9/6/14

So the night before we are supposed to leave I have to go to work and our son is at home with a 103 degree fever. I felt so bad for him and my husband but luckily it didn't last more than a few hours and he slept through it. When he woke up at 3am and was feeling better he got to have some tea and lemonade (a rare treat for our son who only gets milk and water). When I got home my husband showed me a rash he was developing and he definitely still had a fever but I didn't recheck it since we aren't the tylenol giving parents anyways. Long story short his rash turned out to be hand, foot, and mouth disease, a virus that a lot of kids get. So, needless to say, we had to delay our trip a few days to let our boy recover and mostly just for the comfort of everyone. Paul was bummed but of course didn't want to go with our son not feeling well. We read that they can be contagious for a week so we didn't want to cruise up there too soon just to be stuck on the boat since we obviously don't want to spread this to anyone…that is exactly how I am sure my son caught it. So we planned to leave Sunday night to meet them Monday at Santa Cruise Island. We thought about leaving Saturday night but realized we would have to miss the party anyways (since he's contagious) and it would be a lot of sailing back to back. 

Then when we went to start loading the boat up and do some more cleaning the inverter wasn't working and we can't be going anywhere without that. Paul messed around with it a little and talked to some of the guys at our marina with no luck. Then, miraculously, when Paul went back that night it was working again. So we obviously need to get that looked at along with the refrigeration sometime soon. It just never ends fixing this boats problems.

Then we checked the weather, thanks to the nice guys at our marina reminding us, and it says their may be strong storms where we are going since we are getting all this leftover hurricane stuff from down south. So we decided that we should just not go. We were both so bummed but with Oliver still being contagious and the storms it just didn't make sense for us to try to force this. 

We were supposed to be going on a road trip in October so we just went on that instead. We went to Vegas, Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon and Sedona. It was a really fun trip and Oliver did awesome in the car. 

So we will sail for a week or more in early October when we were supposed to be doing the road trip and decide then if we are staying or going this year.

8/31/14

Sorry it took so long to post again. We went to see my parents in Minnesota for a few weeks and time slipped away. 

We did the sail to Catalina with the autopilot installed and it was a much more comfortable sail but still hard because it was a lot of sailing in 2 days and Oliver was restless and, lets be honest, so was I. Paul was sitting in the cockpit the whole time so I was still completely on 'Oliver entertaining duty'. I kind of thought the autopilot was going to make it more even since he wouldn't have to sit up there but he did so then I was all mad like, "why did we get an autopilot when you sit up there anyways. You mind as well be steering and we could've saved $500?" I guess you still have to lookout for other boats…who knew ;) I think it will get better once we get used to it and trust it more. I don't know but I am always hopeful that sailing will get easier and more enjoyable.

So…countdown to 10 day sail is 3 days away and I am at work tonight and work Wednesday night…that leaves a lot to do and not a lot of time, if I want to sleep. I am getting our lists made and checking it twice. I will probably do most of the grocery shopping tomorrow and cooking Wednesday. I will try to precook some meals and muffins to try to make this as easy as possible. I really need to get down and mess around with the stove since I have never used it. We don't cook much with a stove anyways, especially in the summer, it is just too hot. 

I feel a lot of pressure for this trip to be good. We have kind of decided that if this doesn't go well we reassess what we are going to do…like possibly sell the boat. If it goes well we might just leave this year. Not that I think we are totally ready but I know a lot of signs point to go (ie our cars are both old and need work if we stay, Paul's job is moving buildings and paring back staff, I would most likely want to get a new job, we would need to move). That kind of stuff. Not that all of that can't be done, it can, but it would be costly and a pain in the rear. I kind of feel more and more that we just need to go. 

If you can't tell we go back and forth a lot. There are also a lot of reasons I would like to stay and wait so I guess we just have to go and see.