Warming Up in Marathon; Looking forward to Doreen's Visit Tomorrow!

The temperature is slowly warming up in Boot Key Harbor. It was in the low 70s today. I walked to Publix and did a major food shopping. Then I called Dave's Island Taxi, who brought be back to the city marina, where Chuck met us with the dinghy. It was loaded down, let me tell you. I didn't think I was going to fit! Plus, we bought 20 lbs. of ice at the dockmaster's office for the stuff that I knew wasn't going to fit in the refrigerator.

Chuck decorated the boat with blue icicle lights along the railings and LED multi-colored globe lights on the boom and mast. We ran the generator for two hours to light them up. The boat looks pretty.

We heard the kids were concerned that we wouldn't have a Christmas tree. Rest assured, boys, that we have a little Norfolk Pine for a Christmas tree on our table (see photo). It has a silver snowflake and gold bells on it.

We're looking forward to Chuck's sister Doreen's visit tomorrow. She's driving over to spend the day and, hopefully, the night. It's a 3.5 hour drive for her from Naples. We're planning on taking her to dinner.

On Christmas Day, there's a cruiser's dinner from 1-4 p.m., hosted by the dockmaster and his wife. They are serving turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Everyone is taking a covered dish. I'm making three dozen deviled eggs. Patti is making carrot and raisin salad.
It should be a nice time. There's also a dinner at Dockside, but I don't think we're going to that.

Billy got at least one package for us, so we'll try to catch up to him tomorrow.

It was my turn to cook dinner. I tried a new recipe from the one-pan galley meals cookbook for Walnut Chicken over whole grain rice. It was pretty tasty. I cut up three large granny smith apples and added raisins, brown sugar, cinnamon, walnuts and a little butter and baked it in the toaster oven. Topped it with a little ff cool whip. It was delicious!