Happy Holidays!!

Thanksgiving

We accidentally discovered a great way to save on holiday travel. Just mix up the dates. Our Thanksgiving in Dallas ended up a week early, but it worked out great! Since I'm the GRANDMA now I was thrilled to have a few days with Isaiah, and the rest of the family as well, of course.

This was the first meeting for Isaiah with my folks, his great grandparents!

He's quite the happy boy.

The Waterfowl Festival

Arriving at our favorite bed and breakfast, The Ruffled Duck Inn (www.ruffledduckinn), in Oxford, MD was like a wonderful homecoming. We shared hugs with Joyce and Dennis and caught up on the year’s events. There are 3 bedrooms upstairs, each with their own theme. In the past we had stayed in the “West Indies” room complete with monkeys and wonderful drapes from the canopy of the four poster bed, but we were planning to be there a full week, so we chose to stay in the “Cape Cod” room. Wes and Rachelle Seigrist (www,artofwildlife.com) stay in the Savannah room during the Waterfowl Festival.

From here we took some time to explore a little of Delaware. After a short hike we drove to a spot between 2 ponds that were covered with snow geese. We munched sandwiches while listening to honking geese and watching them fly overhead.

The Waterfowl Festival was wonderful. We enjoyed seeing our friends and collectors and in spite of the difficult economy and iffy weather many came out to enjoy the events and see what’s new. New in the booth this year was

“A Mighty Roar”,

“Itchy Colt”

and a new mini dog, “Bumble”.

Our favorite photographer, Brenda, came by and took her annual pictures of us in the booth. Thanks Brenda!!

(photos of Karryl in the booth and Karryl and Vic taken by Brenda Ashworth)

Chincoteague

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This November Vic took his first real vacation in what seems like forever. We chose to spend some time in Chincoteague. The appeal was the hiking trails, a great place to see the ocean and of course WILDLIFE.

The ponies stayed their distance this trip. The birds however put on a spectacular show. We spent a lot of time taking photos of great blue heron fishing. Vic spent lots of time taking pictures of me taking pictures of everything else.

I caught an egret seeming to walk on water.

Vic was thrilled to see the Sika deer and the endangered Delmarva Fox Squirrel.

We watched shore birds and enjoyed the ocean view.

There’s a wonderful loop that is only open to vehicles after 3 pm. This makes it a wonderful place to walk. We followed the road around and were treated to hundreds of snow geese. It gave us goose bumps watching the arrival of new geese and the larger flock on the ground would rise.

Continuing around the loop, we came upon a snapping turtle! He demonstrated his wonderful jaw chomping ability when

another hiker moved him off the road so when the road opened to vehicles he wouldn’t get into trouble.

After a few days there, we decided to explore the more north entrance to Assateague.

There we walked trails by dunes and I climbed a tree. Well, it was there. Ponies were closer there. In fact they tried to hitch a ride.

From there we checked in at our favorite bed and breakfast in Oxford (the Ruffled Duck, more on that later!) as a base for a day explore before setting up for the Waterfowl Festival in Easton.