Day 33, Year 7: Ice in the Tonka Truck
Date: Sunday, December 11, 2011
Weather: Partly Sunny and Chilly
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, N Falmouth, Massachusetts
Mark and I spent the night at Heather and Jed’s last night and woke up to beautiful, sunny, but very chilly morning. Since it was so beautiful and sunny, Sam wanted to go outside to play. He went out and a few minutes later, he came back to the sliding glass door in the kitchen and announced, “I can’t play out here. It’s too cold.” He then proceeded to show us how much ice had formed in the bed of his big Tonka truck. The temperature was barely below freezing, but it has been so unseasonably warm that normal freezing weather for December came as a bit of a shock. But with the sunny skies, it made for a great morning to go outside and decorate the big evergreen in Heather and Jed’s front yard. The lights have been on for over a week now, and we have worked slowly to get some of the bird food ornaments ready to hang, but today we put forth a full family effort. Heather, Jonah, and I worked to get ornaments ready, Sam would deliver them to Jed who was standing on a ladder, and Jed would hang them on the tree. Sam also hung many of the ornaments, so the bottom of the tree is a little heavy and the top a bit sparse since there is no way to get ornaments up there except by boat hook, but regardless, the tree is looking great. So far we have dried corn on the cob, whole tangerines infused with cloves as well as pieces of tangerine, peanut butter-coated pine cones rolled in bird seed, and strings of peanuts in the shell. We know the squirrels are going to like some of these more than the birds and it should be fun to watch them scramble for the goodies. Heather worked on making popcorn and bird seed balls (not as easy as we thought it should be) and I am going to continue working on stringing the HUGE bag of peanuts I bought. We also have suet to hang. Using red ribbon to string all of these things really gives the tree a festive look and both boys seemed to really enjoy their part in decorating the tree for the birds. So it was a successful morning’s work and it certainly got me into the holiday spirit.
Mark worked at West Marine today and came home with more seafood delights. Sue, one of the assistant managers at the store, continues to keep us supplied with yummy seafood. Well, her husband brings in the clams and oysters, but she fashions them into yummy treats and shares these with us. Yesterday Mark brought home Stuffed Clams and today he brought home Oysters Rockerfeller. Mark is threatening to leave me for Sue, but I reminded him that she wouldn’t have the seafood unless he went out to get it. That ended that threat!
Tomorrow is Mark’s big day in the gastro-intestinal testing world. He has a colonoscopy scheduled for 11 am and he hopes they are doing the upper gastro-intestinal check at the same time. I won’t be keeping Sam and Jonah tomorrow afternoon as I will go with Mark in the morning so I can drive him home.
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| 111211 Day 33 Cape Cod, USA–Xmas Tree Decorating |
