Christmas 2009 in Pictures

Christmas Eve on Saint Creek Drive

Tom gave Jana an early Christmas gift - hair cut and color at the Sada Salon in Stuart. Her appointment was at 10 a.m. When she was finished, Tom and Laurie met her for lunch at the Osceola Cafe. The report was that the reuben sandwiches were great! After their lunch, Jana did some Christmas shopping for Dylan and the guinea pigs.

Dick and I did a small amount of geocaching, which was fun because we had a chance to drive through some new and different neighborhoods.

Laurie made chili for us and it was yummy. Tom, Laurie, Dylan. Jana and I played World of Warcraft - there's a new instance in Icecrown, and we were trying to get acquainted with it and learn our way around it. We did not succeed! We need to have some more powerful players with us - we were too weenie! Christmas Eve was mellow and stressful at the same time - mellow because of the season and stressful because of the silly World of Warcraft game!

This house is on Long Bay Drive, around the corner from Laurie and Chip.


These are some of the arches along Saint Creek Drive.


We left early so we could get to sleep in preparation for early rising on Christmas Day! Actually, Dick and I went to bed early but Jana was wrapping presents until 3 a.m. !

Avatar - IMAX 3-D

Laurie drove us all down to West Palm Beach to the Muvico Parisian to see Avatar in 3-D at the IMAX theater. It was quite an experience.



I really enjoyed the movie very much - I thought that it was better than Star Wars. The fantastical plot was totally understandable and the science was easy to follow. The Na'vis were likable and interesting - very flexible and mobile for nine feet tall! The characters were well developed and the message of the film was positive. It was a not too subtle message about how corporations can lose their humanity in the quest for the almighty dollar. Dylan liked it, but not as much as I did. Dick actually liked the movie - the last time that happened was 101 Dalmatians! Jana found it to be immmersive and engaging, and she liked it because the good guys won.



Afterwards did a little shopping at the Palm Beach Gardens Mall, and then we wanted to have dinner at P.F. Chang's, but there would have been a 45 minute wait, so we went next door to Brio's, an excellent Italian restaurant.

Pasley Park

Jana, Dick and I went back to the beach to read up on beach geology. Pasley Park had the best signage and the most info. It would be perfect for an earth cache.

The beach was relatively busy for a cool, windy day.

People were fishing, wave-running, boating, sailing, sand pailing, and even getting in the water!

After a nice drive along Hutchinson Island, we had lunch at Conchy Joe's - J & D had crab legs, which to me looks like instant garbage - oh well - I had a burger!

Dylan is Twelve

Dylan's real birthday is December 17th, so he's been twelve for a few days now. On that day his requrest was pumpkin pancakes for dinner, so Laurie whipped some up. He opened his gifts from us, and after his homework was done, he got to do whatever he wanted. It was a very quiet birthday.

The party was this evening. Last year on his birthday they all went to play laser tag, and it was so successful that they did it again this year. His guests were Kyle, Peyton, Thomas, and another boy who will be named later! Auntie Jana and Grandpa went with the whole party, and Jana was the official photographer. She realized later that she only took family pictures, and so we don't have any pictures of the party-goers. Personally, I'm totally satisfied with the ones she took, in which my whole family looks like a bunch of commandos!



Jana's caption for this one is "Laurie managed to be deadly and stylish at the same time!"





The family that plays together.....

Morning Walk

Dick walks around the neighborhood every morning, and he has taken some interesting pictures!

First, fake flamingos are not the only fake fauna found decorating Florida lawns!!



Beautiful flowers in December! What could be better? Merry Christmas :)


This anhinga is drying its wings while sitting on a couple of decorative birds in a pond. Birds real and not real flock together?

Ocean Day

This was a great day to finally go see the ocean - what a force of nature! It was windy and wavy, and people were surfing in spite of the warnings of rip tide.







At Jensen Beach we stopped for lunch at the Sea Turtle Cafe - despite what it looks like, we were not the only customers.





We did some caching along the beaches. Here I'm signing the log for the "Here Fishy, Fishy" cache at Joe's River Park:

December 7 by basswoodbend (2461 found)
Today's goal was to pick up some Christmas wrappings and to check the ocean to make sure it was still out there. 82 degrees and cloudy is a far cry from the 25 degree wind chill and 2 foot snow depth our neighbors tell us we are missing at home. We are feeling that if we get any more mellow, we might rot. Then on top of perfection, caching brings us to this neat new park. Many thanks for bringing us here!

Cacheapalooza 2009

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Rain was predicted all week, and they weren't kidding. Today was a drencher - the cachers were either steamed alive in their ponchos or soaked to the skin. The rain would let up just long enough for people to think it was a good window to go out on the trail, and then once they got there, down it came again. One wag congratulated the Cacheapalooza crew for the new event this year - the wet T-shirt contest!

I was lucky enough to be in the pavilion every time there was real rain.


My trail time was limited, but I was able to get back to the car before getting wet. My cachemates weren't so lucky!



Anyway, we had a good time - we were there all day, and there were many interesting things to do and interesting people-watching, nice people to meet, and cute babies.

Dick doing the First to Find dance:


Dick showing off the three cornered tear on his pantleg - always watch out for barbed wire!


Sharkie Crew, Basswood Bend and Nurse Nanna at the Loxahatchee River earth cache:



One of Dick's logs from the pirate series of caches:

December 5 by basswoodbend (2461 found)
A party of ten representing five teams joined up as a group led by the Splatt Pirates to loot the pirates trail. As the rain continued and the trail got long, some members became mutinous. Although the Florida contingent pressed forward with their raiding of the pirate caches, the Michigan members (BB & NN) "showed their true colors" * and mutinied. Seizing a life boat, they abandoned the raid group and after signing the log to justify their claim to the the find, set sail back the way they had come seeking dry clothing and warmer surroundings.

The 5 teams were Basswood Bend, Sharkie Crew, Splatt Pirates, LeeDbb and Nurse Nanna.

Up Until Now

What a nice day we had today! Not even considering the 83 degrees, palm trees, and flowers!

Laurie and Chip picked us up for breakfast at First Watch. It has a unique menu - things you never see anywhere else. Mine was called Floridian French toast - it was sprinkled with wheat germ and cinnamon, and covered with fruit - bananas, kiwi, and strawberries - with blueberry compote on the side. Wow.

Off to Walmart (not anybody's favorite place!) to shop for TVs. X-box games and more Christmas wrappings. I love shopping for Christmas wrappings - I can't do it without a silly grin on my face.

At 2 p.m. we met Nurse Nanna for lunch down in Jupiter on Indiantown Road. The restaurant was called Little Moir's Food Shack, and it's in a strip mall. Doesn't sound very impressive, right? It has a fabulous atmosphere as soon as you walk in the door! The menu was like nothing I've seen before. It's mostly seafood - correction - it's ALL seafood, with a couple of chicken things. Mine was called wedge salad with scallops - the scallops were served on a bed of romaine with asparagus, macadamia nuts and other good stuff! Chatted a long time with Ann, who is still a bundle of energy - and such an enthusiastic geocacher!

Back to Palm City to the Martin Downs Sports Resort to watch Dylan play tennis - it's a beautiful facility and it was so enjoyable to watch him.







Then we all stopped at Subway and went to Laurie's to eat. A most pleasant day - and nobody had to cook all day long! That's my kind of day :)

The Cottage

Our Florida cottage is on a canal leading to the St. Lucie River, which leads to the ocean. The homes in this area are a mix of modest and palatial. Ours is modest, and very comfortable. We like it very much. Hooray!







A couple of days after we moved in, a van pulled up outside, two men got out and began putting on hazmat suits! Holy cow! Then they started digging in the ground right outside my bedroom window....turns out they were after African bees! They told Dick that the bees like the water meter boxes, and the meter readers report in when they find them. The men removed large pieces of beeswax and but them in plastic bags. They looked like huge chunks to me, but the men told Dick that last week they found a hive that weighed 45 pounds!

We're in Florida, We're in Florida !

Surviving a drive down I-75 on a holiday weekend is no small feat! We did get to Palm City in one piece - headed straight to the cottage to unload the car, but not to unpack yet.

Got to Laurie's a little after 3 p.m. just as Laurie was getting ready to go pick up Dylan from school. So we all went! The car line was long, and he spotted us long before we reached him, and he was jumping up and down - very excited - that's nice to see :)

Chip was at work. The other three of us did homework, chatted, loaded the car back up with Amazon boxes to be wrapped for Christmas, planned, chatted, ate Laurie's low-fat weight watcher's dinner, and chatted.

We'll spend the night here tonight and unpack at the cottage in the morning.

Hixson, TN

Hixson is a suburb of Chatanooga, and it'w a little bit (7 miles) off I-75. Any port in a storm and we were glad to be there.

On the way to Hixson, we had stopped for lunch in Corbin, Kentucky. There was a cache really nearby, so of course...well...you can fill in the blanks!

November 28 by basswoodbend (2461 found)
We are on a road trip to spend December with the worlds best grandson. We pulled off the race track for lunch and the Nuvi dinged. Can't pass up a quick cache.
The first time we visited Corbin was about fifty years ago when we used to spend Spring Break camping in the Smokies. The interstate was not completed then, the only route was US 25. When I-75 opened,it cut hours off the trip. Thanks for the memory break.

Caching in Corbin

Off to Florida (Well, Piqua, OH)

Yesterday, for the first time ever, we ate Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant. (Well, we did go to a Thanksgiving luau once on Maui when Michigan was playing in the Maui Invitational.)

We went to Minerva's, and it was very nice. No yummy dressing, but great desserts!

This morning we go a good early start on our road trip to Florida. There was snow in the air when we left this morning. Luckily, we too I-75 south instead of taking 127 to Jackson and across on I-94. There were accidents, one fatal, and major backups on 94 this morning. We missed it all, and breezed right down US-23.

The motel in Piqua was really interesting. It was actually part of a mall - there was a door to the mall right in the lobby of the motel! Another first.