We were picked up early on the morning of December 13th by Elvis in the water taxi and delivered over to Georgetown where Junior was waiting with his taxi to take us to the airport. We were very excited to be starting our journey home to Nova Scotia for Chrismas with the 'kids' and George. Unlike our trip home for Christmas last year, everything went according to schedule and we arrived in Halifax quite late that night and were met at the airport by a smiling Kirsty and Shawn. So good to see them!
It was very strange this year in that we weren't going home to our own house! We alternated between Kirsty and Shawn's house in Chester and Geoff and Emily's house in Middle LaHave. We spent the first night with Kirsty and Shawn - a very late night going to bed as we were so excited to be home and spent quite a bit if time just chatting and catching up on news and plans for the holidays etc. It wasn't long before we saw Geoff and Emily too as the following day we went Christmas tree hunting! We piled into Kirsty's car and picked up Emily from her house, then met Geoff after school at our home in New Germany. We had arranged with Tanya (our house sitter) that we would drop[ in to the house to pick up a few things before going for the tree. It was fantastic to all be together again. We stayed another night with Kirsty and Shawn. We spent the evening putting up and decorating their Christmas tree - as per usual Lilo promptly took up residence underneath it. Bella was very good and left both the tree with it's decorations and Lilo alone! Kirsty and Shawn both had to work the next day so we moved on to Geoff and Emily's house. It was a relief on our arrival home to see how well Emily had recovered from her surgery and looking so good with her 'baby bump'. Geoff had been working hard on their house and was now trying to get he and Emily's bedroom completed so that they could move into it in time for Christmas. Bruce was happy to be able t help him with it.
It was a very busy time before Christmas as usual, trying to get shopping completed. It was lovely though to be spending time with all the kids in their homes and really getting to know Shawn and Emily better. It was wonderful! I spent part of one day shopping with Emily and all of one day shopping with Kirsty. I also spent a day in the city shopping with Bruce. Shopping, shopping, shopping!! Finally it was pretty much all done! Geoff hadn't done any of his shopping - said he wasn't even thinking about it until the bedroom was finished! He finally did it all on Christmas Eve Day - how did he do that?!! I think Emily must have done a lot of it! George arrived on Dec. 23rd. (Happy Birthday my Dad, wish we were with you too!) and spent his first night with us at Kirsty and Shawn's house. The next day, Christmas Eve day the 3 of us moved over to Geoff and Emily's. Kirsty and Shawn came over that evening as well and we continued our tradition of having a lovely lobster feast! Bruce and Shawn got the lobster from one of Shawn's contacts - lovely big lobster with great big claws! After supper Kirsty and Shawn went to visit Shawns mum and Dad and then returned again the next day, Christmas morning (!!) at 07:30am to open presents - I really don't think they got much sleep! It was a lovely Christmas morning and Santa was very good to us all. Amongst other things, the kids got us a much needed new BBQ between them, for the boat - it will be lovely to have a BBQ on board again! We also received many lovely presents from England. When left the boat to go home for Christmas we had just one bag (just carry on) between us. On our return journey we had 2 carry on bags and one check-in bag! We are spoiled for sure!! After opening gifts, Kirsty and Shawn headed for Shawn's parents home to open presents and then to his Nanny's for Christmas lunch. Geoff and Emily went to Em's Mum and Dads to have Christmas dinner there. Bruce, George and I dropped into Michael and Linda's a little later for a quick bit of Christmas cheer before going back to Kirsty and Shawn's where we were once again spending a couple of days. After having Christmas lunch with Shawn's family K & S returned and later that evening Jeff and Nancy (Shawn's Mum and Dad arrived and we all had a lovely steak BBQ for Christmas Day supper. We had a lovely evening and of course ate too much. Boxing day was another big day! Kirsty and I got going in the kitchen as Geoff and Emily and Nancy and Jeff were all coming over for Christmas dinner with us. Between us Kirsty and I made a turkey with all the trimmings - Kirsty's first year for hosting Christmas dinner and it all went very well. We even managed to seat all 9 of us without too much of a squeeze!
All too soon our Christmas was over and it was time to go back to the boat. Their was a storm of course just before we left, but it meant that George got to stay with us all for an extra day which was lovely. We managed to contact my Mum and Dad, Gill and Malcolm, Tim and Honey, Katie, Beetle and little Seb and even Bill and Aneda by Skype several times over the holiday which made everything fantastic! George left us on Friday the 28th and we drove with him as far as New Germany where we had to do one last check of the mail before heading back to the Bahamas. We spent our last night in Nova Scotia with Geoff and Emily and then early the next morning (about 03:30am) the two of them took us to the airport to catch our 07:30 flight! It had been a very tearful goodbye at Kirsty's the previous day and it was tearful again at the airport with Geoff and Em. I hate goodbyes!! It won't be too long though before we see them all again and we did have a wonderful Christmas with everyone. It really was great staying with the children - we are very lucky.
Our journey back to the Bahamas was problem free!! No delays!! Junior was at the airport to meet us in his taxi and John, Barbara and Bernie were all waiting for us at the Exuma market to give us and all our luggage a ride back to Windrush. We settled up with Bob at Cavalli house (who didn't charge us as much as expected for leaving Windrush on one of his moorings) and moved back to anchor off Monument Beach again. Yesterday was New Years Eve. It was a bit cold and windy as a front was passing through, but Barbara and I went swimming anyway. We decided it was our version of Canada's New Years Day polar bear swim! Later on John and Barbara came over and we all had supper together and brought in the New Year. We actually all managed to stay up until after midnight - it was fun! It is hard to believe that today is the first day of the year 2013! Hopefully it will be as great a year and as good to us all as 2012 was. We have much to look forward to!