Brrr, it's chilly.

We are actually dealing with winter this year.  The water in Herring Bay is starting to freeze over.

NYE 2014

It's really become quite the tradition for our family--freeze your booty off to get the best view of NYE fireworks on the Bay!  This year did not disappoint!  I love the peace of being on the water, darn near alone.  This year we mixed it up a little, joining our dock neighbor on Compromise for dinner and the first round of fireworks.  And once again, the show was awesome!  I am definitely going to miss this next year.

Last stop--Harness Creek

After a completely lazy Christmas Day, we took advantage of a light breeze yesterday to shift to Harness Creek so that we could stretch our legs in Quiet Waters Park.  It was some pretty sweet December sailing!  Slow and steady...  We got to the park in time to hike and geocache for a few hours--it was a splendid afternoon!

On the way back to the boat we realized that there was an ice rink in the park!  The kids begged, but we headed back to the boat....and Trent lost his first tooth!  Woo hoo!!!!!  

And...we went skating this morning!  It was great!  Trent struggled for about 2 hours, but he never gave up and started to get the hang of it.  I'm so glad we decided to come back to the park today!

Alas, it was time to return to our "home" marina.  There are chores and homework to get done, and I have a date with a friend tomorrow.  Of course we came back just after low tide, on a barely positive tide.  And rather than wait since we wanted to get fuel, we just plowed through the mud between the 3 and 4 markers!  Good times!  We got our fuel, may have plowed a little more mud on the way to our slip, and got settled in with time to toss the football on the beach before sunset.  It's been a great holiday!

Merry Christmas!

"Santa came!  Santa came!"  Amazingly it was about 8am before we heard the kids cry that out, but indeed, Santa had come!

We were completely spoiled by our families!  And just as we were baking our traditional cinnamon roll breakfast we heard something.  Voices?  Singing?  It was kayaking carolers!  Such fun!  It was a couple from a nearby house, stopping by to thank us for the light display last night!  We chatted for a bit, they gave us a yummy bag of cookies, and Trent showed them all of his new Legos.  It was so nice to have visitors!

We stayed in our pjs most of the day, and even got some good family pics!

We are staying here for another night, then maybe we will move tomorrow.  We have a big Christmas feast in our bellies!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve on the Bay

The Captain was sick.  The forecast was calling for a breezy Christmas. It was super foggy out.  There is a tiny leek somewhere in the engine.  Let's get underway!  Yep, despite all of that we really wanted to spend our last Christmas here out on the bay.  I took the helm so Frank could rest, and of course our radar wasn't working!  Visibility <1/4nm most of the way...the wayward crab pot here and there...but we made it to a cozy spot in the Rhode River!

The fog enveloped us, like we were out there all alone.  Still we turned on all the Christmas lights, had the kids exchange one gift, made cookies, and readied the boat for a visit from Santa.  We even got to Skype with the family back in Illinois.

Now...we wait!