hearts (well, I will just speak for mine...) I always felt a great deal of affection for both, through everything. Everyone moved again...
And I flew down to San Francisco a couple days ago to meet them both. Karen had came down from Ontario. My sister brought her up to the hotel room... and of course I took pics as soon as the door opened.
We posed for our first picture with the three of us in a long time, and I think we look BETTER then our pictures of 15 years ago! What do you think?? Of course you agree....since Karen is making signs behind my head, apparently she has not gotten any older lately!
I was trying to hide on the floor so I could keep my stomach out of the picture, but they were having none of that and made me sit between them. Only to tell me that if we all lifted our head and stuck our chin out we would lose the double chin in the picture. Why is it then that I was the only one who did and consequently, the only one who looked like an idiot with probably more double chins!
We had vodka and visited. To me it looked like we were meeting in the visiting area of a jail....
Although we managed to find pizza as well. The girls had been in town all day at Fishermens wharf, and we are a lot older, so bed time was not as late as it would have been decades ago...
The next day they managed to get their petite little behinds out of bed bright and mid day and my sister told me that we were going for a drive and then going out for burritos for lunch. Therefore, I did not let my husband eat...
My younger niece, Melissa, smartly decided to stay home...
And we were off on a road trip! One of many we have done, just not for a very long time....
Karen and I both made tactical errors that we realized within a couple hours, as we had no beverages for the road trip. A mistake that quickly became apparent. (By the way, that is one thing I have found strange up here and I have not quite got used to thinking about yet is the fact that you cannot drink in a vehicle., or drink or drive, unlike the BVI...not saying that I would get smashed driving in either country, just saying it is weird!)
Of course we went to the Golden Gate Bridge...and of course I am going to bore you with about a dozen pictures of it. You are lucky that I do not have Karens memory card otherwise I would have even more!
Karen was having a hard time finding the bridge and was pretty excited when she thought she found it before us. I had already been up a dozen pictures!
I like the bridge through the trees...AND it was a warm day! Hallelujah!
Karen believed that it was noon and we could have a drink, and I reminded her jokingly that it was 5 that she was allowed to have a drink at. I don't believed she liked that idea, but I thought for sure my sister was going to make sure that we were fed and watered, but oh no, by 4 we were still in traffic with no food and liquor in sight! Karen wanted to get a fridge magnet and a tshirt in China town, but was giving up that idea in favor of the food and drink as well. I promised to buy her 2 and mail them if we could give up on that. She agreed all too quickly and we asked James the chauffeur to head to BevMo. We had a cocktail party to go to at 6 PM., so we needed to get back out to Danville before that.
We were like ravenous dogs when coming out of the store with cheese, crackers, chips, sausage and enough liquor to sink a ship considering we were just about to go out... Threw some substinence in our mouth and off we went!
We seem to have had a fair number of guests on the boat from the Danville area, and "Blondie" recommended her niece and friends come on the boat after they did their charter. Blondie reminded me that I was apparently being very stingy with the tshirts when we played the shots game on the boat when they were on and she managed to leap across the table, grab the large shot of bourbon that was left, wrestle it out of another guests hands and pound it down for the grand prize...I am sure i have a picture of that on the blog somewhere!
I took the opportunity to let my "girls" serve me, and Sherry passed around pizza as well as the tons of other appies they had. It was so much fun to see them, if only for the very short while that it was. They were just on the boat last May actually....
Kari and Sue wanted me to promise that I would not use this as a blog picture. Yeah. right. do they know me at all??? Of course I did, all natural on this blog we are!
We spent a couple hours there and then back to my sisters (this is my eldest niece Cassie) to watch the pics, have a last chat and say our goodbyes..
By this evening I almost felt sorry for my sister as it took 24 hours, but Karen and I tag teamed teasing her about cinnamon buns and who knows what else. Well, I do know, it was getting no food and drink until 5 pm!!!! We won't let her be in charge of that again! It felt just like we had never been apart. It was wonderful. The girls are taking my niece Cassie to Nashville tomorrow for her 21st birthday. Look out Nashville! I am headed to Vancouver with my parents instead, as I have an uncle who is having a big operation there.
Unlike coming down to San Fran, we are allowed to take carry on bags on the plane on the way home and a damn good thing it is too! As I seem to be carting around a whole bunch of "stuff" that my dad had shipped to my sisters in the states. Like 3 hubcabs. Yee haa!
We are on the plane now as I type, (no mention yet of having to keep our hands out of our pockets for the last hour of the flight and we are probably in that now, so double bonus I believe!). Back to Victoria, and my parents have made dinner reservations at 5 PM at some Italian Restaurant downtown Victoria as it is my brothers birthday today! He gets ripped off having it on New Years eve I believe...
I have promised Bazza that after that we can stay home for one day tomorrow before heading to Vancouver. I am not sure if I am looking more forward to it or he is, but probably him, as he has had to visit with my family for weeks here!
My younger sister Sydney is 9 years younger then me, so we had really not hung out a heck of a lot while we were adults, and we lived on opposite ends of the country. Surprise, Surprise, my sister was also going through a marriage breaking up (she followed along my path quite nicely...) and when she was in the stage of "Do I go or do I stay" she decided to come down to visit me for a week and see if it helped her decision. Yes, she came down to see the two girls who had now ditched their husbands and were still hanging out together creating chaos between Canada and Cozumel.
As usual, I was late picking my sister up at the airport that morning. Why? Well, because Karen and I MIGHT have been up drinking or perhaps crocheting the night before. My sister shows up, all little, blond and cute, looking for words of wisdom from her older more mature sister and instead she had us lot who mercifully teased her as she was regaling us quite proudly of making "homemade cinnamon buns" for "dougie" before she left. This left us in peels of laugher... (yes, I know, I made cinnamon buns quite often on the yacht!) We have never let her forget that. Now there were 3 of us.....although, I may have to admit that my sister has always been slightly usually more responsible then I (I am sure you have all seen my black wool and the scarlet S on my forehead!) and Karen did not have children...but anyways. My sister moved down, and we continued on our merry way. Of course we eventually all found a man, of some type or other (and interestingly NONE of the 3 of us are with the ones we found then. At least I did not marry that one, I think I was getting fairly embarassed about the amount of marriages under my belt) however, both Syd and Karen did.
Time moved on, I moved down south, Karen followed, my sister moved to the states with the new husband and we all got together over the years in various combinations. We probably mostly all went through periods of not talking to each other in different combinations, but in our hearts (well, I will just speak for mine...) I always felt a great deal of affection for both, through everything. Everyone moved again...
And I flew down to San Francisco a couple days ago to meet them both. Karen had came down from Ontario. My sister brought her up to the hotel room... and of course I took pics as soon as the door opened.
We posed for our first picture with the three of us in a long time, and I think we look BETTER then our pictures of 15 years ago! What do you think?? Of course you agree....since Karen is making signs behind my head, apparently she has not gotten any older lately!
I was trying to hide on the floor so I could keep my stomach out of the picture, but they were having none of that and made me sit between them. Only to tell me that if we all lifted our head and stuck our chin out we would lose the double chin in the picture. Why is it then that I was the only one who did and consequently, the only one who looked like an idiot with probably more double chins!
We had vodka and visited. To me it looked like we were meeting in the visiting area of a jail....
Although we managed to find pizza as well. The girls had been in town all day at Fishermens wharf, and we are a lot older, so bed time was not as late as it would have been decades ago...
The next day they managed to get their petite little behinds out of bed bright and mid day and my sister told me that we were going for a drive and then going out for burritos for lunch. Therefore, I did not let my husband eat...
My younger niece, Melissa, smartly decided to stay home...
And we were off on a road trip! One of many we have done, just not for a very long time....
Karen and I both made tactical errors that we realized within a couple hours, as we had no beverages for the road trip. A mistake that quickly became apparent. (By the way, that is one thing I have found strange up here and I have not quite got used to thinking about yet is the fact that you cannot drink in a vehicle., or drink or drive, unlike the BVI...not saying that I would get smashed driving in either country, just saying it is weird!)
Of course we went to the Golden Gate Bridge...and of course I am going to bore you with about a dozen pictures of it. You are lucky that I do not have Karens memory card otherwise I would have even more!
Karen was having a hard time finding the bridge and was pretty excited when she thought she found it before us. I had already been up a dozen pictures!
I like the bridge through the trees...AND it was a warm day! Hallelujah!
Karen believed that it was noon and we could have a drink, and I reminded her jokingly that it was 5 that she was allowed to have a drink at. I don't believed she liked that idea, but I thought for sure my sister was going to make sure that we were fed and watered, but oh no, by 4 we were still in traffic with no food and liquor in sight! Karen wanted to get a fridge magnet and a tshirt in China town, but was giving up that idea in favor of the food and drink as well. I promised to buy her 2 and mail them if we could give up on that. She agreed all too quickly and we asked James the chauffeur to head to BevMo. We had a cocktail party to go to at 6 PM., so we needed to get back out to Danville before that.
We were like ravenous dogs when coming out of the store with cheese, crackers, chips, sausage and enough liquor to sink a ship considering we were just about to go out... Threw some substinence in our mouth and off we went!
We seem to have had a fair number of guests on the boat from the Danville area, and "Blondie" recommended her niece and friends come on the boat after they did their charter. Blondie reminded me that I was apparently being very stingy with the tshirts when we played the shots game on the boat when they were on and she managed to leap across the table, grab the large shot of bourbon that was left, wrestle it out of another guests hands and pound it down for the grand prize...I am sure i have a picture of that on the blog somewhere!
I took the opportunity to let my "girls" serve me, and Sherry passed around pizza as well as the tons of other appies they had. It was so much fun to see them, if only for the very short while that it was. They were just on the boat last May actually....
Kari and Sue wanted me to promise that I would not use this as a blog picture. Yeah. right. do they know me at all??? Of course I did, all natural on this blog we are!
We spent a couple hours there and then back to my sisters (this is my eldest niece Cassie) to watch the pics, have a last chat and say our goodbyes..
By this evening I almost felt sorry for my sister as it took 24 hours, but Karen and I tag teamed teasing her about cinnamon buns and who knows what else. Well, I do know, it was getting no food and drink until 5 pm!!!! We won't let her be in charge of that again! It felt just like we had never been apart. It was wonderful. The girls are taking my niece Cassie to Nashville tomorrow for her 21st birthday. Look out Nashville! I am headed to Vancouver with my parents instead, as I have an uncle who is having a big operation there.
Unlike coming down to San Fran, we are allowed to take carry on bags on the plane on the way home and a damn good thing it is too! As I seem to be carting around a whole bunch of "stuff" that my dad had shipped to my sisters in the states. Like 3 hubcabs. Yee haa!
We are on the plane now as I type, (no mention yet of having to keep our hands out of our pockets for the last hour of the flight and we are probably in that now, so double bonus I believe!). Back to Victoria, and my parents have made dinner reservations at 5 PM at some Italian Restaurant downtown Victoria as it is my brothers birthday today! He gets ripped off having it on New Years eve I believe...
I have promised Bazza that after that we can stay home for one day tomorrow before heading to Vancouver. I am not sure if I am looking more forward to it or he is, but probably him, as he has had to visit with my family for weeks here!
Tuesday, December 29. 2009
Christmas cheer continues. And I am beat tired.
Been a few days since I blogged here, which has been pointed out to me (Thx Janice!) I have been busy doing what my husband says I do EACH and EVERY week when I run charters. That would be pack too much into a day so all we do is sail around the BVI at breakneck speed!. I cannot even argue with him there. Right now I am about hitting a wall and wanting to crash. I completely understand once again why Xmas is so stressful and tired in the real world and it will be another 15-20 years until I do it again! That is getting ahead of myself though...
We had Xmas dinner on Xmas eve since my boys were heading home on Xmas day. Grampa cut the turkey.
And I mostly took pictures of the table!
Are you getting sick of seeing pictures of my kids yet? I would not blame you, I was getting tired of seeing them in person by this time! Kidding...maybe. I always find with my adult children that once we visit for a bit, I take them shopping or to a movie and feed them, then they are about bored with the old folks and ready to go on with their own life. Or maybe it is the other way around???
A fairly early night and Bazza had to nudge me the next morning saying "we better get up and have Xmas with gramma" This was about 830. She had only been up since about 4!
She had the candles ready to be lit, the log ready to go on the fireplace and the chocolate on the table and under the tree mostly ate!
I like this picture of all the colors in the living room...
My children were not quite sure why I was giving them DNA profiling for Xmas. They wanted to know REALLY quickly if I was wanting to make sure that they were really my kids. Good idea, but I tell you, I can relate every single one of my stretch marks back to one or the other of them!!!
My brother, just sat back and watched quietly...
My 30 year old quickly reverted to 3 years old when he had a hot wheels and proceeded to drive it around the living room and make as much noise as he could, prompting my father to get out the vacumn immediately after the openings to vacumn all the marks out of the carpet!
Bazza put good use to his new socks by using them as a sun shade for a nap....
I spent an hour making a traditional Xmas morning meal in our house, potato pancakes. We all love them! The tray of desset in the foreground is just to get me through the process with lots of energy!
Ate them around noon and it was a good thing it was left over later on i the day.
We took my boys to the airport in the early evening so they could get back for work the next day and this is the start of me biting off more then I could chew. Two hours after dropping them off we were back at the airport to pick up my youngest son Kevin, and his girlfriend Sam...
They were happy to arrive.
We spent the next day wandering around town, where it apparently that Sam is also 21 going on 3, as she is all decked out in pink and little kitty designer wear!
We attempted to go to Avatar, but it was sold out so we went to see have you heard about the morgans? It had a priceless Sarah Palin line in it! More driving around, more food...
To see Avatar the next night, packed full, and then yesterday was putting the kids back on a plane to go to Ontario and we were heading to the airport ourselves.
Instead of heading to the airport we should have been curling up into bed and watching TV for a few days, but my sister had said " they have direct flights between Victoria and San Francisco" and we had a friend coming down to visit her..... We had contemplated driving down for a few days, but it really did not work as we have to be in Vancouver January 2nd. In a moment of weakness I bought tickets.
We checked in on line, printed our boarding passes, checked that we were not checking any bags, only taking a small carry on and then arrived at the airport and the fun started. While standing in the line to go through security we were told that we were not permitted to bring any carry on bags on the plane. Not even laptop bags. Everything had to be checked except for small purses. This had just come down in the last couple hours. Back we go to check bags. We were lucky, as just about that time it was decided that we COULD take the laptop bags on. Many people who had checked in before us were stuck carrying around their laptops in their hands for the flight, smartly deciding checking the laptop bag was one thing, but checking the laptop was quite another.
At United we were told that they were "nicely" waiving the baggage fee for that day. No comment. The staff was all in an uproar as they said directives were being changed from one moment to the next and they had no idea on what they were supposed to do. Really they were just being screamed at by every customer.
Managed to do that and get back to security, while emptying out our laptops the TSA said "no laptop bags" someone came up and said they were allowed now and TSA (or the Canadian equivalent) just rolled their eyes.
We went through the extra pat down and baggage check before boarding. The only place we were not patted down, was the one place I would probably carry something if I had a mind to.
The flight was only 1 hour and 40 minute and the last hour you were not allowed to have anything on your lap, go to the bathroom, drink or eat anything, use any devices and had to keep your hands in full view. This meant that there was a line up down the plane for the bathroom before the cut off, when we had our "warnings" Every one has their ideas on the knee jerk reactions of things so I will not get into it at all. I will just say that as soon as I entered the bathroom I realized that a lot of men could not hit the toilet and it smelt like the worse urinal I had ever been in! I had to put tissue over my nose just to stay in there and take a pee!
Upon arrival at San Francisco, Bazza and I looked at the Immigration lines and joked that no matter which lane we picked it would be the slowest. It was a joke cuz there was about 200 people behind us as well, but it became less funny when there was 5 people left in the lanes in the entire cavernous space and we were two of them! We were closely questioned on why Bazza had a B1/B2 Visa, where we were going, why we came into the states so much and on and on. He wanted to see our return tickets but I told him that I did not have them printed, but he could look at them on my laptop if he wanted. He told me that I could not open my laptop in there.
By the time we found the sky train, took the shuttle to the car rental building, found out that they car rental company place we had picked this time meant we had to take ANOTHER shuttle from there to their place (And I did not even pick the cheapest!), got to the car rental place, waited for them to clean a car for us as I did not want a mustang that they thought i would be happy to get...it was over and hour and a half since we got off the plane. Longer then the flight was. Plus we were at the airport in Victoria three hours in advance. Traveling is such fun!!!!
My sister met us for dinner at, wait for it, outback steakhouse... She said somehow she knew we wanted to go there before she even asked! Had dinner and then made our way to the hotel we reserved. 20 minutes after we checked into the hotel, we checked out again, but that is a story for another day!
By the way, it is Princess LuLu's birthday on the boat today...I want to know why she had to make her own dessert and ice cream for her Bday?? Come on Rich and Bruce, you can do better then that!.
I also hear through the grapevine that our new boat owner Bruce had an interesting (make that expensive...) week his first week of doing charters. Things that somehow I missed reading about on the boat blog! Not only did he rinse his camera with salt water at the bubbly pool, but lost an expensive watch on the banana boat, tore the foot rest on the banana boat by over inflating it, and sent his wallet to the laundry! Welcome to the expensive world of boating! Been there done that! Those are just minor baby expenses I tell you...fair warning!
And in a creative accounting mood for the marina, since we use A/C on dock they decided they were going to charge us so much per day for using it. Fine, they negotiated a rate which was half what they wanted. THen the new dock manager wants to charge them 2 days rate when the boat is on dock from noon to noon!! Cuz, in his mind that is two days! Had to giggle. Sorry we are not there to help with these things guys..... Been there done that again...
We had Xmas dinner on Xmas eve since my boys were heading home on Xmas day. Grampa cut the turkey.
And I mostly took pictures of the table!
Are you getting sick of seeing pictures of my kids yet? I would not blame you, I was getting tired of seeing them in person by this time! Kidding...maybe. I always find with my adult children that once we visit for a bit, I take them shopping or to a movie and feed them, then they are about bored with the old folks and ready to go on with their own life. Or maybe it is the other way around???
A fairly early night and Bazza had to nudge me the next morning saying "we better get up and have Xmas with gramma" This was about 830. She had only been up since about 4!
She had the candles ready to be lit, the log ready to go on the fireplace and the chocolate on the table and under the tree mostly ate!
I like this picture of all the colors in the living room...
My children were not quite sure why I was giving them DNA profiling for Xmas. They wanted to know REALLY quickly if I was wanting to make sure that they were really my kids. Good idea, but I tell you, I can relate every single one of my stretch marks back to one or the other of them!!!
My brother, just sat back and watched quietly...
My 30 year old quickly reverted to 3 years old when he had a hot wheels and proceeded to drive it around the living room and make as much noise as he could, prompting my father to get out the vacumn immediately after the openings to vacumn all the marks out of the carpet!
Bazza put good use to his new socks by using them as a sun shade for a nap....
I spent an hour making a traditional Xmas morning meal in our house, potato pancakes. We all love them! The tray of desset in the foreground is just to get me through the process with lots of energy!
Ate them around noon and it was a good thing it was left over later on i the day.
We took my boys to the airport in the early evening so they could get back for work the next day and this is the start of me biting off more then I could chew. Two hours after dropping them off we were back at the airport to pick up my youngest son Kevin, and his girlfriend Sam...
They were happy to arrive.
We spent the next day wandering around town, where it apparently that Sam is also 21 going on 3, as she is all decked out in pink and little kitty designer wear!
We attempted to go to Avatar, but it was sold out so we went to see have you heard about the morgans? It had a priceless Sarah Palin line in it! More driving around, more food...
To see Avatar the next night, packed full, and then yesterday was putting the kids back on a plane to go to Ontario and we were heading to the airport ourselves.
Instead of heading to the airport we should have been curling up into bed and watching TV for a few days, but my sister had said " they have direct flights between Victoria and San Francisco" and we had a friend coming down to visit her..... We had contemplated driving down for a few days, but it really did not work as we have to be in Vancouver January 2nd. In a moment of weakness I bought tickets.
We checked in on line, printed our boarding passes, checked that we were not checking any bags, only taking a small carry on and then arrived at the airport and the fun started. While standing in the line to go through security we were told that we were not permitted to bring any carry on bags on the plane. Not even laptop bags. Everything had to be checked except for small purses. This had just come down in the last couple hours. Back we go to check bags. We were lucky, as just about that time it was decided that we COULD take the laptop bags on. Many people who had checked in before us were stuck carrying around their laptops in their hands for the flight, smartly deciding checking the laptop bag was one thing, but checking the laptop was quite another.
At United we were told that they were "nicely" waiving the baggage fee for that day. No comment. The staff was all in an uproar as they said directives were being changed from one moment to the next and they had no idea on what they were supposed to do. Really they were just being screamed at by every customer.
Managed to do that and get back to security, while emptying out our laptops the TSA said "no laptop bags" someone came up and said they were allowed now and TSA (or the Canadian equivalent) just rolled their eyes.
We went through the extra pat down and baggage check before boarding. The only place we were not patted down, was the one place I would probably carry something if I had a mind to.
The flight was only 1 hour and 40 minute and the last hour you were not allowed to have anything on your lap, go to the bathroom, drink or eat anything, use any devices and had to keep your hands in full view. This meant that there was a line up down the plane for the bathroom before the cut off, when we had our "warnings" Every one has their ideas on the knee jerk reactions of things so I will not get into it at all. I will just say that as soon as I entered the bathroom I realized that a lot of men could not hit the toilet and it smelt like the worse urinal I had ever been in! I had to put tissue over my nose just to stay in there and take a pee!
Upon arrival at San Francisco, Bazza and I looked at the Immigration lines and joked that no matter which lane we picked it would be the slowest. It was a joke cuz there was about 200 people behind us as well, but it became less funny when there was 5 people left in the lanes in the entire cavernous space and we were two of them! We were closely questioned on why Bazza had a B1/B2 Visa, where we were going, why we came into the states so much and on and on. He wanted to see our return tickets but I told him that I did not have them printed, but he could look at them on my laptop if he wanted. He told me that I could not open my laptop in there.
By the time we found the sky train, took the shuttle to the car rental building, found out that they car rental company place we had picked this time meant we had to take ANOTHER shuttle from there to their place (And I did not even pick the cheapest!), got to the car rental place, waited for them to clean a car for us as I did not want a mustang that they thought i would be happy to get...it was over and hour and a half since we got off the plane. Longer then the flight was. Plus we were at the airport in Victoria three hours in advance. Traveling is such fun!!!!
My sister met us for dinner at, wait for it, outback steakhouse... She said somehow she knew we wanted to go there before she even asked! Had dinner and then made our way to the hotel we reserved. 20 minutes after we checked into the hotel, we checked out again, but that is a story for another day!
By the way, it is Princess LuLu's birthday on the boat today...I want to know why she had to make her own dessert and ice cream for her Bday?? Come on Rich and Bruce, you can do better then that!.
I also hear through the grapevine that our new boat owner Bruce had an interesting (make that expensive...) week his first week of doing charters. Things that somehow I missed reading about on the boat blog! Not only did he rinse his camera with salt water at the bubbly pool, but lost an expensive watch on the banana boat, tore the foot rest on the banana boat by over inflating it, and sent his wallet to the laundry! Welcome to the expensive world of boating! Been there done that! Those are just minor baby expenses I tell you...fair warning!
And in a creative accounting mood for the marina, since we use A/C on dock they decided they were going to charge us so much per day for using it. Fine, they negotiated a rate which was half what they wanted. THen the new dock manager wants to charge them 2 days rate when the boat is on dock from noon to noon!! Cuz, in his mind that is two days! Had to giggle. Sorry we are not there to help with these things guys..... Been there done that again...
Thursday, December 24. 2009
Xmas Eve Day. Not on the yacht!
Very First Xmas for me not on the boat for about 12 years! Seems weird...You have to do all this present, and visiting and a billion trips back and forth to the airport. Mostly what i have here is family pictures, since it is Xmas!
The first trip out to the airport was to pick up my two oldest sons, Chris and Chad...Mom was very glad to see them!
Then the grandparents were glad to see them as well..
My oldest may be 30, but he is still as goofy as can be with his Xmas sweater with lights on it...
It was a family dinner with Shephard's pie (a family favorite)
And I just thought the cookies were pretty!
Then mother took us all with her to the nativity play in the park. It was a nice night out. No rain. The animals were nice and it was only 18 minutes. Moving along...
We are not a late night family in this house, or at least the older generation. The boys wanted to go to the casino so off the grandparents went with them "for a bit" at 6 PM. At quarter to 11 I am starting to pace as I have to leave for the airport in 45 minutes to pick up my sister who my parents do not know is coming, and they certainly know that i am not going out for a drink at midnight! Apparently the grandsons were good luck and my mother won a nice large jackpot! SHe was thrilled!!
They got home in time for me to sneak out to get my sister...
My mother had fallen asleep on the couch so at 1 AM we walked in and turned on the lights. This is what a mother looks like who realizes her youngest daughter has just shown up!!!!
It was perfect and she did not suspect a thing!
Then of course we had to do the same to my father, but he just wanted to go back to sleep!
It was a late night. My oldest looks right at home in his grandfathers chair..
And yesterday was ALL enjoyed our putaha...
Sat around and visited. We did not get dressed up for a family picture. Seemed like too much work!
My boys were like tweedle dee and tweedle dumb. I am not sure who plays off the other...
Various naps were taken during the day, just nodding off in the middle of the conversations.
Our pointsetta tree found some more presents, and we are having our Xmas dinner on Xmas eve night, so I have just got that in the oven so that is enough blogging for now. My sister flew back to San Francisco this afternoon and my boys leave tomorrow afternoon, and then my youngest son and girlfriend arrive tomorrow night from Toronto, so we will get them all in yet and then I will have had enough of family (and vice versa) for awhile!
I hope everyone enjoys their visiting that has family around....
The first trip out to the airport was to pick up my two oldest sons, Chris and Chad...Mom was very glad to see them!
Then the grandparents were glad to see them as well..
My oldest may be 30, but he is still as goofy as can be with his Xmas sweater with lights on it...
It was a family dinner with Shephard's pie (a family favorite)
And I just thought the cookies were pretty!
Then mother took us all with her to the nativity play in the park. It was a nice night out. No rain. The animals were nice and it was only 18 minutes. Moving along...
We are not a late night family in this house, or at least the older generation. The boys wanted to go to the casino so off the grandparents went with them "for a bit" at 6 PM. At quarter to 11 I am starting to pace as I have to leave for the airport in 45 minutes to pick up my sister who my parents do not know is coming, and they certainly know that i am not going out for a drink at midnight! Apparently the grandsons were good luck and my mother won a nice large jackpot! SHe was thrilled!!
They got home in time for me to sneak out to get my sister...
My mother had fallen asleep on the couch so at 1 AM we walked in and turned on the lights. This is what a mother looks like who realizes her youngest daughter has just shown up!!!!
It was perfect and she did not suspect a thing!
Then of course we had to do the same to my father, but he just wanted to go back to sleep!
It was a late night. My oldest looks right at home in his grandfathers chair..
And yesterday was ALL enjoyed our putaha...
Sat around and visited. We did not get dressed up for a family picture. Seemed like too much work!
My boys were like tweedle dee and tweedle dumb. I am not sure who plays off the other...
Various naps were taken during the day, just nodding off in the middle of the conversations.
Our pointsetta tree found some more presents, and we are having our Xmas dinner on Xmas eve night, so I have just got that in the oven so that is enough blogging for now. My sister flew back to San Francisco this afternoon and my boys leave tomorrow afternoon, and then my youngest son and girlfriend arrive tomorrow night from Toronto, so we will get them all in yet and then I will have had enough of family (and vice versa) for awhile!
I hope everyone enjoys their visiting that has family around....
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