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Santa Clause Came to Blakely!!

Santa Was Here!!

We had an amazing weekend!! I just had to write & tell you all about it!! On Saturday we took Wind-Borne out & set sail (er..motor) for Friday Harbor. It was a drizzly gray afternoon & there was no wind, so we had a nice, uneventful, & freezing motor over without our dodger, so Ben at the helm was totally out in the elements. I got a seriously wind burnt face from the cold & Ben's hands were frozen solid when we reached Friday Harbor, but by the time we arrived it was sunny & beautiful!!! We warmed up quickly & set off into town with John & Laurie who motored across in their boat the Laurie Ann with us. (They have a pilot house that made us seriously jealous & arrived warm & comfy) We all bought Christmas lights in town and decorated our boats with them. Ben pulled lights up our mast, and I put them all around the lifelines, so Wind-Borne looks awesome at night!! We have green lights & Laurie Ann has red ones. We look pretty cool moored next to each other in Blakely Marina.

After an awesome night out on the town we set sail..or motor... again Sunday morning and got back to Blakely in plenty of time for a quick nap for Ben & Henry & a shower for me, then we got down to the marina for Santa's boat!!!!

Santa sailed in on a HUGE whale watching boat blaring "Santa Clause is coming to Town" with Santa & Mrs. Clause out on the bow waving & yelling HO HO HO MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Henry was the only child on island at this point, so he got all Santa's attention!! We stood with Santa & Mrs. Clause on the dock while all the 30 or so other member's of Santa's team got off the boat. There were elves, Pirates, clowns, and old fashioned carolers!!! Each one said hello to Henry and a pirate gave him his balloon sword! The carolers sang and the clowns started making balloon animals, swords, and other things.

Blakely Island made food potluck style for Santa's ship, so after they were all done eating Santa sat down & everyone including all the adults & the two other children that showed up sat on Santa's lap and got presents!! Santa & Mrs. Clause were so patient and sweet. They saw Henry several times and even got him to laugh more than once. They weren't the usual mall Santa crowd. They really cared about making the kids & everyone for that matter feel special. Clowns were making things & Pirates were sword fighting the kids with Balloon swords. An elf was handing out beautiful hand knit hats, and Henry got a super adorable hand carved wooden horse toy with wheels. A super nice man gave Henry a stuffed Parrot!! He Loves it!! He loves all his new toys actually!!

We were so impressed with the generosity and kindness of everyone on board the Santa boat! The toys and gifts Henry received were so special, because the majority of them were handmade! Someone spent a lot of time and effort making these toys for children they don't know just to see them smile. It's really sweet. We plan on making this a Christmas tradition every year!! The Lions club of Bellingham put this whole thing together & I hope they know how much we all really appreciate it!! Henry got up this morning and insisted we all put our Santa hats on & go see the Santa Boat!! It was really hard to explain to him that Santa only comes once a year & we couldn't see Santa again today. He got pretty upset. He really wants Santa Boat to come back!!

I hung the singing puppy stocking Henry got by the fire and tucked all his new gifts inside to re-open on Christmas. There is a generous amount of taffy & snacks in the bottom with a stuffed dog, parrot, wooden horse, new knit hat, and fun beaded necklaces on top!!

Thank you again to the wonderful people over at the Lions club who brought Santa and his friends over to our little island!!

Happy Holidays From Team Davidson!!!

Happy Holidays Everyone!!

Where to start?!It has been so long, I don’t know who is caught up on what, so here is a quick(ish) update and some fun pictures to show what’s been going on in the Davidson household recently.
Henry is awesome!! He is getting bigger & bigger! He is 2’ 11” and 34LBS! He is turning 2 on December 20th!! Can you believe it? 2!!! He is a smart little man & is seemingly fearless & never sitting still. He still crawls in his sleep…. He seriously never sits still. He just seems to have too much to accomplish, which as you can probably guess means he still doesn’t sleep! He has only slept through the night a handful of times & it takes hours to get him to bed. He just wants to play & explore all the time. Can you really blame him though? J
He is learning new words every day & is starting to make “sentences” For example if he wants to go next door at Blakely & see grandma he will say “ Henry Grandma up doggie” , because Grandma lives upstairs with her dog… It’s very cute! I understand at least 90 percent of what he says, but it takes a little decoding sometimes, so I translate for him a lot for other people. He is potty training very well and learning quickly. I’d say he makes it 50 percent of the time.
We are living between two houses at the moment. We are on Blakely Island at Doug & Janet’s cabin while Ben finishes building his parent’s house next door. We also have a house rented in Ellensburg where we have all our stuff and Ben has work in the area. We drive back & forth quite a bit, which can be wearing, but we like both places. Oh, and we hope to have the parent’s house done before Christmas…but we will see. It’s so close, but there are so many little loose ends to tie up.
Our latest big news is that we finally have Wind-Borne here at Blakely in the marina!!! We had her shipped from North Carolina to Anacortes nearly a month ago now, but just got her here to the island about a week ago. We are taking our first overnight North West cruise in her this coming Saturday & are really excited!!We are taking Henry to see the lighted boat parade at Friday Harbor. John & Laurie will be joining us on their boat the Laurie Ann! Henry likes being on board, although he did object when I told him that the aft cabin is his new room. I think he thought it was going to take the place of his current room, which he loves.
We are also thrilled to announce that Santa is coming to Blakely Island this Sunday!! Henry is the only child on the island, so he will have Santa all to himself, although he doesn’t quite know what that means. He is excited to see Santa & knows who he is, but has no idea what he actually does. Santa will arrive at the dock on a big boat mid day with a ship full of elves & presents! He gets to sit on Santa’s lap & get gifts & take pictures! How awesome is that?
As for Ben & myself, there is nothing much new to tell. We are both well & happy…although we both wish we could have more sleep in our lives! That’s our Christmas wish, sleep!
I finally convinced Ben to take me to the Nutcracker in Seattle on the 17th!! It only took 6 years to convince him to do it. I absolutely love the nutcracker & PNB does a really fantastic one! My mom will be watching the little man while we are out since it’s not really a baby appropriate event, so we actually have an evening out to ourselves! Yay! We rarely go out without Henry, but I don’t think he will mind since he will be having plenty of fun wearing grandma out. If I’m super lucky Ben will take us out before hand to our favorite restaurant the Metropolitan Grill. Best steaks ever!! I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
Hope that answers some of your questions!
!!!Happy Holidays Everyone!!!

Howdy

Howdy family and friends!
Sorry it's been so ridiculously long since I've added pictures or written! We have had a bit of a camera problem again for the past few months...yes.... more camera problems!!! What is it with us & short camera lives? We currently have nothing to take Henry's picture with except our phones at the moment. It fills me with guilt that I'm not getting all the great summer shots I should be getting of Henry. We have some great shots of him in the Blakely 4th of July parade though that other people took & will be adding them shortly. Thanks so much for hanging in there. I'll update you more soon & tell you what we've been up to. I have to go now, because the little man just woke up early from his nap & I have to see if I can coax him back down before it's too late.

pics at home

Henry loves his cowboy boots

Having his bottle in the shoe box

Very happy little man snuggled in with bottle & a cracker.

Driving grandpa's boat

Playing fetch with Jones

Sea lions

hanging out in his Tonka truck

Oh, how he loves the bellows!

He likes to imitate it blowing air.

Poor Jones. Henry insisted on being on or touching him at all times while he was at our house.

It made Henry so happy to pet Jones while he had his bottle.

Henry looks so smart in his 3D glasses

Yes, that is snow in the background

Uncle Doug got a new toilet, so Henry decided to test it out.

Must have rainboots on while eating meals.

So cute! Henry loves his blanket.

Here are some pictures of the last month or so up here on the island. Nothing much new. Henry is growing up so fast. He runs now & loves to go outside when the weather permits. It's been pretty nice up here recently. We have been to the mainland a few times recently & have had  a lot of fun. Hope to see more of you soon. We welcome visitors anytime. Maybe when it gets warmer we can convince some of you to stay with us a few days.

Just so you know, the dog in the pictures is Jones. He belongs to our good friends Kevin & Katina & we had the pleasure of keeping him for about 10 days while they were out of town. Henry misses him so much & his first word in the morning  is still doggen (dog)

Goodbye Australia! We miss you!!

The video above is us saying goodbye to our home in Australia. The drive down our driveway is worth watching. I think it takes between 3 & 4 minutes to get down it.

Goodbye house!

Goodbye Mr. Skink.

Ben's shirts all looked like this by the time we left. we don't really know how to explain it...it just happened.

Goodbye to our awesome friends!!

 These are Henry's best Aussie mates..from left: Georgie, Henry, Jack, & Chloe.he had such a good time with them!

I love the assortment of coats & hats here. it just says Australia to me! notice no one in the pic is wearing clothes...so humid!

how much can you fit into the trunk of a car?

Here's a close up.Thank you to Holden for making such an enormous boot (trunk) We had to organize it well, so we could find everything we needed for camping and traveling. This is everything we brought to Australia plus what we acquired while there....we probably could have left the dive gear at home.

Yes, even the tent fit in there!...and all the bedding in it.

We owe a HUGE thank you to Aunt Cy’s friend Janice for restoring our Australia pictures to our camera! As you read in an earlier post, we accidentally deleted a huge portion of our trip pictures while on a hike. I don’t know how she did it, but we are extremely grateful & could not be happier!!

As a result we are now going to post a huge number of pictures & since they were all taken at different times, and have different stories behind them I will place them in separate blog posts to make it easier to follow what’s happening in them.

We really hope you enjoy looking at them & we will be posting again soon to keep you updated on what we have been up to since arriving in the states & to fill you in on what the little man is doing these days. We’ve had a busy two months!!!



Don’t forget to read the next few posts after this one!! There are 4 total!!!



Love, Kristen, Ben, & Henry Ranger!



Thank you again Janice!!!!

FUN & THE AUSTRALIA ZOO!!!

Handsome Henry at the playground

I've never seen a better looking PIRATE!

Riding a manta ray

Checking out the surf with dad!

Ben is at HOME!

I love this surf sign

Always looking at the surf...this is where the dolphin nudged me, just out to the left of the rocks.

Bush turkey!

If you look above the hat you can see a HUGE walking stick. This was at our campground in Byron Bay.

Croc show!

The Irwin Family

I absolutely LOVE this one!!!

Henry & I feeding the Kangaroos!!I had SOOOO much fun!!!

I wish my eyes weren't shut, but this is the only pic we have of me with the Koalas. This was actually the last picture we were able to take at the zoo, because the battery died on the camera. Oops. you could walk right up to any Koala in the zoo & pet it if it was low enough. She was having a nap!

On the road & a look at the flooding

Here are some funny signs & things we encountered on our travels through Australia. It's funny what you find on signs there that I'm not sure you could get away with here... We found the one above while waiting in flood traffic.

A horse in a ute to advertise a transportation company...

DON'T BE A TOSSER!

Look closely at the bottom of the van...how do you get a license for that?

Henry finds fun new ways to occupy himself during road trips, such as emptying the diaper bag & tossing diapers all over the back seat & himself.

I don't knwo how he sleeps like this. He fell asleep protesting as usual & just passed out mid arm raising..

So cute in daddy's hat!

Awesome view from the road. We encountered lots of amazing scenery on our drive.

This was a little bit of the flooding as we were just starting our trip. This was one of the worst hit areas & just a few hours after we got through this whole town was under water. Yikes!!!

This was the road we took near the town of Risk. We arrived just a day after the whole thing was under water.

You can see where debris was washed up over the bridge.

Lovely weather for sight seeing! If you enlarge this one you can see Henry holding his hood up to block the wind.



Hope you are enjoying the pictures, It's been a long time coming, so there are a lot to go through. More to come in a few minutes on the next entry.