Sick sick sick

Wouldn't you know, the day before we leave for vacation and a kid is sick. Actually it is something we joke about often, but usually it is me. I'm almost always sick as a vacation starts. Last week Robert ran a high fever for 2 days. A few days back I felt lousy and have since diagnosed myself as having Hand, Foot, and Mouth virus. Blisters are still sore. And now my eldest child is running a fever.

We can't possibly delay or cancel our trip at this point, there is just too much momentum. I will just tuck him into his quarter berth and give him lots of love and tylenol.

August Garden

Is it just me or does gardening in August suck? Everything is crispy and on the verge of death. I have no flowers that are blooming and nothing on the horizon that I should be tending too, just pulling out dead stuff. And it is too hot to spend a long time out there without shade. A few years back I made a concerted effort to place late blooming flowers only to be very disappointed. This year is particularly bad because summer came early and has stayed on throughout the season (but I'm not complaining about that!).

Here are some pictures from earlier this spring. I had grand plans of maintaining a gardening blog. I enjoy reading gardening blogs but I don't know of any in Southern California and we do grow things different out here. I wonder if I did blog if things would be different.

handful of things on my minds

I've been updating Debbie's blog for the last few days. I seem to have more to say on her blog than mine, I wonder why that is. Her blog is acting funny too, I can't get my most recent post to show up by just clicking over to her blog, I have to force the post to appear by clicking on the archive button. I wonder how I screwed that one up. It is funny because the post that keeps appearing is one I'm not proud of, and the 2 posts after it, I love, but they don't show. I really want to bury the bad one.

We are leaving for Catalina in 3 days. I'm in charge of provisioning the boat and I'm trying to get it done early so I'm not totally stressing out at the last minute. Still some things have to be last minute like bread and fruit.

The kids are in VBS in the mornings all week. It is the perfect time to get things done. I have so many things to do, it is all just swimming around my head. Focus, focus.

We went to a concert in the park last night and had some cute pictures taken of Carson and I dancing with Robert. Of course, not with my camera, so I will have to wait patiently for the pictures to arrive.

Preparing for a trip to Catalina

We are taking our boat to Catalina for a 10 day vacation. This is a very familiar trip for many boat owners in Southern California, but not us, it is a brand new adventure. We are going with 3 other couples that we will share meals with, and are expecting to see many more friends when we arrive.

My husband has been working relentlessly on preparing the boat for the trip. This was no small undertaking for our old boat.

My memories of Catalina Island are all good but limited although I was there probably a dozon times as a child. I spent 5 or six summers at CIMI (Catalina Island Marine Institute), I went to girl scout camp at White's Landing (now a boy scout camp), and did several backpacking adventures.

So my friend is going cruising

I don't know about you but I'm still not getting the whole picture on this adventure SV Oasis is going on. Yes, yes, I understand they are doing the Baja Ha Ha race from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, but then what? I hear them talking about different locations and different ports, but it doesn't compute for me. So here's a few maps and hopefully it will start to make more sense to me and maybe you too.

So the Ha Ha race starts way up in the top left corner and goes down that funny finger thing and ends at the tip (or Cabo) of Baja California. Oasis has reservations during the Christmas holiday in Puerto Vallarta. This leaves a few weeks of unplanned (gasp!) time. Last I heard they were planning on going up Gulf of California a bit. After New Years they are leaving Puerto Vallarta and going further south. How much, you asked? I've asked the same and the response is a shrug and "Ecuador". So then we have to leave the map at the top and travel to the next map of Central America. Okay, I'll admit I've never really looked at the west coast of Central America before. Looks bumpy and long. No, but really, it looks like an amazing adventure.

And just when you think I'm done posting maps, glance up and notice that Ecuador hasn't made it on our little map journey. Can you believe it took 3 maps to do this silly post? Can you believe that I'm so lazy I couldn't find just one map to do it? Oh, you can, well, okay. So here is my last map of the day:

Whew, we made it all the way to Ecuador, dang it is pretty far down too.
Hopefully Debbie will get a better map and draw all over it so we can see her plan.