Christmas

We had a nice Christmas this year. We spent Christmas Day at my parents place, including having a yummy ham dinner and mini-golf. The condo my parents stay at in the winter has a 18 hole putt putt course in the backyard. First time mini golfing in sandals on Christmas, with tornado watches in effect. But we aren't in Wisconsin anymore.

Christmas Eve, after some last minute shopping and cooking, Zachary got out his Christmas present. A rc helicopter.

His crash rate has improved since then. :-) Queequeg is still pretty intrigued by it, but Diogenes wants nothing of it and hides under the bed when its out on patrol. To him, its a flying vacuum cleaner.

Dickens Christmas Village

I like Christmas Villages. A local museum has a very large Dickens Christmas Village on display currently. I wonder how many electrical plugs there are for this display, as most of the buildings are lit. I didn't look under the table to see.

 Our micro Christmas Village display this year at home. My parents found a box of figurines at a garage sale, so now we have a lot more people and critters in our set.

Quee-zilla has been harassing the townsfolk a little bit, not as much as last year though. I have it on our bookcase instead this time and she has a less cluttered path to get to her window and rule her domain. She makes sure at least one person or lamppost gets it every time she crosses though, just to make sure they know she is supreme.

Ship Launch

We attended our first ship launch a week ago. The company I work for held a ship launch and invited employees and their families to attend. Despite being a rainy and muddy day, it was still fun to watch.

Pre-launch, with the ship up on the blocks. The bridge is not attached to the top of the ship yet. The ship is 302 feet long.

 Post launch splash, with the water from the launch pond flooding the yard.

This is what the Harvey Deep Sea will look like after a few more months of outfitting.

And here is a video of the launch. We stayed out of the splash zone.

Seaside and Rosemary Beach

We visited Seaside and Rosemary Beach today, cutesy coastal towns along 30A. Even the Post Offices are charming.

                      

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Wednesday Zachary and I had a rare day today together without work sprinkled in, so we explored 2 new state parks to the west of us near Rosemary Beach. Deer Lake State Park features a large area of protected natural dunes with a coastal dune lake. They have a long boardwalk crossing it so you can get to the beach. It was very peaceful. It is still is so strange to be late November in shorts and mildly sweating.

Fall leaves do exist in Florida!

We also visited Camp Helen State Park. I found one sign of traditional fall, leaves changing. I was excited. Camp Helen features an old resort dating back to the 1930s with other historical buildings.

The potatoes were the best.

On Thanksgiving day, Zachary had to work during the day, so I brought him and his coworker carryout turkey dinners and we had dinner at the store. After work we debated about trying one of those door buster black Friday sales that night. We aren't shoppers for one, and secondly, not black Friday shoppers. But the promise of discounts on a few games were mighty tempting this year. So we decided to hit the Toys R Us at 8 and/or the Target if it looked bad. We got there a little after 8, thinking the line outside would have vanished or be short by then. (We thought we were being savvy...) Uh, no. The line still wrapped the front of 3 stores and down the backside. Target looked no better. "Oh forget about it!", and we went home. We like discounts and all, but neither of us have the stamina for that kind of angry shopping. After we got home, we did a little online shopping, got a few discounts and went to bed. Thank you Internet. I should have never doubted you.

OT

Experiencing deja vu, I find myself working a lot again lately. My part-time job in the past 2 weeks shifted into overdrive. My previous job in Wisconsin had me working a lot of extra hours in the last several months before we moved. At least in this situation there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel, after January 10th. The company I am working for is putting together a proposal bid for the US Coast Guard and we all are putting long hours contributing to the project, in hopes to have a polished bid ready early January to submit. It is an exciting and stressful project at the same time. I am even using the word davits in conversation with Zachary now, thanks to the crash course in ships the last 2 months. Hoping this week to get a reprieve day or 2 this week for the holiday then back at it.

Bag lunch by the bay yesterday

Happy Birthday Zachary

Zachary turned 30 today. Our dinner plans after work was thwarted, finding the chosen restaurant closed on Mondays. D'oh! So we plan on going there later this week.

One of Zachary's gifts arrived today, Minecraft block magnets. So when the Minecraft urge strikes in the kitchen, we are covered.

Warm

Hello There

 Fall is my favorite season and I knew I would miss Wisconsin fall, but I am really enjoying the Florida fall too. The weather has been warm, 70s-80s with cooler evenings and lower humidity. There is a state park north of us, Torreya, that is supposed to have nice fall colors to view in November, hopefully we can find a day to check it out.

Oh, that is what they were doing.

I remember seeing this a lot when we were on the farm...

Otterness

Happiness is finding a new wallet with otters on it.

Panda vision

Here it is, as requested. If only I had a panda battle pet too. :-)

Pandacraft

 This week I started on a craft project from a kit I picked from The Wayfarer's Whimsy at the Bristol Renaissance Faire over a year ago. I lost track of the kit when we moved to Wausau a year ago and when we were unpacking from moving to FL, I found it again. It was in a big bag of stuffed animals. How it got in there, no idea.

 Felting is process of using needles with tiny notches in them to "felt" wool together, sculpting/shaping it in just about anyway you want it. The kit came with 2 balls of carded wool, 2 needles, and a pre-made wool armature body. Essentially you take strips or rolls of wool and poke it repeatedly until its attached, creating a tightly woven bond that can not be pulled apart.

I found it very relaxing, a nice way to unwind in the evening after work. Besides the occasional finger prick with the needle.

 It was surprising how easy it is to sculpt wool and have it retain its shape. My mind was already thinking ahead on what other subjects would be fun to create with wool felting.

Watching old X-Files episodes while felting is an added bonus

 Just about done.

Lvl 1 Panda Monk

 Finished. Adding the little white sparkle eye highlight was quite tedious. I think I pulled it out 6 times and started over to try to get them balanced enough. I think he needed it, otherwise he would have been too bug eyed.

Signs

Indeed

On a busy intersection on my bike ride last night, I spied this yard sign with a grouping about another dozen various election signs, underneath a billboard. Someone else added an handwritten response on the litter sign.

Florida Car

Lighthouse Wins!

Our car is resident now too. We picked out a lighthouse themed plate. It was a hard decision between normal, turtles, or lighthouses. Seriously, Florida has a crazy number of specialty license plates. (or tags as they call them here)

Another tour

 On Saturday, I went on another bike tour of St. Andrews State Park. I can see myself making many trips here in the future. For one, its so close, so it is an easy destination with my bike and less crowded. Secondly, I just bought an annual pass for all of Florida's State Parks, so we'll have to get our money's worth, here and other parks.

I stopped to check out the pier this trip, and noted a new sight for me.

Purple Flag! Purple flag on the beach means dangerous marine life is near.

Arrgh... Pirates. Tourist pirates rather.

No shark fins here.

I never did find out what caused it. There were beach goers on the beach and in the water near the purple flag, they didn't seem concerned.

Back to land.

Hazardous plant life, stabby!