Hats off to Christmas Morning!

Until I looked back at the pictures I hadn't realized that we had a hats theme!

First Miss Isabella with her "Christmas themed" head gear!

In fact, Christmas themed head gear for all the girls!

A Stetson for Scott!

I think he looked handsome but I ruined it when I told him the hat reminded me of LBJ!

Matt's hat helped us remember to be healthy and socially conscious.  Drink more water but not water out of single use plastic bottles!

Mary looked cute in her hat from Ecuador! Did you know 'Panama hats' are actually made in Ecuador?

For years I have tried to bring the boys ski hats from the countries we've visited - from Nepal to Chile - and I've never gotten it right.  They never like them.  In Ecuador I found these great hats and thought they would make a great joke Christmas gift.  I was surprised that they really liked them.  I don't expect to see them actually wear them but they appreciated the humor!

Hats off to Mark for buying a Christmas gift for himself!  He pronounced them a perfect fit, the right color and just what he wanted!  And hats off to Mark who doesn't enjoy traveling but was willing to fly across the country to be with us!

Tipping our hats to Monica for adapting so easily to our American Christmas traditions!  Having her in our family is a true blessing! She puts up with us with grace and good spirits.

Hats of to George for making all this fun possible with his hours of hard work and dedication and love!  We are a lucky family to have him as husband, dad, father-in-law and Grandpa!!

A 'Puzzling' Christmas

One of our traditions is to do puzzles during Christmas vacation.  This year we actually did two.  First Matt and Scott started a 3D puzzle of that Barcelona iconic church, La Sagrada Familia.

Hundreds of intricate little pieces....

that made a beautiful replica of our favorite church!  This is the way it will be when it is finished in about 2026, which happens to be the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death.  Our sons have promised that they will take us to see it when it is complete.  I think they worry that we won't be able to travel alone in 10 more years!

Scott and I helped a bit but most of the credit for this masterpiece goes to Matt.

We weren't finished yet.  Next we started on the 2000 piece nautically themed puzzle that Matt had deemed perfect for our beach house vacation.

Everyone worked on it.  Starting with Mary and Matt.

George and Johnny did a lot of it.  Scott and I put in a piece or two but there is not photographic proof!

Even Mark helped!

When we got ready to leave on Tuesday afternoon the puzzle looked like this.

I am one of those people who hates to leave anything unfinished so it just about killed me to think of taking it apart before we had it finished!  Matt and Scott had already decided to spend one more night in Lincoln City so I jokingly said, "I feel like saying that we'll give you $100 if you finish the puzzle before you leave tomorrow."  To my amazement, George agreed and Matt and Scott cheerfully accepted the challenge.

We got in our car and looked back to see this fun sight!  It may be one of my favorite photos of the whole trip!

Our two hard working sons did it!  They got it finished.  I think it took them something like 8 hours of both of them diligently 'puzzling'.  They had sore backs from bending over but they felt the sweet taste of success and were $100 richer!  I'm not sure they were cheerful about it anymore!

Next year I think we'll do a 1000 piece puzzle!

All Together

Our four children....Scott, John, Matt and Mary

 Mary and Mark 

They braved a cross-country airplane flight in winter to be with us.

 The love of my life - George

Matt, Jackson and Scott

John, Monica and Isabella...she was enjoying running on the beach so much that she didn't want to stop to have her picture taken!

Together is a wonderful place to be....especially at Christmas and especially on the Oregon Coast!

Traditions - Getting the Tree

We've been going to Lincoln City on the Oregon coast for Christmas for the past several years.  It has become a tradition to cut our own tree at a local tree farm.  Last year Isabella was 2 months old and stayed home with Grandma for the tree cutting!

 This year was a whole different story!  She loved it!

 Matt was our lumberjack and cut down a beautiful tree.

 It was a fun family event and the perfect start to our Christmas holiday!

 And made for  a beautiful Christmas tree!

Yummy?!?!?!

Normally I am somewhat of a picky eater.  I admit it.  I don't know what happened to me on the trip to the Napo River but I just had the urge to try things....

Like lemon ants!

Yes they do taste like lemon.  These ants actually secrete an acid which kills trees and plants where they don't want to make a nest.  That same acid gives them a lemony taste.

I quite enjoyed the meal we had in the little village.

 

The white stuff is catfish with heart of palm.  It was actually one of my favorite foods on the river cruise!  Our guide said that he knew that Americans don't eat catfish.  I told him that 'Southern' Americans do!  The yellow is a cooked plantain which was just ok.  The small light food near the bottom is white cocoa and it tasted great.  Near the top is a grub.  Yep, a grub.  A roasted grub!

 And I did eat one....and it tasted like bacon.  Really truly!

My temporary craziness did not extend to eating a raw, crawling grub.  First you bite off its head.  Now that was too much even for my temporary food insanity!  Our guide, Juan, grew up in the jungle and loved them.  Actually two of the men on our tour also ate the raw, living grub!  I had to draw a line somewhere!

Creatures of the Napo River

We saw so many interesting critters on this trip!  Here is just a sampling....

Big ants.....

Leaf Cutter ants....those leaves in the photo are being carried by ants.  I resisted the urge to sing, "An ant can't move a rubber tree plant but he's got high hopes."  They move rapidly and for miles and miles. Amazing to see!  It is a parade in the jungle!

 Monkeys....

Sloth....in the interest of full disclosure, this photo was taken by our guide with his 600X super zoom camera.  We did see sloths but they were just dark spots high up in the trees.  Sloths stay in the same tree for up to a week.  They come down once a week to defecate.  If they did that up in the tree the smell would give their location away to their #1 predator a harpy eagle.

 Toucan

Several different types of parrots at a clay lick.  There are many clay licks along the river and scientist don't know why the birds come to this particular one day after day and avoid the others.  It seems to be a social thing. 

Fun to watch them!

Rainbow boa.  We saw him on our night hike!

 

Bats...lots of little bats!  Icky!

 Pink dolphins of the Amazon.  Yes that gray looking thing is a pink dolphin.  They don't jump out of the water like ocean dolphins so their photos aren't too exciting....but seeing them is rare and we saw them twice!

 

Stinky Turkey Bird - His name comes from the foul odor caused by the fermentation of food in his digestive system.  We never got close enough to smell him but he is beautiful!  Looks a bit like a pheasant.

 Can you find the bird in this photo?  He's pretty well camouflaged.

Ringed Kingfisher

Since our river boat was called the Anaconda it was only appropriate that we got to see a real anaconda!

This one was just a little 9 footer....they can grow to be 30 feet long.  I don't think we would have been holding on to one of that size!

Actually it made me kind of uncomfortable watching him coil around this boy's arm!

So fun to see all these interesting and unique things!