Christmas Day

Kids with their stockings on Christmas morning

Christmas presents piled under the tree

Christmas cookies decorated with Marit and Olaf

Kristen here - Today started out like every other Christmas we've ever had...but in miniature. The presents were stacked half way up to the top of the Christmas tree. A tree that stood a proud 1 1/2 feet tall on top of our table. The kids woke up at 7:30, and were blown away at the sight of "all the presents". It was simply amazing to see them so pleased with a stack of presents that was a small fraction of what they were used to. Maybe it was the proportion to the tree!

After opening presents came the usual period of playing with the presents. Casey got an awesome game called Spore, which we all played together. I also spent some time coloring in tropical fish coloring book that Kaitlin got. Normally I would be cooking a Christmas dinner, or we would be traveling to family. Today I was planning on making a mega dinner and having our friends over, but as seems to be the norm lately, things changed.

We re-thought the idea of going to the cruisers dinner. It's only spaghetti, but the opportunity to talk with other cruisers couldn't be missed. So we called our friends and told them about the change in plans. They wholeheartedly agreed and off we went.

Upon approaching the bar where the free dinner was located, we were a little leary. We all walked in, 6 adults (we met another couple yesterday on the boat anchored next to us) and 5 kids. Upon seeing no food in sight, and many smoking and drinking people, we walked right out the back door and onto the patio. After milling around on the patio debating what to do, I went in and asked about the dinner. I was informed that they were just running a bit late and dinner was served w/in 1/2 hour. It was at this point I realized that it wasn't a cruisers dinner, but simply a happy hour dinner at a bar. Once again we were making do, but making do has humbled us and turned out to be ok lately.

Dinner turned out to be lasagna, pasta salad, tossed salad and bread with cookies for dessert. Once again it was perfect! We all sat on the patio and talked while the kids played hide and seek in the parking lot. By the end of the night John and Maryse from the boat Marilyn who was anchored next to us invited everyone to dinner on their boat tomorrow.

John is from Marthas Vinyard, and Maryse is from Quebec. John charters his boat and found Maryse from a find a crew website. She is going to help him charter. They were very nice people who had some wonderfull stories and advice to share.

This morning we were planning on taking the weather window from tomorrow till Sunday to head south. Our friends on Evolution have to stay to get some welding done on their boat. After talking things over with the kids, we decided to stay as well. They all seem to be having so much fun together, we hate to take them away from that. That decision was a tough one to make. If we stayed, we would miss or weather window, and who knows when the next one would be. It could mean that we would be stuck here for another whole week. I didn't want to be here for another week, but I didn't want to make the kids leave their friends before we had to. After talking to Casey and Kaitlin and Chris, and once again reaffirming why we're doing this, staying seemed like the right thing. I knew doing the right thing would pay us back.

And pay us back it did! Chris checked the weather tonight, and things are looking good for Monday and Tuesday now. He said they looked even better than Friday and Saturday. It's hard too make that leap of faith, to slow down and not constantly push foward to a goal. It's what we do so much, so often. But so far, every time we slow down and just do what feels right, we're paid back for it. Now we have a better window, we will share a meal with new friends, and the kids will have more time to play.