Pictures-- July WV trip

Grandma, John and Aunt Becky


Kris, Janet, Me, Becky


Grandma and Grandson



John, John and Becky


Grandson John Daughter-in-law Kris


Sister Becky and husband John
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Brother Roger
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Catch up time

Here goes with the catch up. I will not make this long and drawn out.
I left off with my first trip to OH/WV. My sister Becky and her husband John came from Texas to my brothers house in Wheeling while I was there. We had some real quality time as a family. We saw a big difference in our 96 year young Mother just having us around. She really perked up and seemed happy to have us.
Daughter-in-law Kris and Grandson John also came to Wheeling. John is bigger than me-- taller not bigger.
For all my trips I have to say how very lucky I am to have such a VERY special daughter to cart me around, loan me her car, give me a place to stay in Columbus and on top of all that arranged a massage with her excellent masseuse.
I spent a week in Columbus before I went back to Brunswick and got to catch up with friends there --Great time!
I was gone 3 weeks. Paul did miss me because he had a dozen yellow roses waiting for me maybe I need to go away more often -- I tried it again in Sept -- no roses. I was only gone a week-- maybe that was not long enough.
My trip back to OH/WV in Sept was to attend my High school all class reunion. Don't know where all those old people came from. Good time. Saw people I have not seen since High School.
Paul & I made a trip to North Carolina. Good friends gave us the loan of their Mercedes --we go in style. We had a wonderful visit with Paul,s Mom and sister Carolyn. We went to Durham to see nephew Brad and wife D.D. and their beautiful new baby girl Brynn. I have never seen so much hair on a baby.
So what did Paul do while I was gone. Besides partying, he replaced ALL of our batteries --guess I should have gone to work while I was in OH. He did a bunch of "stuff" in the engine room. He also found time to put 2500 miles on the new scooter. Speaking of which, I was REALLY nervous putting it on the boat for the first time. All went well but I am a lot more nervous with this one than the other one. It weighs a lot more. I was so afraid it would not fit but Paul kept assuring me it would and it does. It only seems to take up a little more room than the other one. We will be able to take a lot longer trips in the Bahamas and a lot more comfortably.
I have hated the carpeting we had put in 2 years ago ever since we got it so we finally had it replaced and I love the new carpeting.
I watched the buy one get one free ads from the grocery stores in Brunswick and had about 3/4 of my provisioning done by Oct 1. I spent the last 2 weeks finishing up. Shopping is not the hard part --finding a place to put 8 months provisioning is. We did buy another freezer. I bought 25 pounds of shrimp from the shrimp boat when it came in --Big shrimp $4/pound.
We were gearing for an Oct 15 departure from Brunswick. We left on Oct 18 --not bad.
When we filled up the fuel tank it took 322 gallons. We had not filled up since last Oct when we took 311 gallons for the year. Not to bad.
Karen & David Trauger on their Great Harbour Premium Time (Insurance agent) are traveling with us to The Bahamas. Karen is a neat person and we are and will have a lot of fun together. Bad thing -- she is an excellent cook and like to feed us.
I will post this then go to Pictures.

Wednesday Oct 20

I promise I will work on my blog tomorrow --no farm~!

Wednesday July 14

Laundry's done, clean sheets on the bed, some meals planned, fridge full of beer printed off boarding passes. Now just to finish packing.
50% chance of rain tomorrow morning. Several people have offered to take me to the airport but Paul still insist we are going on the scooter-- we will see.
Janet is taking me to dinner at a real nice place in Col tomorrow evening --she said dress nice --does that sound like a daughter?
We are having dinner with friends Fri evening.
Sat -- off to WV. I am driving one car and Janet is driving another because she is giving me a car for the week to use in WV.
Becky(sister) & John are already at Roger's (brother). Kris ( daughter-in-law) and John (ONLY Grandson) are coming on Sat. Uncle Bob & cousin Gloria also coming Sat.
I will stop on the way in to see Mom(age96).
Have 3 lunches scheduled.
Should be a fun 2 1/2 weeks.

Sunday July 11

I suppose you guessed by now that darn farm has taken over my life again. I need to go to the Betty Ford Clinic for Farmville addiction.
I am going to Ohio/West Virginia on Thursday for 2 weeks and I am not taking my computer so I will see what it is like to go cold turkey. I guess it is a good thing I never did smoke or drink because I sure am prone for addiction.
Anyhow enough whining --somebody is going to start offering me cheese with my whine.
We got to Brunswick 2 weeks ago.Can't say I am glad to be here by it will do. This is a nice marina, very clean, free washers & dryers - the extra large size so I can get all my comforters washed, the monthly rate is reasonable and now that we have transportation - I'll get to that- almost everything shopping wise is easily accessable.
Our friends Fred & Judy from Amarse are -- no were here. They left last week to help a friend move his boat from Ft Myers FL to Texas --past all that mess in the Gulf and being very watchful of possible hurricanes.
When we got here Judy helped me get all caught up on my shopping. We did the grocery stores. That is always "an experience" after limited shopping for 8 months. Paul & I went to the grocery the other day and found they were out of the small bottles of milk I like to get -- we laughed and said the boat must not have come in. That is the way it is in the Bahamas. You don't even bother to go shopping the day or so before the boat comes in.
Belk had a big sale --seems like we just timed it right for that sale last year. Judy & I had a fun afternnon resupplying our wardrobes. I was not going to buy the next size clothes - I was going to loose weight BUT when they were on sale at a very good price it was too hard to resist.
We went to lunch at the Chinese restraunt at the mall. A great girls day out.
Another day we went to Michaels and then my favorite Five Guys Burgers & Fries.
Paul & I had decided to look for a good used car to have for the summer. We were both disappointed when we just missed the perfect car so Paul started looking at scooters.
Ours died this spring and this time he could not reserect it.
We rented a car and went to Jacksonville to look at some he found online. He decided he did not want another elcheapo that he had to work on every other day and found almost impossible to get parts for. We were going to have to buy a new one anyhow.
We bought a 499cc Yamaha. It is a beauty. We could have bought several nice cars for the price but we could not take the cars to the Bahamas on the boat. The book says this one will do 120mph. I told Paul "not with me on it".
Firends took Paul back to Jacksonville last Tuesday to pick it up. We have been taking rides everyday to break it in. Can't go over 4000rpms until we get 600 miles on it. I do enjoy riding on it. It reminds me of our motorcycle days. This one is big enough we can make trips to the ends of Abaco. We want to go to Foxtown to see our friends. That is about 50 miles -no problem.
There are several yacht club memebers here also so we have had several cook outs. Also the marina had a July 4th cook out. They supplied t-bone steaks and watermelon.
I leave Thursday for my trip north. My sister Becky is suppose to arrive today from Texas at my brother Roger's house in WV. She is staying 2 weeks so we should have a good time. I am flying into Columbus and Janet is going to give me a car. Kris & John will come down from Pittsburgh to Roger's in Wheeling. Becky & I will probably go see Mom almost every day. We know since Mom is 96 our visiting days are limited.
I probably won't post again until I get back.

Sunday June 20 back in the US

We ended up cutting our time short because of the uncertainty of the weather. There seem to be a lot of predictions of a bad summer weather wise. We have been watching the crossing windows for awhile and rather than take a chance by "staying too long at the party" we decided when we saw a while week of good windows to head on back to the US.
Our last week was a busy one. I went to stitch & bitch on Monday, We had Jay, Jan, Giovanna, and Gabriella ( our next door neighbors on Dickies Cay) over for pizza. Wednesday I went to Ladies Lunch.Neil came back from Brazil and opened Hibiscus Cafe just in time for us to enjoy a few meals with him. We went for dinner Thursday & Friday and lunch on Saturday and Sunday.
We swam a lot trying to get in our last few beautiful swims.
We spent a lot of time carrying all the junk we had carried up to the house back down to the boat.
I went to Church on Sunday.
We left early Monday morning. Jay came over to say so long and cast off our lines.
We went to Foxtown and anchored off Hawksbill Cay. It was a warm trip up -but oh so beautiful. We decided to go for a swim there.
Our passage through Don't Rock at Whale Cay was very smooth.
Tuesday we spent the day with Teresa and Neal. They have a very nice home in Foxtown. It is a small community and they know everybody. Teresa took us on a tour of the area. We went to see her brother Joe's land. We met Teresa through Joe. Joe has a Great Harbour boat also. Every year Joe says he is going to the Bahamas. He has never seen his property. Next year we ARE going to get Joe and Kathy to the Bahamas.
We made several stops. One to see the bone fishing flats -- passed a watermelon patch on the way. We stopped at a friends to see their new baby pig -- I always wanted a baby pig. Paul drew the line on very few things but the baby pig was one. Anyhow, the pig was off in the woods somewhere trying to stay cool so I did not get to see the baby pig.
Neal went all out cooking dinner for us. Teresa did make, my favorite, cracked conch. Neal fixed lobster, Mahi Mahi, Peas and Rice with conch --the very best peas and rice I have ever had, and a beautiful salad with some things fresh from their garden. Neal is a superb chef!!!
All too soon we had to head back to the boat to make it before dark. We did enjoy their wonderful hospitality and promised Teresa we will stay longer next time.
Now it was not enough that they cooked the fabulous meal but also loaded us up with the left overs -yumyum.
Wednesday morning we headed for Mangrove Cay to anchor. There were a couple of boats on the other side of the island but none close enough for our evening swim to need bathing suits.
We left before sun up on Thursday morning. We had what was probably out best crossing, this was #16, back to the US. The tide would have been against us if we went in Sebastian Inlet so we went in Ft Pierce Inlet --smart move. We decided to anchor in the same place we did last year on our arrival back in the states--up near Sebastian Inlet. We were a few miles out and when we got hit with a BAD storm. The rain was so heavy we had trouble seeing so we just followed the little red boat on the chart plotter up the narrow channel. The wind was blowing in the upper 40s. One of the fuses in the pilot house decided to pop. Of course it had to be the one with the chart plotter and weather works --so no more little red boat. I held the boat in a small area around the only marker we could see while Paul made quick repairs --Thank you God for Paul's mechanical abilities.
The storm only lasted about half an hour -- just long enough for the fuse to blow and Paul to fix it.
We had a nice anchorage but it was a little strange hearing trains and lots of traffic. We have no trains in the Abacos.
Friday we made the short cruise to Cocoa Beach. We tied up to the free dock. We went into town for lunch and for Paul to browse for over an hour in a famous "hardware store" --actually I think it was more like a junk store --they did have just about everything --that is everything I was not interested in.
We got an ice cream cone and headed back to the boat.
We met a nice gentleman from the boat docked in front of us. We were talking and suddenly heard a lot of commotion --people yelling and lots of sirens. Seems a young fellow has a falling out with his girlfriend and decided to jump from the bridge right next to where we were docked. The bridge has a clearance of 65 feet and at least 10 feet on top on that. By the time I got the binoculars out to look I could see a body on the small walkway around the bridge underpass. We watched the paramedics FINALLY get a small boat out to him. They made him get up and walk to the boat THEN ride setting up back to the dock and THEN --why now -- put him in a neck brace and on a back board. I guess he did not speak English and they waited for an Interpreter and FINALLY took him off to the hospital.
Enough excitement.
Yesterday we went to Mosquito Lagoon to anchor. It was another nice cruise, short but nice. Lots of Manatees and Dolphins. We saw a beautiful pink bird --very pink. Not sure what kind. There was not much to see at Kennedy Space Center.
We saw a bad storm but it stayed inland --thank goodness --we already had our storm.
Today we came to Ft Mantanzas. Being Sunday there were a LOT of boats here. We had to anchor near the entrance and again we saw a storm inland. I cooked and baked all the way up. I made pecan waffles for breakfast. I baked cookies, a loaf of bread and a pizza crust. I made round steak and gravy in the crock pot.
Guess that about catches us up --except for pictures.

Friday June 4

I do have a small excuse for not posting. I had 4 days of no Internet --me no Internet. But the biggest reason I have to admit is that stupid farm. I have 2 more levels to be at the highest level then I WILL quit.
I have been making aprons. I have made 5. And if I do say so myself--each one better than the last. The last one my husband Paul, yes the same one who is VERY stingy with compliments, commented that he thought it looked very professional.
It has turned pretty humid here so we are combating that little issue by spending more time on or in the water. We swim almost every day. Today we were looking for cool spots in the water. The electric is off a lot but most times that doesn't affect us much --except no Internet. BEC is doing power sharing so we have 4 hours almost every day with no power. Today there was some problem so it was off twice, once for our 4 hours then everybody was off for about 6 hours.
Last weekend was so nice we took the dinghy to Scotland Cay then out into the ocean and completely around Man O War. It was beautiful!
We have been to Marsh several times --all good trips. Last Monday I went to stitch & bitch. I had a good time. I took jewelry "stuff". Didn't do a lot but it was nice to visit with my friends. It is partially a different set of friends than the winter group but still fun.
One day we went over to have lunch at Mangos with Susan. We also got the grill propane tank filled. Susan took me out to the way out grocery store while Paul was getting the propane. We had a heavy rain storm but Paul had nothing. We saw rain around us on the way home but we made it with not a drop.
We went to the Abaco Inn for lunch and to check out a paint job on the boat that was next to us in the boat yard. They did a great job soooo Paul is strongly ( got my fingers crossed) thinking on getting a new paint job next season. I have been wanting it so bad but it is really a lot more than we can afford --so much for our future retirement money--thank goodness Janet is making her own way and not waiting in what "won't be left".
A group of friends came over from Marsh Harbour today and we all went to Dock & Dine for lunch.
2 weeks until we leave. Got to make the most of it.
Paul and I have been taking some evening walks on Man O War. I have run a couple of times but it is really much too humid to run now.
I guess that's all for now. --Got to get busy on pictures to post --took over a hundred of the baby birds --funny --they look like last years over 100.