Ghostsailor's Monthly Update

Pictures for February 2010

January ended with record breaking weather and it continued right on into February.  On the 6th of February we had a first dock party of the year:

This usually doesn't happen until April, but it was too nice to ignore it.  It's always so much fun to catch up with the neighbors. 

Zak and Scott decided to study tides for the science fair this year and created a great project.  Of course Scott was out of town for the fair, so the kids and I headed to the school to set up everything.  We found out a couple days before that we weren't supposed to have any liquids in the projects, but Zak's teacher told us not to worry about it.  Zak's project was definitely a hit:

All the kids loved watching the water come in and out.  Zak was doing great explaining things and I had to go find Ellie, so I left him on his own for just a little bit.  Of course, I was only gone for a couple minutes when Zak comes running into the cafeteria telling me that there was a major spill in the hall.  I guess he left the water draining out too long and the bucket was a little too heavy to put back up on the table.  So he missed the table and all the water spilled into the hallway.  Oops.  It was kind of embarassing, but we got it all taken care of and now realize why they didn't want water in the projects. 

The kids were out of school for the whole week after President's Day, but we couldn't really do anything because Scott left Thursday of that week to go back to Ethiopia.  We did get invited to sail along with the crew of Hawkwind to Blake Island.  What a blessing!  It was so great to get out on the water and do some exploring on Blake.  We left Friday morning around 10am and got over there nice and early.  After getting tied up on the dock, we packed a lunch and headed over to the West side of the island.  KC and Elaine have 2 dogs (Bailey and Abby) and they need just about as much exercise as Zak & Ellie do.  It was a great hike over to the other side.  Lunch was fabulous.  We then did some beachcombing, kids played on the beach and Elaine, Ellie, and I tried our hand at building Fairy Houses (more on that below).  Here's some pictures from the Beach:

KC and Elaine

Ellie

Zak

Sun Star

Ok, so about the Fairy Houses.  I found a great book for Ellie called Fairy Houses Everywhere.  Here's what the cover looks like:

We all have fallen in love with the idea of building little fairy houses all over the place, so our first try was at Blake Island.  It was fun, but we want to gather some more items and continue adding to it:

The Location:

The Fairy Boats:

And starting to build the house:

It was so much fun and we can't wait to create some more or build more onto this one. 

The weekend was so much fun and I did great on beachcombing.  Check out my stash:

Finally, this past weekend was another great one.  We just returned home from Friday Harbor.  We headed up there so I could go to a friend's baby shower.  Her husband Darren took the kids while I did that.  It was a great weekend for all of us.  We stayed aboard Darren and Lisa's boat, the kids did some shrimping and fed Popeye the one-eyed seal, we saw some great friends and just had fun:

Ellie and Popeye

Cleaning the shrimp they caught, so they could cook them up and eat them.

What they ended up with:

The kids didn't really like the shrimp once they cooked them, so hopefully they will remember this for the future.

The drive home was beautiful. We could see the fields of daffodils from miles away and got some great pictures:

I can't wait to head up for the Tulip festival in the next month or two.  It was so beautiful.  We saw this strange white patch that we thought could be some type of flower:

But when we got closer, we realized it was flocks upon flocks of snow geese:

It was a beautiful sight.  I really can't believe it's already March.  Crazy!

Posted by sailormomma at 09:27 PM | Permalink

Pictures from January 2010

This January has been said to have been the hottest January on record and I'm not complaining one bit.  We really enjoyed the nice weather.  Unfortunately Scott's work schedule didn't allow us to get the boat out, but we had a good month anyways.

My Christmas present this year was a solo weekend away.  Scott planned it all.  A hotel room for 2 nights in Friday Harbor.  He had the weekend off and would take care of the kids while I had some R&R time.  It was absolutely wonderful!  I headed up there on a Saturday morning, parked my car at the ferry terminal (I had a 3 hour wait) and went and visited some friends, Larry & Helen from S/V Waltzing Matilda.  It was great to visit and catch up with them.  The weather was beautiful when I got back to the ferry terminal and I had to get a shot of the mountains:

Of course the picture doesn't do it justice.  It was a great trip over to San Juan Island.  And I almost teared up when we pulled into Friday Harbor:

Of course then my battery in my camera died, so I couldn't get any more pictures of coming into the harbor.  Oh well.  I checked into my room at Tucker House Bed & Breakfast.  What a wonderful place.  I had the "Secret Passage" room.  It was perfect for a relaxing weekend.  They even had some fresh baked Chocolate Chip cookies waiting for me. Yummm:

I decided to have a nice quiet evening, so I stayed in and read a book and took a long relaxing bath in the jacuzzi tub.  The next day, I headed to dining room for breakfast, which was amazing, and then off to South Beach for some beachcombing.  The beautiful weather from the previous day decided to dissapear (bummer) and it was pretty blustery out.  Oh well, I had a wonderful walk along the beach. 

I headed back into town to warm up and do some browsing around town.  Everyone was so talkative and friendly.  I think they were bored, because there was no one else in town.  It was so quiet, it seemed strange.  Oh well, I helped boost their economy a bit and headed over to some friends' house for dinner.  It was great catching up with them and we had a very yummy dinner.  The next morning I headed out, but stopped in La Conner on the way home.  It's a very cute little town that I've wanted to explore for a very long time.  It was a good end to the weekend.

The next on our list of to do's for the month of January was pulling our mizzen mast for some much needed work:

So Ghost is a Sloop for now.  Luckily the rot that we had found in it isn't so bad, so the project hopefully will go smoothly.  We just need Scott home so he can work on it. 

Last on the January Calendar was our Italian Night Aboard Ghost.  We tried setting up a monthly gathering with our group of friends from Adams Elementary, but we were all too busy during the holidays.  So, we decided to do Italian night.  Everyone would bring a different sauce and we would cook up some different types of pasta.  It was absolutely amazing.  I ate way too much, but it was worth it:

I still can't believe we got so many people aboard Ghost.  The kids all had a great time, too:

Posted by sailormomma at 09:32 PM | Permalink

Pictures from December

The month started with Scott working in Africa.  The time went by so fast, but it was a little difficult at first when we couldn't communicate.  Once he got some internet time and we were able to Skype, life was much better.  The kids and I had many guests over, which really helped the time fly by.  It made me happy to cook and it's always easier when I have someone to cook for.  We definitely were missing scty/Daddy.

The kids and I went and picked out the Christmas Tree this year.  I think we did a good job.  We had to compromise because Zak wanted a big bushy one and Ellie wanted the Charlie Brown type.  We found one that was in the middle:

When Scty got back from his trip we only had a week until we left for Boise for Christmas.  That's where my family is from.  That week was full of Christmas shopping and trying to pack.  It flew by.  The drive to Boise wasn't too bad.  As soon as we got there Scott had to fly out to go to work.  The next couple of days the kids decided to get a touch of the flu, so my last minute Christmas shopping had to wait until last, last minute.  Scott came back into Boise on the 23rd and would be off until the 26th.  It was nice to be able to spend the actual holiday with him.  We made cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve:

And then had family over for snacks and opening presents.  The kids had a very good Christmas this year.  On Christmas morning, the kids woke up to find that Santa had left some goodies for them under Grandma & Grandpa's tree.  They were so excited.  Then Uncle Kerry, Jeff, Josh, and Amanda came over for a breakfast of Strawberry crepes and Uncle Kerry's Treasure Hunt.  My brother put together a treasure hunt for all 4 kids.  It was amazing.  They all had clues and clues to work out together.  He made a website that they had to go to to get some of the clues.  The kids (and adults) had so much fun.  Here are some pictures from that:

It was a great Christmas.  Scott headed back out flying for the next couple of days and the kids and I enjoyed our time with family.  The day we were planning on leaving it snowed around 4 inches , making it a pretty nasty drive back home.  But we made it with no problems.  Upon returning to the boat, the kids saw that Santa had also visited Ghost on Christmas Eve and left the family a Wii.  Since Mom and Dad were against buying any video games, they were extremely thrilled.  It was so good to be home and wonderful to celebrate the arrival of 2010 aboard Ghost.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Posted by sailormomma at 03:30 PM | Permalink

Hi Everyone,

Well, we have been horrible about taking pictures this month and don't really have any to share.  Scott has been preparing for his trip to Ethiopia, so not much has been happening on the home front.  We had a very nice little family Thanksgiving on the Wednesday before because Scott took off Thursday morning.  He is keeping his blog update, so check that out for updates on his adventure:  http://ghostsailors.com/blog-africa/ .

The kids and I doing great!  Can't wait for him to get home.  Everything on the boat is good.  Really hoping we can take her out sometime soon.  We have a ton of projects that need to get done this winter, so we can have a summer full of cruising.  Hope everyone is well....Ang

Posted by sailormomma at 07:15 AM | Permalink

Pictures from September 2009

Pictures from October 2009

I'm always amazed how fast the months of September and October fly by.  It seems that during these two months, we hardly ever have any pictures and really don't have many stories of adventures to tell.  The kids started school the 1st part of September and Ellie started soccer:

(yes, I know she has the shin guards on backwards, it was a learning experience!!!)

Our weeks and weekends soon filled up with soccer practices and games, but it was so worth it.  Ellie is a natural soccer player and she loved it!

Around the middle of October we had a dinner party with our friends from Adams Elementary.  We decided on having Greek night and also decided to do some pumpkin carving for the kids.  It was so much fun:

The kids always love creating their pumpkin faces and the end results were wonderful:

The Greek food was amazing:

It was a wonderful evening.  I think both the kids and adults enjoyed themselves very much.

Later in the month Zak was able to invite a friend to go with him and Scott to the Museum of Flight.  He chose his friend Marlowe and they had a great time:

It's always Zak's favorite place to go, of course.

Halloween this year was great, as always.  On Friday the kids dressed up at school and did their parade outside on the grounds.  Scott was able to join and help out for the parade and a party in the classrooms afterwards:

On Saturday night, the whole family dressed up to head out onto the docks for our annual trick-or-treating. 

This year we had 5 kids to do the trick-or-treating on the docks and about 20 boats to go to.  Once again our neighbors went above and beyond and the kids were well taken care of:

After trick-or-treating, we always invite the neighbors down to Ghost for drinks and desserts.  Luckily the weather allowed us to hang out on the dock.  We had a tarp up in case there was rain and a little fire going to keep us warm.  It was a perfect night:

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween and a great October.

Posted by sailormomma at 07:03 PM | Permalink

Pictures from McCall

Since we weren't able to go sailing much this summer, one of the main things that I wanted to do was to go camping where I grew up in McCall, ID.  I miss Payette Lake during the summer and wanted the kids to see how beautiful it is up there.  The drive over was pretty uneventful.  We got to Ponderosa State Park and set up camp.  This is the 1st Camping trip we've taken in probably about 5 years.  We had to aquire some of the essentials (like the tent) and it was pretty exciting to get it all put together:

After getting the camp set up, we decided to take a walk to the lake.  It was such a beautiful day and Payette Lake was gorgeous, like always.  We even decided to pose for a family picture:

On the way back to camp the kids and I started finding tons of huckleberries:

Yummm!  I think we ate everything that we picked, but decided we would be back with bags to take some to Grandma & Grandpa in Boise.  We had a great night by the fire and reading the last few chapters of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  It was a perfect setting for it.  The next day we decided to do a little exploring and spend some time at the beach:

The water was great and it brought back so many memories of summer days at that same beach when I was growing up.  The plan for the next day was to go fishing.  We brought our Sea Kayak and wanted to check out the rivers north of the lake.  We loaded everything up, found a spot to launch the kayak and all loaded in.  It was a bit crowded, but not so bad.  The water was pretty shallow and so clear.  We didn't see any fish.  So we headed back to where we started and decided to fish off the bank.  Scott had just cast and handed the pole to Zak when there was a bite.  After that one every time we cast the line a trout would bite.  It was amazing and perfect for the kids.  We all had so much fun!

I found some more huckleberry patches and decided to load up.  It was a great day!  The next day we headed to Boise to see my family.  It was a little sad to leave McCall, but I think we will definitely do some more camping in that neck of the woods.  The visit in Boise was absolutely wonderful.  Saw some great friends and caught up with family.

Posted by sailormomma at 09:29 PM | Permalink