Another Safe Trip

After a time at home for a summer vacation, Bubby and I are back home. It was wonderful to be with family and friends once again. It was especially great to be a part of welcoming our newest family member into this world. Nathan and I flew Spirit Airlines this time as Air Jamaica wasn't running any specials. This experience was better than the last. They seemed to have turned over a new leaf. Both flights from Tampa and Fort Lauderdale left on time. On both flights, we had three seats to ourselves so Nathan was able to lay down. We still had to bring our own snacks on the plane because I didn't want to pay $6 for a bag of chips.
I decided to take some pictures from the plane window this time. It was really hazy and taking the picture through the double paned plane window made them kind of fuzzy. One of the cruise ships was in port.
The water was still pretty despite the conditions. We were seated three seats from the back of the plane so I decided there was no hurry in getting off of the plane. We took our time. On the long walk to immigration Nathan's Croc caught on the tile floor and he took a dive. His DS went one way, backpack another and his pull behind landed on his legs. He whacked his knee and elbow pretty good but he didn't cry. When we made it to immigration, for the first time since we have been traveling in and out of Jamaica the officer got it right. She processed our passports without asking me fifty questions about why we live here and what we do. She made her stamps, marked her initials and dated all the right places and said, "Welcome home!"

After we got our luggage we sailed through customs without having any of our bags opened. After telling four taxi drivers we didn't need a ride, we walked out the doors, the heat slapped us in the face and Todd was waiting for us.

On the way to the Chinese restaurant for lunch we passed a local fisherman. I have seen lots of fishermen with stringers of fish but this one was the biggest of all.
If you look close you can see that most of the fish are red snappers but right at the top is a lobster. Yummy! I was starving. My white chocolate mocha from Starbucks was long gone.

Today we started a three day VBS with the kids in our church community of Anchovy. We thought we might have four or five kids but to our surprise we had twenty one kids and four adults. More about that later. After we ate lunch at KFC, we went and got stocked up on hurricane supplies since it looks like we might get some bad weather from TS Gustav. We got propane for the grill, gas for the generator, food, and batteries for my fan. Since my hot flashes have progressively gotten worse, I told Todd that he and Nathan would be miserable if we didn't get some batteries for my fan.

Christmas Part I

After two and a half wonderful weeks of eating, being with family, eating, being with friends, eating, shopping, eating and packing, we are back in Jamaica. We arrived on Thursday afternoon. Spirit Airlines was over two and a half hours late leaving Fort Lauderdale. We got up at four a.m. and were at the airport before six. As always it was terrible to say goodbye to family, but we are so grateful that we were able to spend Christmas and New Year's at home.

We arrived home one week before Christmas and stayed a week and a half after Christmas. Our Christmas festivities began on Christmas Eve at John and April's house.

Aunt Sharon and Mama stood over the turkey carcass that John fried and picked it to death. Aunt Sharon did relinquish a wing to me. Fried turkey wings are my favorite part of the turkey. We also had a ham, chicken and dressing, greens, eggplant casserole, pumpkin cake, pecan pie and of course sweet tea! April's mom and dad from Tallahassee, her sister Gayle and her husband Mark along with their three boys, twins Brayden and Brennan and their younger brother Walker from Mississippi came. Nathan was born one day before Walker so they had a blast together. John's sister and her husband along with their girls joined us as well.

April and Howie with no shame and a lovely shot of my plate.

Uncle Layne, Aunt Sharon and Mama watching their kids sing Christmas carols.

Before the evening ended we all gathered in the living room to sing.

Later that night we went over to Todd's parent's house and ate some more. Todd's sister, Lisa, made wonderful crab stuffed mushrooms and spinach dip. Grammy, Todd's mom also made some wonderful pumpkin pie and chocolate dipped peanut butter balls.

Tradition at Grammy and Pappy's is for the kids to open matching pajamas and then wear them on Christmas morning to open the rest of their presents.

Jacob and Nathan showing off their new pajamas.