Christmas Day!

Apparently Randy really does have influence with Santa Clause because, in spite of how Shorty has behaved this past year, he got a great big fluffy squeaky toy!

So much for being good for another year, now back to normal!

We had our traditional Christmas breakfast of smoked salmon, cream cheese, and capers on bagels with hot tea. Such a great way to start the day!

Our church is not having a service this morning so we picked up Pete and Donna and went to the Church of the Lake in Leesburg. This church uses a high school for their services and puts the money they don't spend on a building to help the school - what a great idea!

Afterwards we went home and Randy started (or rather continued) cooking our Christmas dinner: prime rib, mashed potatoes, homemade rolls, Waldorf salad, and Key Lime pie. To be sure we didn't faint from hunger before the meal was ready, we had some of Randy's candies: peanut clusters, buckeyes, black walnut fudge and regular fudge.

So glad that Pete and Donna joined us for dinner - such good friends!!

Christmas Eve

It is Christmas Eve and Shorty is having second thoughts about how "good" he's really been this year. Since he know Randy has Santa Claus on speed-dial, he asked Randy to put in a good word for him.

"See, see what a good boy I am? TELL SANTA"

The Grinch in Florida

Today we went to the ice show at the Gaylord Palms Convention Center. Since the whole thing is made of sculptured ice, the area is kept at 9 degrees. That is really cold for a couple of Floridians like us! Fortunately they not only provide parkas, they require you to wear them. 

The theme this year is "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" - great!

Inside the freezing cold were cute scenes of Whoville, all carved out of vibrantly colored ice.

And there's the villain of the piece - the Grinch! 

The Grinch set about being grinch-y, with the reluctant help of his adorable sidekick Max.

But the cute Whos celebrate Christmas anyway! And redeem their green friend in the process.

And they all live happily every after!

(I love Cindy-Lou Who)

Next was the ice slide. We took a short walk upstairs, sat down, tucked the parkas under us, and slid smoothly down the ice. Fun!

One of the sculptors was demonstrating the process, which is very time-consuming. 

The final room was a breath-taking Nativity scene. 

I love the detail on this.

And then we went back and did the whole thing again!

Afterwards we walked around the Alpine Village display in another part of the hotel. Quite pretty.

Just before we left Randy called Giordano's and ordered a medium meat pizza. So we had delicious pizza before heading home! And since their pizza is true Chicago style deep-dish, this is enough pizza for several meals. 

Block Party Christmas

 Randy organizes our church's Block Party in one of the Fruitland Park neighborhoods. Today he fixed corndogs for lunch with hot chocolate (the kids love to fix the hot chocolate themselves). We have several tables set up with crafts and today, in honor of the holidays, there was also a cookie-decoration station.  

We always have people who do face-painting and nail-painting.  

Pastor Jerry got everyone to sit down before telling them the real Christmas story.

And then - presents for everyone!!

Beverly Shores food bank donations

Today we picked up the last and largest food bank donation from Beverly Shores School. It's challenging to move close to a ton of food one can at a time!

Serita rewards the class with the most donations with a pizza party. She has a unique method of tracking the donations!

This is our third trip to collect the donations. This has been such a good partnership for the school and church.

Merry Christmas from Shorty!

The staff at the vet's office where we board Shorty really like him. He has to be in quarantine when he's there to be sure that he doesn't catch anything from other pets. But he's a charmer so when they can, they take him up to be in the office with them. He likes that!

So as a "thank you" for taking care of him during our cruise, we made a special gift basket for them, shaped like a little doggy house. We covered it in wrapping paper and even put Christmas lights on it. 

The lid lifts off so they can pull out chocolate chip cookies, peanut clusters, and bone-shaped sugar cookies!

Another Day at Sea, then home again.

Today was another day at sea, which was another way of saying we were cruising straight back. One thing I remember that the water and wind combined to make it rougher sailing. Not bad, but enough that the Captain got on the intercom and made an announcement about it. Unfortunately I couldn't understand exactly what he was said because he had a strong accent and a bad intercom. It sounded like he was changing our course but there was a lot else he said that I didn't catch. I'm not a good sailer even on a calm sea so that worried me. It didn't worry anyone else, though, including the staff who, presumably, could understand him. I asked a couple of them and they hadn't even paid attention to him. Oh well.

This evening was the Parade of flags, which is always interesting. And they lit the tall, beautiful Christmas tree yesterday.

When we went to the cabin to pack, we found another little towel critter!

In the morning we got into port and made an easy exit. Wish we could pick up Shorty today, but we will be able to do that tomorrow morning.

Labadee

My phone still not working so I occasionally borrowed Randy's. But I'm going to keep it, in case I drop it (which we both know is a possibility). 

We docked at Labadee, Jamaica. The walkway to the island is really long but that's a good thing, because the view is wonderful!

A nice local guy gave us maps and told us about the beaches, so we headed towards Dragon Beach. We passed a group of ladies in yellow shirts dancing to loud music from somewhere. A couple of ladies not in yellow were even better! They looked like they were having so much fun!

Time for a beach. A local guy took us to some lounge chairs and dusted them off for us. Yes, that was for a tip but we knew that so it wasn't a problem. The guys went snorkeling while Glenda and I went over to the jetties, planning to walk along the rocks. A guard put a stop to that so we came back and waded out to the "floating" bar. We could walk all the way there, although the water came up to my shoulders. I couldn't manage the rope ladder to get on the bar so Glenda climbed up and got a couple of drinks which we shared with the guys when they joined us. Something with Bacardi rum and juice - so good! We stood in the water, drinking, and when the drinks were gone we headed back to shore to lay about. 

When we were ready to eat (again) we went to the open-air buffet. Lots of good food again. While we were eating a group of young men came out and did some pretty impressive acrobatics. They were followed by another group of young lady dancers. 

Found a place that sold coconut fruit drink. With memories of fresh coconut in Coco Cay, we stopped to get some. But the people selling were not as friendly. 

The coconut water was ok but not as good (perhaps not as fresh?) as what we got at Coco Cay. And when the guy added the "rum", it was actually pretty bad. 

But the view made us never want to leave!

Back at the cabin, a welcome-home monkey.