Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Ho Ho Ho to all…

At our last posting, we detailed our trip down the St. John’s River to Sanford and back to Jacksonville. After returning to Atlanta, we tended to Coast Guard Auxiliary business with Flotilla meetings in our “local” area around Georgia.

Getting ready for Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving was spent with some of our friends coming over to our house for dinner. I cooked two turkey breasts on our Big Green Egg and Nan Ellen and I prepared the remainder of the feast. I told our friends that if they liked it, I prepared it and if not, it was Nan Ellen’s responsibility. Everyone just laughed and said they enjoyed it all. This was our first holiday without Nan Ellen’s mother Ethel and it was good to have some of our friends over to take away some of the loss.

Bob, Dave, Sharon

While the boat remains in a slip at Ortega Landing, it is not going unused. We have used it as a sort of “floating condo” when we had Coast Guard Auxiliary business in Florida and December was a month where we used it more than once for this purpose. I had a meeting in Miami scheduled for December 12, and since Jacksonville is about the halfway point to Miami, it was nice to break up the trip and give us another excuse to visit the boat. We stayed a couple of nights before traveling to Miami for my meeting. On the way back, I had to stop at the Port Canaveral Coast Guard Station for a Division Change of Watch where we changed out our leadership for the coming year.

The Marina at Ortega Landing lit up for Christmas

The entertainment for the evening

We returned to our boat at Ortega Landing that afternoon and attended their annual Christmas Party where we were able to meet some of our fellow dockmates. As part of the celebration, we placed a couple of red and green balls (navigational buoy colors) on the tree. Lo and behold, we ran into fellow Loopers Jack and Denise Almeida, (formerly on Jade) whom we met for the first time a couple of years ago in Rogersville AL when they were there on the Loop. They are selling Jade and have purchased another boat (Lapis) to become liveaboards at Ortega Landing. They are from Brazil and he is a retired neurosurgeon. Their 4 year old daughter went trick or treating in her costume among the other boaters at Halloween in Rogersville. She is still a precious little girl and has just as much energy as we recall. After this celebration, it was back to Atlanta on Sunday morning.

Merry Christmas from Ortega Landing Marina Clubhouse

On the way back to Atlanta, our good friend Dianne Dimmick invited us to her house for her Christmas Party and our timing could not have been better. She lives in Hapeville (immediately north of Hartsfield Atlanta Airport) - directly on our way home. Finally, we made it back home after a week on the road staying in hotels and three nights on the boat. 

We have more Christmas Parties planned before our next road trip to Indianapolis just after Christmas to celebrate my Mother’s 80^th birthday. We have been invited to our neighbor’s house for New Year’s Eve and will simply have to walk across the street without worrying about getting out on the road with all the amateurs on New Year’s night.

In January, we will be going back to Jacksonville for another Change of Watch at the Mayport Naval Station. I will be conducting training at Coast Guard Air Station Savannah at Hunter Army Airfield and at the St. Augustine Airport Conference Center. Just after this training concludes, we will be back in Jacksonville for the US Power Squadron 100^th annual National Conference. We are also members of the Power Squadron and I will be wearing hats of both organizations at the Conference. Since the 7^th District Commodore will be in St. Louis attending training sessions, he has asked me to represent the 7^th District Auxiliary at the Conference. We have additional Changes of Watch scheduled for Augusta GA, Blairsville GA (North Georgia mountains along the North Carolina border) and Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta GA during January and another Change of Watch in Central GA during February. We have a VERY busy travel schedule.

February should be a slower month for us with travel, and March will have some travel with Division meetings. With any luck, we hope to restart our Loop towards the end of March or the first of April 2014.

We want to wish everyone Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a safe and prosperous New Year. We will update again in 2014.