Here is a picture of the boys inside the boat at Christmas time opening presents.

Here is a picture of the marina at night. WOW! You can't see our boat in this picture though. I had walked up to the shore (on the dock) and took this picture.

Earplugs please!

I love this RV park, but the country music has GOT to stop. Now, don't get me wrong, I like country music. Not ALL country music, but definitely NOT this slow, twangy, straight from the depths of hell country music. I don't care if someone loves you and you don't know or somebody is singing a somebody done somebody wrong song. Heck, I don't even care if somebody is sangin' a somebody is about to get run over with my RV song... JUST MAKE IT QUIT!

Okay, now I am going to walk up to someplace with no music. Hmmm, I'll try to find the camera and post pictures tonight... of the RV, not the annoying music blaring, whiskey drinking, perpetually depressed guy across the road.

Sing with me!

Row Row Row the dinghy
Row it to the shore!
No you can not beat the kids
For what you've done before!

Well, this morning the boys had to go potty. Miles ran up the dock to the marina bathrooms and came back, then Lil Mendel went up the dock.

Sidenote: Now the dock we are tied to is at a military base so we have a gate that locks. If you don't have a key, you can't get in or out of the dock. It's security issues y'know.

SO, Mendel runs off to the bathroom with my ONLY set of keys that were with us. I made coffee, checked emails, got dressed... then it dawned on me, where is he? So I peep out and see him standing at the gate staring down to the boat. I already knew. I walked up the dock and he sniffled "I locked the keys in the bathroom." So Miles and I went to blow up the dinghy so we could row to the second dock and get some attention. The pump broke and Miles started blowing it up by mouth. I wasn't waiting all day! So I walked back to the boat and got my ID and drivers license, a pad of paper and a pencil.

On one side I wrote:

My son has locked the keys in the bathroom. I would sign out a key but, I am locked on the other side of the gate. Could you please give him a key to get the keys out of the bathroom with. I promise to bring it back and you can keep my license as collatoral. Thanks...

Then I left our slip # and my cell phone #.

On the back I wrote:

Base Police,

Please read the front. Then take him to the Sailing Center. Thank you.

He came back with the keys (both sets) and we all walked back to the Sailing Center. Turns out this isn't the first time. Many people do this, even the dock cleaning crew. LMAO. At least we aren't the only one's. But I had the cell phone with me when I did it. I just called him and asked him to come to the bathrooms and let me in :)

Ah, the life of a wharf rat!

I hate spring cleaning

With spring just around the corner, this is the time of year that I do spring cleaning. In the house, I would start and work my way through in an unorganized way. Clean my room, get everything out that doesn't belong and hid it somewhere else if I just COULDN'T bare to part with it. Then I worked my way through the house shoving everything back into the bedroom little by little until the rest of the house was spotless and the master bedroom was impassable. It worked. I never moved since 1999 so I never really had a reason to get rid of stuff before we moved to California.

But now that we are here, we learned our lesson and we are weeding out our stuff. Living between the yacht and the RV, I realized that I need less stuff. We learned our lesson! We only have enough stuff to fill the boat and RV now... and 2 storage units... and the back of the van... and half my mother in law's garage. But we're getting it!

Well, today I started Spring Cleaning today! This weekend is the yacht and this week will be the RV. Next weekend I'll finish the Yacht... I think the name will be Precious. I hated spring cleaning before, but I REALLY hate it now!

The boat moves! So let me draw a picture for you. Imagine you are sleeping on a bed that is shaped like a V and under underneath the bed are doors that open into empty space. In that empty space is where you store all your stuff. These are called lockers. Now imagine me opening the lockers to clean them out. No, don't imagine the nervous breakdown. Let's pretend everything goes smoothly... I get to the bottom of the locker. This is the point where I have practically have to crawl in headfirst to reach the last of the stuff that has fallen out of whatever container it was in. Of course, this is the point where a large ships comes by and the yacht shifts quickly and violently side to side. Now imagine the echo's I hear when I start screaming and cussing b/c I've managed to hit my head not once... not twice... but THREE times. Once when the boat went sideways and I lost balance and slipped into the locker (or at least my top half), once when I jumped back to right myself and one more time when I took my head out and forgot how low the overhead really is at that end of the Veeberth. I now have 3 good cases of "boat bite" and a legit reason to not like spring cleaning!

I can honestly say I hate it! The RV should go easier. I am getting better at throwing stuff away though. And I don't have too many more places left that I can shove stuff into and ignore it all b/c I REALLY NEED all the space I have now.

I'll update you all later if I manage not to knock myself into a coma whilst cleaning the wet locker.

Dotchi (the achy)