The week between New Years and Christmas was spectacular weather-wise. It was hard to get motivated to do anything, so we just puttered slowly and steadily.
New Year’s was very fun – Alex and Amanda took us out to a late lunch at Boston’s at the Beach in downtown Delray Beach. We sat on the second floor balcony overlooking A1A and the gorgeous beach, feeling very elegant. The food was a feast – we shared appetizers, we each had an exotic drink (Chelsea had an espresso martini, and I had a blackberry mojito martini), and we each had a main course.
The food was really, really good and the view was unbeatable. Alex and Amanda work a lot, so we see very little of them; this was a rare chance to just hang out peacefully.
After lunch we went for a walk on the beach and lucked out – there’d been a sandcastle contest that day and many of the entries were still looking good. Check out the photo gallery for pictures of the turtles, the seals, the lion, and the alligator. We did have to watch our step – the recent weather has been bringing in the deadly Portuguese men-of-war – the stinging jellyfish, and they were littered all along the beach.
Amanda and Alex came home with us and stayed till early evening. We laughed and talked and shared a celebratory bottle of champagne to bring in the New Year. They left well before midnight, so Chelsea and I enjoyed the quiet time watching a great movie until midnight.
At midnight our neighborhood went nuts. We have over five hundred homes in our community – it’s an odd bit of suburbia in the midst of an urban area. Fireworks exploded from everywhere – we stood in our front yard watching the big displays at midnight, and at 12:30 we were in our back yard watching yet more displays. We haven’t seen that good a display in years and years, and here we were just standing in our front and back yards!
We had a wonderful 2009, and we are expecting an even better 2010. Our last week of the year certainly gave us a good head start…