Roatan 2013

We just returned from a trip to Roatan with Sarah, Toby and Clare.  The only reason you would want to go to Roatan is to scuba dive or seriously relax.  Calvin, Sarah and Toby got into the diving but Clare and I went after the "seriously relax" option.  We stayed in a lovely home right on the beach with a small pool and a lovely outdoor deck.  It was close to a good grocery store and several convenient eating places and that sums up what we did for a week.  A little diving, a lot of eating and a lot of relaxing.  Calvin is our main grocery shopper on vacations and makes sure that there are at least two desserts for each day of the trip.  Some of our "eat in" meals were a little sketchy, but we always had a great dessert.

We brought the camera, but I have to admit that most of my pictures were total disasters.  The last time we were in Roatan I found myself interested in fauna and flora of the island, but this trip Clare seemed to be the most interesting thing around and I hardly noticed anything else.  Clare has an adorable lightning quick smile and I would say that I missed it 100% of the time, so you'll just have to imaging how cute her smile really was.

The Boredelons look a little angelic at dinner.  Calvin took this picture

It rains a lot in Roatan, but most of the storms passed by quickly.

There was a dive site just off our beach, but Calvin was the only one willing to brave the waves to swim out to it.  This lovely beach is swarming with sand midges.  I spent about 20 minutes on the beach our first night there and got over 50 bites on my legs.  I hardly noticed the bites when they happened, but my legs looked like I had chicken pox the rest of the week.  I gave the beach a wide berth after that.

Clare had great enthusiasm for everything.

Sorry Sarah for the terrible picture of you, but I wanted to show off Clare's curly hair.

And then I noticed how similar Clare's hair color is to yours.  I don't usually look at the back of your hair.

We ate a couple of times at Temporary Cal's Cantina, so named because it is hard to make a go of a restaurant in Roatan and the owner didn't want to make a permanent commitment.

Good times splashing in the pool.

This is the view that I loved waking up to each morning.  A great master bedroom!

Christmas 2012

We really enjoyed our Christmas this year.  We did some of the traditional activities, just not on the traditional days.  We usually decorate gingerbread men over Thanksgiving, but this year we decorated when Peter, Roque,Rosie, Jay, Kelly and Brack were in town.

Roque and Brack really raised the artistic bar on the cookies,

but we still managed a few "creative" cookies.  

We spent a lot of time gathered around the fire watching the snow fall.

Despite a great effort the puzzle did not get completed, so it is back in the box waiting for the next Smith gathering.

We had our tradition music night, with a twist.  Katie and Jason volunteered to start

and stole the show!

We had a real white Christmas.  We went skiing on Christmas Day, but it was so snowy we didn't take any pictures.  Calvin loved skiing in the snow and dragged Jay, Brack , Jason, Katie and Kelly all over the mountain.

The birds at the feeders entertained us,

but the highlight was my Christmas cactus

 putting on a glorious show as usual.

Christmas Tree 2012

In answer to the question "can we chop a Christmas tree and load it on the car without any kids to chop and carry the tree" the answer is yes.  But we did look for a skinny tree, on the uphill side close to the road.  We went with the Gabbarts and after all these years of tree chopping it was just the four of us this year.  We are a few weeks after our traditional chop date, but it was a beautiful day, and the roads, although deeply rutted, were still frozen so we could get in to our favorite chopping spot.

This is Calvin's first selection. But we decided to look a little more.

We found a tree that is actually legal according to the rules, small diameter trunk, back from the road, and so close to another tree that it is pretty much flat on the back. I will admit that it is not our best tree, but it is big and green which is basically what we look for in a tree. I hoped to put it flat against the wall, but that didn't work as well as I hoped.  We took all of the traditional pictures.  

Chopping the tree

 Loading the cars

Family pictures

(Actually Fay and Vance were just waiting while Calvin set up the group shot.  They got a couple picture on their camera.)

And the group shot.

It is great to have friends who share "empty nester" adventures.

Thanksgiving in Sayulita

This year we decided to do a little something different for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving dinner has never been one of my favorite meals and I have managed to avoid cooking it for decades.  (I owe years of gratitude to all of those marvelous cooks who actually know what to do with a turkey.) So this year we went to Sayulita, Mexico and had tacos on the beach for Thanksgiving.  A fish taco is my kind of turkey.

 

 

Rosie, Jay, Roque and Peter joined us in our celebration to make it even more fun.

 

 

The breakfast view.

 

 

We rented a house perched up on a hill with nice touches of Mexican art throughout and a marvelous open air veranda with all kinds of lounging spots and we took advantage of them.

 

 

 

On Saturday we took a sailboat ride out to the Marietas Islands.  The crew really worked hard to show us a good time.  Peter and Jay did a little deep sea fishing.

 

 

Jay took the first shift bringing it in and Peter took the second.

 

Here are the proud fishermen with their catch.  There is more to the story, but you'll have to ask the fishermen.

 

The islands were cool with caves to swim through and a blue footed boobie population, but the best part of the trip was on the ride home when they let us get dragged behind the boat on the cargo net.

 

 

We also had a couple of beach days.  We went to the main beach and rented surfboards and boogie boards one day.

 

 

Roque surfed like a pro her first time out.

 

After an exhausting day on the beach we had dinner in town every night.  Sometimes in a traditional restaurant and sometimes street food. 

 

 

Our favorite beach was about a mile out of town.  We went in the late afternoon one day and besides having the beach to ourselves the light made great pictures.

 

 

Not a big crowd at the beach.

 

 

The large beach connected through this cave to a smaller pocket beach.

 

 

Calvin loves a hidden beach.

 

 

The cave from the other direction.

 

 

Rosie and Jay looking good.

 

 

Lots a brown pelicans to entertain us.

 

 

Bobbing in the waves.

 

A great way to celebrate Thanksgiving!

 

 



It is raining in Reno

It is a rainy weekend here in Reno. I opened the garage door to run some errands yesterday and saw this gorgeous rainbow.  It didn't last long but it was beautiful.  One of the downsides of almost never getting rain is that rainbows are a rare sight here.

To celebrate the rain Calvin decided to go shooting.  He has taken an interest in the Winchester 22 rifle that I inherited from my grandfather through my father.  Calvin had taken it out Friday to hills behind our house, but shooting tends to be discouraged there, so we went Saturday to an established shooting range near Boca.

There was just a little drizzle when we got out of the car, but it rapidly turned into real rain, so we didn't stay long.  It appears that we might need to practice a little more. Neither of us is a great shot, but Calvin at least hit the target board, and hit one of the smaller targets.  I missed the board entirely, and it was not a small board. And it wasn't very far away.  I was playing with my phone and took a video instead of a picture, so you can see how far the target is.

My suggestion to anyone who might come shooting with us is to stay well out of range.

Fall Harvest 2012

We have had the most beautiful fall.  The season lingered long enough for us to harvest a bumper crop from our sporadically attended garden.  We have eaten tomatoes and more tomatoes, but there is nothing like the flavor of a vine ripened tomato.

Our sweet 100s were especially good this year.

Our apples were big and juicy and just a little wormy.

The garden surprise was a 2+ pound potato.  I didn't know that we planted potatoes until I was digging the onions and discovered potatoes instead.  We ate this beauty and it would have fed a family of 6 easily.

Our leaves have finally turned and the birch in the backyard is gorgeous.  What a great place to live.