New Holiday Traditions

        HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!


As I get older, I am more and more anxious about maintaining the holiday traditions that were held so strong during my childhood years.  But sometimes things slip through the cracks.  Its tough preparing for these blow-out parties and other festivities.  How did our parents do it?  Then, to add to the stress, it becomes an even bigger challenge blending the traditions of your past with the family traditions of your significant other (luckily, it's become apparent that John and I had similar upbringings).

While venting to my mother yet again about "how tough it is being in your mid-twenties," she smiled and told me that this is the time in my life that I will create new traditions.  There is no need to hold on to the past.  Those traditions are only a part of my wonderful memories and it's the future traditions that should be the most exciting ones.

These words of wisdom carry over to so much more in life than just the holidays but we'll save that for another post.

Sooooooo, this weekend, serendipity revealed a new Halloween tradition for our crew.  Let me preface the story with a similar tale of our Halloween last year.

We were living in Eleuthera and John was diving at an offshore aquaculture cage daily for his job.  On this particular day, I hopped along for the dive.  Reef sharks were frequent visitors but something bigger lurked in the depths below.  As we descended to the rim of the cage, we saw three massive bull sharks.  EEEK!  Talk about a spooky surprise.  Oddly enough, I felt no fear.  I was intimidated, don't get me wrong, but there was something peaceful about these giants.  Evidently, they come every year and the CEI divers have never had any problems (knock on wood).

A shot of John's dive buddy

Well this year, Mother Nature brought us another one of her most powerful creatures.  John and I are enjoying a bottle of wine on the dock when all of a sudden the puppies go berzerk.  We glance down into the water at our feet when the looming shadow comes into focus.  An 8-foot Saltwater Croc looks up at our puppies with hunger in his eyes.  A growl and a quick thrash of his tail told us that this croc was not messing around.  We quickly brought the dogs upstairs and watched from a safe distance as he made himself comfortable under our dock (that is of course after we got some great shots!)  Check him out...

The creepy part is that we swim in that canal like EVERYDAY.  I don't think we'll be going in anytime soon.

So our past couple of Halloweens weren't filled with parties, candy, drinking, and dancing but it we sure did get a good dose of fright!

Have a safe and exciting halloween.

Love, 

John-Kristen-Reef-Caya