Merry Christmas!

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed time with family and friends. This was our first Christmas apart. Sam volunteered to stand duty Christmas day in order to get several days off after Christmas. It wasn't as bad as I imagined it would be. I had a lovely day with our families and Sam had an easy duty day complete with a gourmet Christmas meal on the boat. Since we are in the middle of a move and all our stuff has been sent with the movers and everything we have fits into 3 suit cases we didn't expect much in the way of presents because everyone knew we couldn't have anything! But, our families were overly generous as usual and now I don't know how I will get all these things to Hawaii with me! I was particularly excited about the GPS system Sam's parents gave me to help me navigate our new home in Hawaii. I was also thrilled that my mom found the particular linen hemstitched napkins I have been wanting to go with our china and had them monogramed for us. My sister says I have definitely become and "old person" because I get excited over napkins!

Here are a couple pics from the Christmas day festivities at my parents house.


Even Bella and Winston were feeling festive in their red Christmas sweaters!

Sam flew down to MD the day after Christmas so we could go with his family out to Deep Creek Lake for their annual after Christmas ski vacation. The night we arrived Sam went with his brother and cousins out skiing in the pouring rain! I opted to read by the fire :-) Since then not much skiing has been going on... it has been unusually warm and as you will see in the following pictures from our hike to the falls, it was even warm enough for me to wear short sleeves!

Tomorrow we will be heading back to my parents house and then Sam flys back to NH the following day to stand duty on New Year's Eve. As for me, I am getting pretty excited/anxious about my move to Hawaii New Year's Day!

Take care everyone and have a wonderful New Year!