Merry Christmas to all!! (Posted 12/20/2011)

Merry Christmas to all! We hope this finds everyone well, looking forward to the holidays and next year!

Amy, Mark, Olivia and Laura will be arriving on December 29th in Fort Myers Beach for a short visit after Christmas.  We are really looking forward to that, of course!! :-)  They will be visiting Amy's grandmother and husband in Kissimmee for a couple of days before coming down here.  We have had absolutely gorgeous weather all of December and just hoping it holds for their visit.  Of course, compared to Connecticut they will think it is gorgeous even if we think it is too cool or cold. We are Florida "winter wimps" and proud of it! ;-)

We are spending the winter here in our favorite anchorage in Cape Coral.  We sometimes have it all to ourselves and sometimes share it with a few other boats that stop on their way someplace else.  But last Sunday we had to share "our anchorage" for awhile with over 100 boats!!!!  They were all anchored and milling about decorated with Christmas lights getting ready for the Cape Coral Holiday Boat-Along! It was like a bumper cars ride at a carnival.  And THOUSANDS of people were in "our park" to view the boat parade. We usually only share our park with a handful of people.  The parks and recreation department set up bleachers and the park was standing room only.  The parade starts here in our anchorage and travels up and down the canal system past all the houses. It is one of the largest lighted boat parades in Florida.  We had a front row seat on our boat AND no one hit us! GRIN

It is hard to take photos at night so the quality is not great but here are some photos of a few of the boats:

Our Christmas decorations are not as elaborate as those in the parade but we did decorate Enchantress with some lights and a Santa Clause so that the "dirt dwellers" surrounding the anchorage would have something to look at as many of them have decorated their homes and condos for us to look at! :-)

Here is a photo of Enchantress:

Although we are not in the Keys this winter and miss many of our friends down there, we have been able to visit with some of them anyway. Deb and Lew had sold their sailboat to move to a motorhome and they stopped by this area to look at one to buy. We had lunch with them and with Dee and Lee from s/v About Time who also have a condo in Fort Myers. Some other friends, Ron and Margie from Canada who were one of the first couples we met when we went cruising, have also gone the RV route now and they are spending the winter in Fort Myers Beach in an RV resort in their motorhome. We visited them there, have had lunch with them a couple of times and will spend Christmas Day with them having dinner in their motorhome.

Here is a photo of Ron, Margie and Linda in front of a poinsettia Christmas tree at the beach:

We have been enjoying our time here in Cape Coral.  We have decided to hold onto the car for a bit while we are here this winter.  We will drive down to the Keys in January to bring our storage unit "stuff" up here to store it.  The car has been very helpful as we did Christmas shopping and Linda is enjoying all the easy access to shopping as she was seriously deprived of shopping in the Keys.  She is in heaven with all the craft and fabric stores and every other type of store known to mankind!! :-) She has been busy making lots of Christmas crafts and sewing for gifts.  We got a visitors card at the Cape Coral Library (the most automated library I have ever seen!) We get videos/DVDs and watch a lot of movies and television series from the library since there is not a lot on television that we like.

Thanks to the government and insurance companies Linda and I have not been able to get married and can't until she gets Medicare in about 4 years as she would lose her benefits if we married, but although we have been unofficially engaged for a long time now, we became officially engaged in November when I bought her an engagement ring. I am sure many of you would agree that "it was about time!". GRIN

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!