A Brown Christmas

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December is a big month for us, with Christmas and a couple of birthdays all hitting in quick succession. We expected this year we’d get to do all of that in the snow, but it wasn’t meant to be. Christmas cookies with Aunt Toni. Lots of dice games. I used … Read More

BUMFUZ XMAS

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Picacho Peak

Officially rocking new Bumfuzzle plates. Wait… Bum Fuz? As an aside, Minnesota used to have great license plates, with blue raised lettering. This switch to black block sticker lettering (it was probably ten years ago for all I know) is really horrendous. It really feels like everything we touch these … Read More

Underwater Activities

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Butler Bay Wreck Dive

St. Croix is one of those places that one minute you are baking in the sun, and the next it is pouring down rain. You absolutely do not leave any hatches open when leaving the boat, even if there isn’t a cloud in the sky at the time. It was … Read More

Island Christmas

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Like parents everywhere, we were up early on Christmas morning. Pitch black outside. Kids get stockings to open while the coffee brews, and once the first cups are poured the main event can begin. The kids got everything on their three-wish lists from Santa, and an extra or two from … Read More

Christmas Eve

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I’m sorry, but we just think having a monkey climbing around on our boat is the coolest thing. How many places in the world could you experience this? Still in the grips of steady rains, we discovered a leak in a cabinet. The house was torn apart and of course … Read More

Christmas Prep

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The annual tradition of writing out Christmas lists to mail off to Santa continues. The kids, thanks to a Berenstain Bears book we read them when they were little, have always believed that they shouldn’t ask him for more than three things. Anything more and they would come across as … Read More

Key West Christmas

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So after being woken up by the drunken drowned rats at midnight—and assuring the kids that the noise outside wasn’t Santa, but that he’d be coming as soon as they were gone—the kids managed to get back to sleep until our normal six a.m. When they came out it was … Read More

Christmas Karma

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We’re starting to realize that the Garrison Bight mooring field here in Key West is just one disaster after another waiting to happen. With gale force winds predicted, we knew there would be some fireworks around here, so it wasn’t much surprise to wake up one morning to find a … Read More

Christmas

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Christmas. What is there to say? Kids open presents. Kids play with new toys. Kids move on, and everyone begins talking about next Christmas. We did  have a nice time. The kids gave Grammy their painted pottery gifts, and they got everything on their Santa Claus lists. The last minute … Read More

The Holiday Spirit

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I guess as much as anything else, Ali and I have tried to fill our kids’ lives with good memories. Their holiday memories aren’t focused on one location, so that it becomes a part of the background—instead, the locations become as integral a part of the memory as what actually … Read More

Christmas 2015

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Ouest received an unexpected invitation the other day to play the Virgin Mary in some sort of production—an invitation she eagerly accepted, despite having no idea who the Virgin Mary is, or what the play might entail. Ali and I are always amazed at her moxy. Ali says when she … Read More

Santa

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Well, it’s about that time, isn’t it? You can see by the pictures that Ouest was pretty excited about meeting Santa this year. Lowe? Not so much. He said he would do it if he could just sit next to him. So what is the first thing Santa does? Grabs … Read More