It's been a long time

It has been a long time since I updated my blog.  I'm sorry to all those people who are interested in our grand adventures.  The end of our sailing season was filled with friends and fun.  Arthur did a good job of blogging about it in his blog http://svmorningglory.com (click on "content" on the sidebar to see our adventures last winter) He tended to update his blog while I was cooking dinner (the only spare time he had).  We had so much fun in the Berries and in the Exuma Land and Sea Park that I really didn't have time (not to mention no internet access).  He can also update his blog by the satellite phone due to special compression software associated with sailblog.

Once we returned to the states, we traveled North to Beaufort, NC -the place where we started- just in time for hurricane season and Stephen's 5th grade graduation.  We spent the hurricane season on land in NY building the cruising kitty and getting the house closer to sell or rent.

Now all my time is taken up by homeschooling the kids and my "spare time" is spent cooking, cleaning and doing laundry.  I have no idea why any parent would choose to homeschool without a darn good reason!  It is a full-time job without pay.  I can't wait to get back on the boat.  There is much less cleaning (fewer room and less space has it's advantages) and a lot less laundry.  The children should also have more incentive to finish their assignments quickly when the beach is calling.   The kids are doing well with homeschool.  They are learning more than they would at public school but kids need socialization.   That is my biggest challenge.  I thought we were only going to be here a month or two so I didn't sign them up for any activities, and now I am regretting it.  Rivers' favorite activity -catching feral kittens and taming them- is done for the season and we've found homes for all the kittens but one.  Stephen's favorite activity -playing on the computer- is taking way too much of his time.  He is TRYING to get as much time in as he can before the limited access on the boat.  That, of course, is a bone of contention.

Everyone has been asking what our plans are.  Keep in mind plans and boats don't go well together but this is what I've come up with so far:  We will be taking the 11 hour drive down to Beaufort over Thanksgiving to do as much work as we can.  Mainly maintenance and adding some updated electronics and improving the SSB (right now we can't run the autopilot and the SSB at the same time).  Arthur loves his gadgets and improving things.  We would like to get Morning Glory back into the water around Christmas, and the kids and I will move onboard.  Arthur is working and will be using his frequent flier miles to spend time with us.  I forgot to mention the new satellite communication system we will installing over Thanksgiving which will allow for long weekends together.   We'll see how well this works out.  My original plans were to move back on the boat at the end of August - like I said, plans and boats don't correspond.

If any one has any questions or comments or if you want to know more about something, please comment.

Possible Delay

Things never seem to go quite as planned. The original plan was that Friday, February 26 was going to be the kids last day at Mamaroneck Avenue School and we were going to drive away to the boat on Wednesday the 3rd. Yesterday, Stephen brought home a permission slip for a field trip to the Beuhler Challenger and Science Center. I thought this trip was going to be mid-March and had already told him he couldn't go. Now I find out that the trip is Friday, March 5. It looks like such a cool field trip - I want to go too! Rivers does NOT want to stay in school one more week. I told her that if she stays at home next week that she has to start home school right away and it won't be playtime. I'm sure I can find plenty of work for her that won't require too much teaching for a week since I will be frantically packing and cleaning. She is very behind on her French a la Rosetta Stone and she can work on her typing lessons, and don't forget about workbooks! Also reading- I forget that reading is part of school. She is such an avid reader that I sometimes have to threaten her to put her book down- "Rivers, if you don't put that book down and eat, I'm going to hide it!" I think I can easily find a week's worth of less supervised school work.