Sammy Morning Ramblings

Well he has made his return as he vowed to do after last Christmas when he was put into his place of hiding for the non-Christmas Season, Sammy the Elf on a Shelf has made his triumphant return once again to the Hall Household for another Christmas season.

He is here once again to stir chaos and play his favorite game of find me and where am I now. He claims to be the World (or at least Hall Household) Champion at hide and go seek, but I'm not to sure of that as Peanut can probably give Sammy a good run for his money on that category. The only difference is Sammy can stay still, almost lifeless whereas Peanut is a fireball and I swear sometimes is addicted to catnip.

Michelle and I went out yesterday and got our Christmas Tree, last year her and chad went to a tree farm to get one, this year we had to pick the remains of what was left at Lowes as it was raining when we went and picked it up. Michelle found a nice robust one that she liked and we decorated it with I think 900 lights (6 old strands and 3 new ones). Then we took a number of decorations out of the box and placed each one on the tree. Each and every decoration has cone from someplace and they all have a story associated with them. From the $60 bulb from St Louis to a number of decorations from Queenie in the Bahamas to the Christmas Store in Amish Country, every decoration has a story of its own and we talk about each and every one as we prepare to put it on the tree, including all of our memorial ornaments where we have pictures of people who are no longer with us represented on our tree.

Have yourselves a great day today.

Freeport Bahamas

As Michelle and I are off for a weeks vacation cruising in the Atlantic Ocean I'm going to write a series of absentee blog posts relevant to what we are doing that day. There are two deck cams on the Pride, the Bridge and the Aft where you can watch to see if you see us. Watch the Forward Cam as that is where the ice cream machines are that I tend to find.

Today we hit our third and final Port of Call as we visit Freeport in the Bahamas. This is the port of call when we usually get off the boat and do our shopping. Right at the Port is where all of the locals set up to sell their wares. One thing we always buy from this port is a Christmas Ornament made out of Sea Shells made by the same lady. Her name is Queenie and she does some fabulous work.

After we pull out of this port, we'll be starting our journey up the coastline and returning to Baltimore. Tonight also is the second formal night of the cruise in the main dining room. We will once again get dressed up and eat dinner, no lobster on the menu this evening though.