A bit of this and that

Hello

How time flies and things happends…..Christmas been and gone and soon a new year, scary as we have been here forever and a day! Or so it feels.
Chris came back from States and not done the final test. So we are still in limbo land. But we got busy to sort Christmas out. Santa marta put up a lot of lights and all looking good. Christmas Eve the marina gave everybody in the marina a free dinner and of course we stayed there until the end…one sleeping on the boat, one in pushchair and one in my lap. Christmas Day was all fun and noisy and lot of presents and that’s where the problem is….where do we put it all? The boat is not a boat anymore but a home, everything is out and we could never go anywhere as it is now. Oh well, we don’t even know what we are doing.
Later on in the day we went to Stewarts for the dinner. Chris brought back Brussels sprouts from States ( yak! ) as you can’t get them here very often, turkey stuffed and port. The usual crowd from marina was there with few of Stewarts friend and it was fun. Boys on iPad and girls playing with bikes. The evening went from sitting down and listening to music to everybody dancing…we left 2 am. Alice in pushchair and both boys awake.
Must admit that next day I felt tired! Got to the beach with James new metal detector and found not treasure yet but few screws and nails. Good fun though.

So Boxing Day later on we went back to Stewarts as this time his girlfriends side of the family came as well. Met most of them before and trying the spanish bit for awhile to see them prepare the Buffet food and drinks flowing. The evening again went from chit chat to dancing and fighting who get to choose the music. It went from Latin to abba to sand dance and country, absolutely hilarious! Went home at 3 am with one in push chair, one in arms and one awake. Needless to say that next day we were on our knees with tiredness. Just about recovered now :)))

The kids play school finished few weeks before Christmas and sad to say that it might not open again due to money. So will see end of January. Here in Colombia this season is the biggest holiday season, running almost whole December and schools back end of January. Now, our plans…yes we swing wildly from day to day. Chris got to go back in January to finish off the exam and when he comes back we might move on….if we do it will be straight to San Blas islands outside Panama. There Chris can then study for the commercial bit and in Panama the boat can be hauled out. We will see…..I feel it’s time to move on and so does Chris. You suddenly just come to a conclusion and a feeling that we have done Colombia, that this is not the place we want to stay as we have been here so long….but of course that could all change if a job comes a long but even then….time to go. Santa Marta has been good to us and we will leave some great friends behind but so life goes….

We want certainly still do few bits like the amazon and Peru but luckily we can still fly from Panama or go from Ecuador when we eventually get there.
The Spanish is getting easier as in understanding and picking up lots of new words but they still talk to fast and with a twang.
Before Christmas we took the kids to the cold room. Oh yes. Here you PAY to feel cold and snow. Bloody mad. You know what I think of that! You go, I’m NOT! So they pay to stand in snow and cold, in croc shoes and shorts and a borrowed coat…..Charlie lasted 1 min. The other two 3 min. to then go back in. Chris in flip flops….funny. I show locals pictures from fb pages from Finland and they just can’t get the idea that there is such places and I’m from there. We still get stopped a lot from people who wants pictures of the kids as they are blond and they still get called monos= monkeys….

So there are few thoughts….now we are looking forward to the new year and Charlie’s birthday in January!