Christmas and Kayaking

Never thought both those words would go together when you live in the Northern Hemisphere – but they did this season. Besides The Wilson’s Oyster roast on Sunday night, Jay’s Christmas Eve Cocktail party, and my neighborhood Christmas afternoon meal, we were lucky enough for a sunny day with mild temperatures to fit in a bird-filled kayak trip in the marshes on Thursday.

I had planned on doing everything myself for the Christmas dinner but I just had too many casseroles and not enough oven space. So I had to divvy out my dishes to my neighbors ovens and they helped me heat up our Christmas feast. (How do the Chinese live without ovens- I never saw one the whole time I was there) With a Honeybaked Ham and Larry’s delicious, deep-fried turkey I think all 21 of us were stuffed by the end of the afternoon. My only disappointment was that I couldn’t find my “Go To Bed” cookie recipe. Dory and I had planned on making them Christmas Eve. So if Maryanna is reading this – I need another copy of the yummy peppermint, chocolate chip, and meringue cookie recipe.

PS Hope you notice Nicole's feet up and she is NOT paddling -- Zac is doing it for her...... while nearly 60 yr old Mom had to paddle all by herself........

Is a Blog (or Facebook) Just a Modern Version Of the Christmas Newsletter?

I got a couple of them this Christmas – the “catch-everybody-up” Christmas Newsletter. I have mixed feelings about them – some of them I look forward to reading because they are family or really interesting but some others can be rather tedious. Now I am questioning my blog. Don’t blogs fall into the Christmas Newsletter category – a really long, unending, irrelevant, pseudo Christmas Newsletter? Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your opinion, I don’t plan on stopping my blog. For me my blog is a nice way to journal my journey thru retirement. It helps me remember (you know…. that age thing) what I done and felt while traveling and it is way easier than a diary. I really dread having to write anything by hand, it just doesn’t feel natural to me anymore plus the paper doesn’t have a spell checker and editing a paper diary is a much harder.

Side Note: Zac (who is visiting for the holidays) just announced that my blog was worse than the Christmas letter cause the Christmas Newsletter only comes once a year. I guess that means my own son doesn’t read my blog…. Nicole says that reading them is like homework. That’s OK, remember I do it for myself. Don’t forget..you can always dump my blog into your spam box if I fall into the tedious reading category. I think I would rather be ignored than thought as tedious – No hard feelings though …. honest!

Holiday Costumes

During my 10 months in China I never saw the Chinese dress in “costume” for their holidays, I think it might be an American thing or maybe a teacher thing but we definitely like our costumes. When I retired I also retired all my Halloween and Christmas t-shirts, vests and sweaters. Now that I am teaching youngsters again, I had to buy a new batch of holiday costumes. I did so that last night I was appropriately dressed for the Frederica Academy’s tree lighting ceremony with my new Wal-Mart Christmas vest (which was Made in China).

Oh and as you can see, my Christmas lights are up. I know it is early – but I am one of those people that like to put them up right after Thanksgiving and take them down a couple of days after Christmas. Yep my house is also in costume and probably all the decorations were made in China too….. I am almost all ready for my favorite holiday of the year, just a lot of cooking and a little more online shopping to do.

Thanksgiving 2007

The day started out rainy so we moved our planned outside Thanksgiving meal to Reed and Sara's home. By meal time the sun had come out and it ended up being a beautiful day for the 20 of the Wilsons and friends.

The rest of this blog is basically just for my Chinese students and friends – because if you still feel bloated and stuffed like me –the last thing that we want to look at is a picture and description of all the food we ate. The NBC Today Show estimated that the average Thanksgiving meal was 5000 calories. They either UNDERestimated or they were calculating the calories of a Non-Southern Thanksgiving dinner. Above is pictured a typical plate piled high with some of the dishes listed below and was consumed by one of the 20 Wilson family and friends. (And some of us went back for seconds)

Deep Fried Turkey
Smoked Ham
Sausage stuffing
Oyster Stuffing
Creamed corn
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
Deviled eggs
Artichoke, Broccoli, Tomato salad
Sweet Potato Casserole
Green Bean Casserole
Oatmeal Rolls
Cranberry/apple/nut jello salad
Asparagus Casserole
Macaroni and Cheese
Beer, wine, sodas or sweet tea
And of course cupcakes and a pumpkin pie and pecan pie for dessert.

The dishes that lured me back for seconds were the fried turkey, mashed potatoes, sausage stuffing, oatmeal rolls and cranberry salad. As I wrote this I was still stuffed and hurting, but boy will I miss the food and friendship next November when I am in China. Thanks again to the Wilsons for including me in your family dinner. I live in a great neighborhood!

Deep Fried Turkey

I had never heard of a Fried Turkey until I moved down south. Larry my neighbor has perfected the timing and art-form of deep frying the bird. His skills produce a crispy skin and moist but ungreasy meat. Larry usually will deep fry birds for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. Yum!

Ocean Front Massage

We had a nice massage in the tents right by the ocean. Strange with a very exposed feeling but still very relaxing.

I fed a wild iguana today – I fed it a couple of the green leafs from under the bridge and some hibiscus flowers. It even jumped into the pool water to get to the other side. Besides the Iguanas at this hotel/timeshare compound there are lots of cats, 2 peacocks and at least 1 peahen roaming around. And boy are the birds noisy in the morning!

Click Here for my Puerto Vallarta Photos

Dolphin Swim

So Cool! I am not sure if I can describe it but was not scary at all, even though you are in the water with two very powerful and large mammals. First interesting thing happened was when I dropped my sunglasses as I was jumping in. I had sort of given them up as being lost forever but Cathy told the trainer what I had done and the trainer had the dolphins go to the bottom and return them to her. After the sunglasses rescue we engaged in some heavy petting. Get your minds out of the gutter… We got to spend a lot of time petting, kissing, feeding and riding the dolphins. At the end of the hour, we even got kissed by a whiskery seal. The cost was reasonable but we decided that the company made their real money in photos and I contributed to their coffers and bought a CD & DVD.

We went to town that evening to pick up a couple of shirts and necklaces that had caught our eye a couple of days before. Night IS when Puerto Vallarta comes alive. There was much more activity, music, food and handicrafts set up.