Our very good friend Olin Welsh reminded me that some people still look at our blog for updates, so here is our winter 2009 story. We celebrated Skipper's birthday on November 18. We can't believe how much fun it is to have 2 dogs, although it does present challenges at times. We all sleep together and it can be a bit crowded-the dogs like to lay on our knees and if they both pick the same set of knees-----well, you can imagine how uncomfortable THAT is!  Marina's 6th birthday was December 11 and we celebrated by putting both dogs upstairs in their crates and having a big Christmas party with friends!

Skipper's Birthday

Marina's Birthday

Since we decided not to take the boat south for the winter, we took a quick little cruise on Royal Caribbean to Bermuda.   We flew to Baltimore and enjoyed some time there (Oliver's birth place!!) before boarding the ship. We were delyaed by the remnants of Ida but had a pleasant cruise to Bermuda, looked around and came back! It was a nice break from our already cold Wisconsin weather.

The Grandeur of the Seas

It was WARM!!

I had a new great niece - Laine Elizabeth - born on November 19 so my sister Nancy and I decided to fly to jackson Hole, Wyoming for a couple of days so I could meet her, and see my other great niece Norah. I was thrilled to be able to spend time with my niece Sarah and her babies.

Christmas found us in Grand Rapids, at my parents. We were lucky excaping the miserable midwest winter weather-dodged the ice storm by gong a day early and dodged the snow by coming back very early the day after Christmas. We had fun, with Nancy and Nick there as well as my niece Libby and her husband Dave. We were obviously all good this year because Santa brought us lots of gifts and full stockings. Oliver gave me a keyboard and I am now a fine pianist-as long as the lights continue to tell me what keys to press!

Now it is just too cold for us here so in a week or so we plan to hit the road south. Oliver's son John is in Afghanistan and we will spend a couple of weeks at his house in Savannah, GA before moving on the Florida for February and then reversing the process in March. We hope to not be back until April 1, when it will be time to start preparing the boat for a May launching. While in Florida we plan to visit the Miami Boat Show-uh oh!!!

Keep visiting and I'll try to remember to update more often!