Christmas With Cruising In Mind!

I hope this isn't how Christmas will be when cruising!

It's already four days into 2013 and I'm just getting around to posting about our Christmas.  Yep, as I admitted in my last post ... I've been a little lazy!   However, lately I've been less lazy and more of just taking a break from the digital world.  I think it's good to take a break from all the techno devices every now and then and just enjoy the simple things in life.  Enjoy I did!  The break is now over, I'm now back to work, and I've also started working on our taxes.  Didn't I just do them?!

  Ken and I had a great Christmas with family, and we rang in the New Year around a bonfire with friends.   We've been living in our house for 5 years, and we continue to be amazed at the amount of fireworks our neighborhood displays.  I'm not exaggerating when I say that they go on strong for about an hour, and they're the "good stuff"!

As always, Ken and I don't spend a lot at Christmas.  The bulk of our purchases go to our daughter and her boyfriend (we'd much rather spend on them for Christmas than us), with a little on our parents (they have everything!) and a little on ourselves. With cruising on our mind, we gave each other a little something towards our cruising future.  This year I gave Ken one of those 25 ft. flexible expanding water hoses that's been on tv. You know, they wrap up really tiny and expand when the water turns on.   We haven't tried it out yet, but I thought it would be good on the boat since it doesn't take up a lot of room.


No jewelry was bought at the jewelry show, but I also bought a couple of other things to give Ken at Christmas ... a cooling towel and a water-tight plastic pouch to keep cell phones, cameras, etc. dry.  The Chillz Cooling Towel kinda feels like a chamois, and when it gets wet it gets cool ... almost cold!   I thought this was pretty "cool", and the towel on display felt great.   This should help on those hot, humid cruising days ... or Louisiana days!   Thoughts of riding in our dinghy with our cell phone and camera made me buy the Shark Pack waterproof pack.  The cell phone can be used while in the plastic, and the pouch can be worn around the neck if you wanna keep it out of the way. Little things, but I think they'll be nice to have.

The main gift that I bought for Ken was a pair of boating shoes from West Marine ... on sale of course!   They look really comfortable and Ken didn't have any type of boating shoe so he'd been wanting a pair of these for a while.  I also got Ken a pretty blue (tropic blue!) shirt made of quick-dry material.  After much convincing from me, Ken had finally bought his first quick-dry shirt a few months ago.  Like I had told him he would ... he loves it!   Cotton isn't great for hot days, so quick-dry clothes will continue to be added to our wardrobe for cruising.

Ken bought me a really cool thermos from Teavana, but it's no regular thermos!  This thermos has a removable basket which allows me to "brew" a cup of tea. My daughter got one last year and I thought it was the coolest thing!   She got me a tin of assorted loose teas, so I can't wait to try this out soon.


 Ken also got me something I'd been wanting ... an external hard drive!   This tiny device will allow us to store photos, music and movies on something other than our computer.  I'd like to start adding movies on the hard drive for those rainy days on Nirvana.

Our daughter and her boyfriend gave us some great gifts!  They gave Ken another quick-dry shirt ... LSU! Our daughter is a junior at LSU so this was perfect.   I got a really cozy shirt with a picture of the New Orlean's water meter on it ... if you're not from New Orleans this may sound strange but it's not.   The water meter symbol is really cool and it's on all kinds of stuff around the city.   I'm proud to be from NOLA, so I'll be happy to wear this on those breezy nights on the islands!

They also gave Ken a really cool watch that shows the tides, the phases of the moon, and all kinds of other stuff that we've yet to learn.   What else did they give me ... an Omnia stove-top oven! I really wanted one of these since we have an old alcohol stove that may eventually be replaced.   This little oven bakes breads, pizza, casseroles ... we may not need an expensive oven now that we have this! We already have a grill on Nirvana, so a few propane burners may be all we need.

My dad and step-mom always give us cash, and we always look forward to it.   We put it away for something fun.   My mom and step-dad gave us a gift card to one of our favorite restaurants ... Copeland's!   We like going there for happy hour and appetizers with jazzy tunes and a lounge atmosphere.   Oh, and then there's what seems to be the annual unspoken gift exchange between me and Ken ... socks and underwear!   We never seem to get around to buying it for ourselves, so we buy it for each other at Christmas when we can't stand it any longer.

Needless to say, we got some really cool stuff!   Of course, spending time with our daughter, her boyfriend, and the rest of our family is what we like the best about Christmas.   On Christmas Day about 25-30 of us get together at my brother's place in the Mississippi country.  We eat a ton of good food, drink a few glasses of wine, play "dirty Santa", and watch the "little ones" open their gifts from Santa.  We'll miss these times when we're cruising, but our daughter and her boyfriend are ready to experience a "tropic" Christmas soon ... so are we!

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