Christmas magic has come and gone

Happy after Xmas! Major glitches here. Tried to post on my iPad and zilch happened. We are back in Miami as of last night and I have my trusty laptop to get the job done.

Snowglobe! Remember those?

Christmas was lovely and the little girls were amazingly well behaved in the midst of present s galore and anticipation of Santa's arrival. Heather hand delivered her special cinnamon rolls Christmas Eve day for Christmas morning breakfast. So nice since they (Heather and Jay) weren't even arriving until after we had breakfast.

All about the kiddos. Bike for Penny and a little teeny bike for Jules. To make this magic happen: Dads, an I'm sure Moms, putting together toys in the wee hours.

Oh sisters...

And there must be laughter...

And there must be pancakes...

Crazy warm weather in Virginia, then chilly and rainy, and now back in Miami which is flirting to break record high today - 84. Can't figure out what to wear when... Orange Bowl New Year's Eve and then back to Naples, although Mark is there every so briefly. On to CES - whee!

Almost Christmas time

Christmas tree in our Miami lobby

And here we are on the shortest day of the year: the winter solstice. For the U.S. 10:48 pm CST. I'm always thinking the 21st, not realizing that for some (say the UK) it's the 22nd. Anyway thank goodness for the days getting longer!

Early morning Miami walk

We drove over to Miami yesterday and fly to Virginia tomorrow for the Christmas holiday. Hurray for family get togethers and precious small children who spread the magic of the season. There are a large number of cruise ships at dock right now. Thinking holiday cruises are getting ready to start.

Been burning up the credit card and probably stressing the Amazon staff as I have relied heavily on their 2 day Prime shipping. Next up massive marathon wrapping, all those packages have gone ahead and landed at Tiffany's door.

Walking with the egret

It's snowing in Crested Butte as I write and more predicted every day for the next few. There's rejoicing for the ski mountain and I hope it continues. We plan on going for a couple of weeks in March so we don't miss the winter in entirety. I just have a hard time relating at the moment and Virginia is supposed to continue the crazy warm weather that the east coast is having through Christmas. We'll all celebrate whatever the conditions are. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

George Foreman and the world of Miami

Seems I spend every post lately with an apology for lateness. Sorry! This time not all me. My post was done and suddenly all disappeared, so had to redo.
Made it back to Naples for the weekend and our floors were done. They look great and I made good headway clearing out the layer of tile dust that was virtually all over every surface. Just part of it I'm afraid. Now onto part B, our bathroom.

George Foreman electric grill

Fun purchase of a thing many people already knew about. Where have we been? A George Foreman indoor/outdoor electric grill. The key word here is electric. Gas or charcoal grills are not allowed at our condo and anyone who knows Mark knows he's a big grill man who grills in all conditions. Well, he's currently opting out of the minus 20 Star Mt. conditions. Mark cooked lime chicken,tasting a bit different but good, and it cooked faster.  One meal so far, more experimenting coming up.

Not the party boat just Mark Cuban's little thing

Back to Miami for the week and the big company holiday party - on the large boat. I'll let you know how that goes. Preparty I've had to change to different shoes -wedges this time, spiky heels and boats do not mix...not sure dresses mix either, should be fun.

Miami Circle- ancient site covered

Expanded my Miami walk to off island. In the middle of downtown is an archaeological site called Miami Circle. Discovered in the late 90's when a developer started excavation for a new high rise. The perfect 38ft circle was found along with a ton of artifacts. It is believed to be a structure at least 1500 years old built by the Tequesta Indians. After protests and injunctions the high rise did not go up and it's now designated a national historic landmark.

Back of the church

Also on the walk came across a darling church surrounded by high rises. This church has a Christmas tree lot out front during the day which is whisked away to safety at dusk. Crazy times...

Brickell Park

Around the corner from the church is a little park that has the original mausoleum for the Brickell family, founders of Miami. Little jewels on the downtown streets.

Brickell Key Bridge

Here's a bit about the world of Miami:
Where, at a downtown location of of Florida's largest grocery store chain, noone knew what "salsa" was, and I'm talking Pace's here. We found it ourselves buried on a bottom shelf.
Where the local tv news channel has breaking news on the elections in Venezuela.
Where traffic jams occur everyday around the Dominican Republic consulate, and the Guatemalan consulate, and the motor bikes zip on around those of us stalled in cars.
Where "Hola" is the first word said no matter where you are.
Where women, of all ages and sizes, wear very short and very tight clothing. You go ladies...

View of our condo building

The holiday boat party did happen. Good times, good food, and no catastrophes with anyone's dress or shoes. We made slow circles around the Miami River which happens to be very close to our condo.

Hope everyone is getting some joy out of the season. Even though it's Florida, the wild elevated atmosphere of holiday preparations is very much here as elsewhere.  I have to work to push the anxious part of presents, etc. into the right perspective.

Miami and Thanksgiving

I am alive!  Apologies for the late post, life has been quite busy and a bit complicated. Hoping for calmer times, but that's probably not going to happen given the time of year.

Penny was anxious for things to start

Couple photos from our family Thanksgiving. You'll notice we had some missing people: Jules (down for her nap), Jay (sick poor thing), and Heather nicely stepped in to take a table shot for me. And in truth, Penny disappeared shortly after this for her nap. A fine meal was had with those of us present though.

Mark and I were there for the Walker tree decorating. The girls, Penny in particular, had that magical star look in their eyes while hanging up ornaments. Hurray for Xmas traditions.

This was a wonderful example of how you don't need to buy out the toy stores to have happy children. Cardboard car kept Penny and Jules mightily entertained. Wonderful insightful post about this very issue written by Tiffany on Tiffany and Becca's blog  popandbanter.com.

We are in a whirlwind of travel right now. Miami, Virginia, back to Miami,and I threw in complication with a day trip to Naples.  I think we are Naples bound for the weekend. Our floors were being replaced at the condo this week, a big and messy job but almost complete they say.

Miami again next week for both of us. There's a company holiday party happening, in Miami style - on a boat. jes hora de fiesta!