Santa Comes Early!

With pumpkins and fall flowers on our home's doorstep, Ken and I are trying to adjust to the fact that Halloween is over, and Thanksgiving is just around the corner.  Where has this year gone?!   Then, I turn on the television and watch all sorts of Christmas commercials ... really?  What happened to the days when we celebrated one holiday at a time?  Maybe it just seemed that way when we were children, but I don't recall seeing Christmas trees in the store while shopping for my Halloween costume!

The other day Ken and I were in Wal-Mart and the first thing I saw when we walked in the store was a Christmas tree!  While grocery shopping we listened to Christmas music playing overhead.  It is said that the older we get, the faster the time goes ... as I get older I totally agree!  You'd think that with modern technology such as fax machines, email and cell phones we'd have more time on our hands.  However, we all seem to be busier than ever.  With that in mind, I guess it may be a good thing that the stores aren't waiting till the day after Thanksgiving to put up the Christmas decorations ... it already goes way too fast!


It's already starting to feel like Christmas in our home.  In fact, Santa came a little early for Nirvana!  What toy did Santa bring?  A Lowrance Chartplotter/GPS ... woo hoo!  Actually, Ken and I never open Christmas presents early, and this doesn't have anything to do with the holidays.  We've been wanting this Lowrance for at least a year now, and are finally able to make this long awaited purchase.  We're sooo excited and can't wait to try this out.  Now Nirvana will be able to go places!  Until now, we didn't have a GPS (we bought an inexpensive "puck" but never really embraced this option) so we were really limited to where we could sail safely. 

Ken recently ran the wires, and now we need to mount the depth transducer before the installation is complete.  Of course, I'll write a post all about this process in the near future, as well as our thoughts about this product.

On top of that, I finally broke down and bought a new digital camera!  I've been using a not-so-small Fuji camera for the past few years, and I really wanted something small to easily carry around.  Sometimes I've used my very inexpensive phone (the cheapest AT&T sells ... always frugal) which really wasn't bad, but I thought this blog would be a good excuse for someting better.  Also, I wanted to have a video camera to record our upcoming sailing adventures as we slowly transition from beginners to experienced (somewhat) sailors.  I can't wait for that first time we venture into the Gulf of Mexico and are welcomed by dolphins ... gotta have that on video! 

So after much consideration and many headaches, I decided to go with the Nikon Coolpix S6200.  This little camera has a 10x zoom (which I really wanted), 16mp and video with a device that is supposed to eliminate the wind noise (another plus).  It also has some really cool effects, such as fish-eye and miniature which should make for some fun pics.  This camera isn't waterproof, but after seeing it on sale at Target, plus adding two coupons I figured this was a good deal and I could add an underwater camera once we actually "leave the dock" for good.  I've already got my eye on the GoPro HD HERO2 Camera ... gotta get it eventually!

Thank to all that gave me advice on our Facebook page, and I'll also post a review about this camera once I've used it for a little while.  I hope it will be a good one!

So, I guess it's about time Ken and I learned how to use a chartplotter!  It would also be a great time to learn how to read paper charts.  We know we can't always rely on modern technology, as much as we'd like to!

Hasta luego ... until then.  Mid-Life Cruising!

By the way ... if you're planning on shopping online at Amazon for the holidays, please consider clicking on the black Amazon box to the right of our site!  It won't cost you any extra and we'll make a few cents.  We'd really appreciate it, and you'd be doing a good deed for free!