Christmas Eve (Julie’s Birthday!) 12.24.09

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again – it sure is easy to stay busy here! There’s always something going on, even if it’s just a trip to the grocery store, which can easily take ½ the day. There is a brand new huge ‘Mega’ store that opened up just on the other side of Bucerias and a big group of us all took the bus in to pick up some goodies that we couldn’t find at the little tiendas in town. The Mega store was insane – we must have gone on one of the craziest days in history and we were glad to get our stuff and get out of there!! Haha.. Anne & Jeff from Outrider caught a 5’ wahoo on their sail from Mantanchen to La Cruz and was giving away chunks of it so the evening after they arrived, Anne & Jeff, Mike & Julie, and Michael & I, all went aboard Val & Stan’s Pax Nautica for fish tacos! Everyone marinated their fish differently and brought a little something to accompany the tacos - it was fun to try each type of fish. We also were invited to dinner aboard Precious Metal with Pamela & I.V. for chicken curry – yum!! I had a recipe for a homemade salad dressing I’ve been dying to try out so I made a big batch to use on the salad and everyone feasted on it. YUM!! Just call me Betty….NOT!

I have to admit, it’s difficult to get in the holiday spirit down here. Because we don’t have T.V., don’t listen to local radio, and don’t read the newspaper, we’re not overloaded with holiday cheer, advertising, and reminders that it’s Christmas! And, of course, the temperature is still in the 80’s so we’re in shorts, tank tops, & flip flops. And I haven’t found a Christmas tank top yet…haha!! But this year I decided to bake some goodies to give away to the guards here at the marina and for some reason, I was so excited! I couldn’t wait and was immediately ‘in the spirit’. We put up our Christmas tree and our decoration and I began baking. I made three different cookies – lemon meltaways, a coconut bar type cookie, and my favorite cookie of all…chocolate chip molasses cookies. Plus I made a fruit and nut bread that we gave away to a couple of cruiser friends too. I was a baking fool!

But before I forget – it’s also Julie’s birthday from Slacker!



Woohoo! What better reason to get together! Of course it had to be a secret so I arranged with Mike to come over around 12:00 and we’d bring the ‘gang’ to help celebrate! I even baked a cake – frosting and everything – for the celebration. Now it was my first cake, ever, and was about as dry as a bone….but the chocolate cream cheese frosting was good!!



Haha… At high noon, about 3 dinghies full of partiers dinghied over – just as they were leaving! Julie had been treated to a huge breakfast and was ready to go for a walk around town! Mike did a great job keeping her close to the boat as we all dinghied around and SURPRISE!! We ended up with about 16 people helping celebrate – singing Happy Birthday and all! It was great.

Later that day we took 8 plates of cookies up to the office with instructions to make sure all of the guards, the marina manager, & marina assistant get some! They were very surprised and I enjoyed every bit of it.

The cruisers organized an appetizer party up near the marina office that began around 5pm. There was a great turnout and incredible appetizers shared. The evening was beautiful – it was the perfect temperature, there was Christmas music in the background, and great to be surrounded by such amazing friends.

Merry Christmas everyone…
Rene & Michael