Christmas with Doano and Scott 2012

One of the reasons we are spending the winter in Florida is because Bill's mom, Doano, lives in the Clearwater area, just under 3 hours from Cedar Key. Bill's brother, Scott, lives in Richmond, Virginia, and usually comes down to Florida to spend Christmas with his mom and this year we were going to be in Florida early enough to join them. It was perfect timing as we had about 10 days to get settled into our site and greet our friends - especially perfect because we had someone around to check on Bebe while we were gone.

We had an easy drive into Tampa and stopped for lunch on our way. Scott had made a reservation for us at their "usual" Christmas spot but we had no idea where that was or what kind of plant-based options we would have, so we brought a lot of stuff from "home" and stopped to pick up more to get us through a couple of days - and what a good idea that turned out to be!

We started out Christmas day with a lovely walk across the bridge, which is just a few steps from Doano's house, over the intercoastal waterway to Belleair Beach and after opening a few fun gifts we settled in for a lazy day of reading, napping, noshing, and tv watching.

For some unknown reason Scott and Doano had cancelled the restaurant reservation and ordered a holiday turkey dinner from Publix. They had eaten one of these meals before and thought it was great. Bill and Scott headed over to the market around 6 to pick up our (as advertised) "ready to eat' meal only to find the dinner for 4-6 people was not available and only the 8-10 person meal was available and that meal was FROZEN!! Hmmm....not so good, but we didn't care because there really wasn't anything we would eat anyway and as luck would have it we had brought a delicious navy bean soup, that Bill had made the night before, down with us and a bunch of greens and vegetables for a lovely salad. So a very healthy Christmas meal was had by all and I don't think any of us were one bit upset about the "upset"!!

I had done a little vegan-friendly Christmas day restaurant scouting and had found a Thai restaurant, with good reviews, that was open. We over ordered, as we usually do, to provide for some yummy leftovers and we all had a great time!

Yummy Thai food!

Scott left early the next morning and after doing a few loads of laundry we set out for Costco and Whole Foods and while I was there Bill went to MacDill AFB to exchange some shoes at the BX and (unfortunately) get his hair cut! When he came back to get me I barely recognized him - but he got quite a few comments from friends about how "dapper" he looked, so I guess it wasn't all bad! We stocked up on all the little necessities you can't find on a little island of 700 people, did a little shopping for some friends there too and off we went back to our little nest which was quickly filling up with many NuRVers.