A Year Later Remembrance: Boarding the Cruise Ship

Sunday, December 27th, 2009 was finally here and it was time to board the ship! Almost a year of anticipation and preparation was about to come to fruition! A cruise may not be a very big deal to many, but for us down home country folk at Pure Water Hollow Homestead, it was enormous! We don't even go on many small vacations like a weekend camping trip, and we had seldom been away from the homestead for more than a few consecutive days ever! This trip was going to have us away for at least 10 days, including seven nights on the high seas in the Caribbean!

We had little idea what to expect, so we over-packed and over-prepared. We had the passports made and they came in on time. All the preliminary plans with the cruise line seemed to be in order. I hired a good dependable young fellow to look after the homestead livestock while we were away. We successfully made it to Port Canaveral the night before, just as hoped for. Actually, it was pretty amazing that we got to the Radisson at the same moment that each of the rest of the group got there! It was almost like we had been in a big caravan, when we had actually travelled independently. Hoyt, Merri Ann and Nancy were there, Joe, Nikki, and Kylie made it, Cheri, Chelsea, Chris, and Tad pulled in, and also Justin, Kristy, and Brett! All 5 of our vehicles had arrived safely and at about the same time!

Everything had come together, and I think we (my family) were a bit surprised that it was really happening!

It was a cool, overcast day in Florida when the moment to go to the ship finally arrived. Soon, however, we knew we would have heat and sun!

We left our van back at the hotel and took the Radisson shuttle to the dock. Excitement was really mounting at this point:

We all had to get our luggage and take it into customs to get on the ship. Here is Chelsea, Tad, Merri Ann, Chris, and Sheri:

Better make sure we have the camera! Lisa was ready to get on board...

So was everyone else:

We didn't know exactly how to get into the ship, but we knew we were close:



It took quite a long time to go through the winding line to get checked for customs. I guess they were being careful so no terrorists would get on board, which made the 2 hour wait worthwhile! They didn't allow any pictures taken of the process going through the line....

But finally we were on board! Here is the first picture I took on the ship:



Here we are waiting for the ship to shove off:




In the movies you always see a man in tuxedo smashing a bottle against the ship to make it move, but I don't think that happened this time....(of course it wasn't the maiden voyage of the Freedom of the Seas, either)

But soon enough we could feel the big ship moving!




Waving goodbye to the last sight of United States soil was unique and I must admit, felt a bit strange. We never dreamed we would one day be going away from the US onward toward foreign lands! It was about this time that we realized there was no turning back. We would soon be in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight!



Here was our first look around the deck. (We knew we weren't in Kansas [Kentucky] anymore!) There were crew members by the pool doing some comedy and music:



Now it was time to settle in and explore the amazing vessel we were to be a part of for the next week...

A Year Later Remembrance: Our To-The-Cruise Trip Last December

It's hard to believe, but last year at this time we were making our last minute preparations for our Caribbean cruise! Could a year already have passed? I never got a chance to blog about those experiences last year, so I am hoping to write some "A Year Later Reflections" as well as post many pictures of those adventures. (I may put up too many, as I have hundreds to choose from!)

We had an early Christmas at my Mom's house in Cincinnati on December 18th and 19th, during which time was a big 6 inch snow storm that knocked the power out for many in eastern Kentucky. Our home was without power at that time, but it didn't matter since we were not home! It was back on when got home to finalize our packing, but I remember thinking how horrible it would have been to be without electric while we were getting our last packing completed. Some in our area actually were without electric for that entire week!

Christmas day saw the Pure Water Hollow bunch leaving the cold and snow in the family van with visions of sun and palm trees dancing in our heads! We drove into Georgia and stayed Christmas night at a hotel. I wonder why we were the only ones there?

The children had fun playing in our hotel parking lot, which we had all to ourselves!



After driving another few hours, we stopped at a gas station and took some pictures of some of the first tropical plants we found:





The giant cow was pretty neat, too. They don't grow that big back home!



We drove on the rest of the way to our hotel at Cape Canaveral on the 26th. It was here at the Raddison that we got a foretaste of the luxury we were in store for on the ship. It was a beautiful hotel with many amenities. Here is what the pool looked like at the Raddison, with cousin Brett standing by it. You can't see the waterfall very good in the background, but it was so pretty:



It was neat that we could see the ocean from the hotel! We wondered if that was our ship off in the distance?

Here it is zoomed up. The anticipation was up to a fever pitch by this time!

I am glad that we chose to drive down there from Kentucky instead of fly, which was the first option we had considered. While driving down I-75 on the 25th and 26th we kept hearing reports on the radio of an attempted terrorist bombing of a passenger jet landing in Detroit. Other flights were grounded as the authorities tried to figure out for sure what was going on. This al-Qa'ida recruit actually had some sort of bomb in his underwear and almost blew the jet up, but he caught on fire instead of exploding! I'm not sure if our flight would have made it in time for the ship's departure on the 27th, had we flown!

It is also interesting how we can't really remember any of the negative feelings of being cooped up in the van for all those hours driving. We're not even sure now how many hours we drove each day! It was all erased by the incredible experiences that followed aboard the Freedom of the Seas!

With all of this winter weather we are having here, right now, I will enjoy going through our pictures and memories of the tropical Caribbean adventure we had which closed out 2009 and opened 2010 for us! (I will try to post more about them in the next several days.)

Erica's Christmas Cantata

We got about 3-4 inches of snow overnight and now freezing rain is coming down here at Pure Water Hollow. There have not been any issues with power outages, yet.

As I sit here, I can't help but think about Erica, who is finishing up her finals at Bible College. I'm not sure if she will be finished today or tomorrow, but it looks like we won't be able to even try to go get her until tomorrow, after this winter storm warning is over. I hope the roads will be clear enough for us to make it ok. We are looking forward to Erica being home!

Since we had to miss her choir singing last Sunday due to that snow storm, I thought I would copy the review that her college put out. It sure sounds like we missed a beautiful event!


**************************CHRISTMAS CANTATA*****************************

Students, staff, guests, and friends gathered in the new Helen Mathews Luce Chapel Sunday evening, December 12th, for the annual Christmas cantata. The Kentucky Mountain Bible College Christmas choir, conducted by music director Jay Wisler, presented “Night of the Father’s Love.” After opening the service with the congregational hymn of “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” the twenty-nine member choir performed several works by Pepper Choplin including “The Coming of the Lord,” “Angels are Making their Rounds,” “Fall on Your Knees,” and many others. The choir had a marvelous tone as their harmony filled chapel. Between songs the narrators shared the Christmas story. The choir’s finale was “Christ is Born, Nowell!” The Christian rejoices ‘now that all is well’ with the humble coming of Jesus the Messiah. The service concluded with a saxophone and piano duet, “The Birthday of a King” by Rev. Tom and Becky Lorimer respectively.

“Then the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.’” – Luke 2:10-11

Waiting For the Power Outages!

OK, here is another post about our up-coming weather. These weather entries may be boring for us when reading them in the future, but it is pretty fun right now with all the building anticipation! (It is probably boring to anyone but us right now, also. Oh well, this blog is mainly for us, anyway!)

We may or may not really get this next storm, but "they" seem to be pretty sure of it now.

This weatherman has our area in the 4"- 8" of snow range:




The National Weather Service has also upped our Winter Storm Warning a bit:

* LIGHT SNOW WILL DEVELOP DURING THE EVENING HOURS TONIGHT AND QUICKLY INTENSIFY AROUND MIDNIGHT. THE HEAVY SNOW WILL THEN MIX WITH AND CHANGE TO FREEZING RAIN AND SLEET FROM SOUTH TO NORTH FROM 4 AM THROUGH DAYBREAK. THE FREEZING RAIN AND SLEET WILL THEN MIX WITH AND CHANGE TO RAIN AFTER NOON ON THURSDAY.

* TOTAL SNOW AND SLEET ACCUMULATIONS OF 3 TO 6 INCHES ARE EXPECTED ALONG WITH A QUARTER INCH OF ICE FROM TONIGHT THROUGH THURSDAY AFTERNOON.

* TRAVEL WILL BECOME DANGEROUS TONIGHT INTO THURSDAY. THERE IS ALSO A SIGNIFICANT THREAT FOR POWER OUTAGES AS HEAVY ICE AND SNOW ACCUMULATE ON TREES AND POWER LINES.

You can see that they upped our snow and ice possibilities as well as using the word "significant" when describing the threat for power outages!

Around here, the power outage threat is what has a lot of folks scared because of that historic ice storm January 27 of 2009 when people were counting their time without power by the weeks instead of by the hours! Some people lost their lives because of it back then, and most were severely inconvenienced!

We were fine here at Pure Water Hollow, and we will be again tonight if the power fails. We actually enjoy those moments of adventure, and I'm confident that we would be OK even if we had to do without the grid for several weeks! The weather folks are already saying that no one should expect anything like that 09 ice storm again because that one was a once in a lifetime event!

Power outages make me think of oil lamps, and I noticed something at Wal-Mart today. Last year's oil lamp wicks are still on the shelf for $1.13 a pack. The new package of wicks for this year look similar but are only $0.97 cents a pack! There is a catch, though, if you don't pay close attention. Last year there are 3 wicks packaged together for the $1.13 price while the new packages only have 1 wick for the $0.97! They are tricky, aren't they? It made me feel like buying up all of the old wicks, even though we have plenty stocked up already and they last forever as little as we burn them. I haven't bought any yet, but I may still if they are there next time I am in. With this new ice storm threat, I imagine they sold out today!

Black Powder Season

This week has been muzzle loader deer season in our neck of the woods, and a cold, snowy week it has been! Saturday was nice weather, but no one here got the chance to go hunting then. Instead, Matthew decided to take the oppourtunity this morning.

It takes a real frontiersman to get up and go into the dark, snow-covered hills at 6:30am on a 8 degree morning! That temperature reading from our official Pure Water Hollow thermometer declares this morning to be the coldest one we've had yet! That same thermometer had actually dropped to 6 degrees by the time Matthew returned at 8:30am!

Matthew heard quite a bit of deer movement behind him and he saw a fox and several squirrels. After Matt decided to come back down he saw the deer sign behind him that he had heard earlier. If he had been about 100 feet behind where he had set up, he thinks he would have had one!

It's too bad he didn't get a big one, but I wanted to record Matt's first outing as a muzzle-loader hunter, anyway. Next time, I'm sure he will get one!

Meanwhile, a weather update:

The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Warning for our area from 9:00pm tonight until 4:00pm Thursday! Here is what they say:

* SNOW WILL DEVELOP DURING THE EVENING HOURS TONIGHT. THE SNOW WILL THEN MIX WITH AND CHANGE TO FREEZING RAIN AND SLEET FROM SOUTH TO NORTH LATE IN THE NIGHT OR EARLY THURSDAY MORNING BEFORE MIXING WITH AND CHANGING TO RAIN THURSDAY AFTERNOON.

* SNOW AND SLEET ACCUMULATIONS OF 2 TO 5 INCHES ARE EXPECTED ALONG WITH A QUARTER INCH OF ICE.

* TRAVEL WILL BECOME DIFFICULT TONIGHT INTO THURSDAY. THERE IS ALSO A THREAT FOR POWER OUTAGES AS HEAVY ICE AND SNOW ACCUMULATE ON TREES AND POWER LINES.

Well, I guess 'Tis the Season!

Snow: 12/12-12/14

The weather forecasters called that last winter storm fairly accurately!

It finally started snowing Sunday around 11:00am, which was actually later than the weathermen thought. The late start was good because we didn't have to cancel church for the 2nd weekend in a row. Once the snow got started, it didn't want to stop! (Which meant, sadly, that we had to miss Erica's Christmas concert.) By Monday afternoon Simon measured 5 1/2 inches in the dump truck bed, 5 inches on the cars and at least 4 inches everywhere on the ground! He even measured 3 inches in the road that had already been plowed! I tried to take some pictures while it was snowing pretty hard, but you can't tell what it really felt like from the pictures. These were taken from our front porch:





It snowed perhaps an inch more overnight and Tuesday morning! We also had the strong winds which created a lot of blowing snow and some drifting. It was an overall pretty good snow for December here!

The high for Monday was 22 degrees, but it was warm enough to play a bit in this winter wonderland, especially when the snow let up for a period Monday afternoon!

These first pictures are candid shots so no one is looking at the camera, but it gives a feel of what was going on:





Isn't Christina beautiful!



And we have some very handsome men in our family, as well:



They all had fun sledding, especially the boys. Isn't Timothy cute?:





Simon and Timothy cheered when Matthew came out! They all had a good time together before they got too cold. I like this picture of the three boys together on the sled:



Of course we also enjoyed some more snow cream with this new snow, but I didn't take pictures this time!

We are just now to the middle of December and we have already had more December snow here at Pure Water Hollow than any year before that I can remember! We do love snow here on my homestead, but too much of it may start to get old. I'm beginning to think that this winter may be a good time to re-read the Little House book, "The Long Winter". If I remember correctly, it will make our winter so far seem like summer! Anyway, it looks like December of 2010 will certainly break some records in eastern Kentucky for snow fall, especially considering the weather forecast that is out for tomorrow night and Thursday:


Could we really be in line for another 3-5 inches of snow again so quickly? My other favorite meteorologist is leaning toward more of an ice threat for our area, which could be worse! We will soon see!

The Fire Departmant Christmas Dinner

Saturday evening (before our latest snow hit) we had the pleasure to attend our volunteer fire department's Christmas dinner. They had "decked the halls" of our community center and created a very festive atmosphere, complete with candle light on the tables and a Christmas tree by the fireplace!

This picture of Simon admiring the decor didn't take real well due to the dim lighting, but I think you can get an idea of how nice it was in person:



Part of the evening involved the presenting of various awards. Matthew won the award for most drills attended for the second consecutive year! Here is a picture of the fire chief presenting Matthew with the plaque:



They have a meeting almost every week. Some of them involve lengthy training sessions with power point and video presentations and paper/pencil work while other trainings consist of more "hands on" experiences. Some of the meetings are more informal and consists of completing the regular maintenance on the trucks and equipment and just old fashioned visiting.

This year's plaque states that Matthew completed 37 out of 40 drills for the year! Last year's plaque had Matthew attending 44 out of 47 drills in 2009. That means Matt has only missed 6 meetings the past 2 years, which is some pretty impressive consistency! I am proud of him for being so reliable!

Here is picture I found of Matthew manning one of the fire hoses in a test over the summer:



Matthew has really been a great asset to the department since he began over 3 years ago! He is looking forward to helping in even greater ways after he turns 18; among other things he will be able to drive one of the fire trucks to the scenes! The other day he drove it to the gas station to fill up and I rode with him. He drove like a professional, which wasn't surprising. A few months ago he took a driving test in their big truck as part of a training and he scored a 94 out of 100, which was the same score the chief got!

It is good that our community has someone like Matthew and the rest of the volunteer fire fighters to look after them! The volunteer fire departments are truly some of the unsung heroes of America!

Happy Birthday Christina!

My baby girl is now 13! A teenager!

I took a few pictures of our simple birthday celebration for her. Here she is opening some gifts from Grandma:





She loves her "life size" sleeper! (That's what I kept calling it.) I didn't realize they made sleepers like that for grown ups! That was what she was wanting. She says it is very warm and comfortable! We all have had fun with the bop it toy, but I guess I didn't get a picture of her other gifts of the smells good bath and shower kit or the Bend-A-Roo craft. She loved them all!

I did get a picture or two of the birthday cake Lisa made for her. This year Christina requested a cake no one here had ever made or had before: a chocolate lava cake! It had chocolate pudding in the middle that erupted and flowed out when you cut into it! The blue is powdered sugar Lisa used with a stencil:





We did the traditional "lick the icing off the candles" ceremony. Timothy, once again, got to be an honored guest:





I've found a few pictures of Christina over the past year, (mostly from facebook) that I don't think have been posted before in this blog, so I thought I would share them now.

Here is the 13 year old at the fire department Christmas dinner with a friend. She loves babies!




Here she is with the family back in July: (minus Erica who was working at Camp)


We are all so blessed to have Christina in our family!

This past year, Christina has been a member of the "River Remnant Belle Homemakers" and has been helping with various activities at the community center.

Here are a couple shots from one of the homemaker meetings at the community center: two beautiful women in my life!






Here she is working at the communtiy center:




She helped run the fire dept table at the River Community Celebration:






Christina is a lovely southern belle at times, but she is also an old fashioned country gal!

Here she is wading our river on a hot summer day:


Back in August Christina won a blue ribbon with her favorite hen, Bobbie:


Here she is helping to skin a deer:




It will be exciting to see the adventures Christina will have in the year to come! I know God has many blessing He will be pouring out!

Her future is so bright, she has to wear shades!