Where do I start…. into my second full week with my family for the Christmas Holidays…. One of the many benefits of my new career is I’m able to take advantage of the “slow season” time and be with my family and friends for extended periods of time. Here is my recap of my trip so far…
- Road Trip North to my parents with daughter Katie and the two dogs. Many of you have seen how I travel now that I have a car vs having to deal with the Airlines. I treat my car like it’s my suitcase! Problem is, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and my daughter travels the same way. Those poor dogs barely had enough room in the back seat because the car was so full… Why Katie felt the need to bring her entire basket of dirty laundry was a mystery to me… Lots of fun driving with her, just having time in the car together was great.
- Christmas Even dinner- our family tradition is for my mother to make her famous fried oysters. She bought a gallon of fresh oysters which we had to bread with cracker crumbs and corn meal and then fry in a combination of Crisco and butter. Katie took over the frying about half way through and surprise of all surprises, actually received the nod of approval from my mother! Dessert was a platter of homemade cookies…. oh- can’t wait for the holidays to be over and there isn’t constant sugar to be consumed in so many forms!! The weather even cooperated to be winter like! Freezing rain which was just gorgeous to look at and we had no where we had to drive, so we could just walk and enjoy without any worry of black ice and driving….
- Christmas day was GREAT! We started the morning with Mom making her famous Buckwheat pancakes! Then to the presents….We’d made a family commitment to either make all our gifts for each other or keep the total amount spent on each person to $25. We actually did this! My sister sent her annual calendars she makes with pictures from the whole year, she made my mom a scrapbook of our road trips this year, Mom made all of us scarves- each of us! Katie made a combination of knitted items ( she made me fingerless gloves so I could use my blackberry in the cold! How clever was this! We had dinner at Aunt Hetties home- Folkstone. Hettie was a Navy wife who lived all over the country from Key West to Coronado Island, CA. She is an amazing woman who at age 85 made the entire Christmas dinner for 12 of us. I was allowed to make desert and made the Mango Cake ( see the earlier blog with this recipe) I actually made the filling and frosting from the Castaway Coconut Cake- you have to try this cake. Oh my gosh was it good!!!
- Day after Christmas, we hopped in two cars ( we now had my parents besides Katie and the dogs- fortunately they don’t pack as much stuff as Katie and I!) and we headed to Bethany Beach, DE for the next week.
- Ahhh…. we’re at the beach. The old beach house opened her arms and said come on in and relax! So we’ve had fires nightly using java logs- not wood- check them out! http://www.java-log.com/ The beach also means going to see movies! We’re trying to see everything, and here’s the order of the pictures we’ve seen and how we like them.
- Slumdog Millionaire …. Run, don’t walk to see this movie!
- Australia – a great, great story and glorious scenery!
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Great story and acting. You’ll cry at the end of the love shared between Daisy and Benjamin.
- Marley and me. You tell me- is the picture above Danny or Marley…. hard to tell isn’t it! Great story and you dog lovers will cry and cry at the end
- Still have these movies- Frost and Nixon and Doubt to see this week!
- Yoga!!!!! After 10 days with my family, 2 hours at Yoga class today was the best! Stretching, breathing, not eating cookies…. ahh, it felt great! There is a yoga studio here in Bethany with an amazing teacher. And she is a teacher, not someone who sits in front of the room doing her own practise with no regard for us. If you’re in the area, I urge you to drop in to class! http://www.bethanybeachyoga.org/
New Year’s Eve still to come!
