September 6 2015
So, it's the end of summer as we know it, and I've
been getting some flack about not posting recently.
In my defense [and I have several excuses] my computer
died and I have been working on a new one. It's an Asus [ top of the
line...could run a small city...blah, blah, blah...but I can't seem to make it
understand that I just want to type documents in Word]. Did you know that it is no longer possible
just to buy a program? You pay monthly for the privilege of struggling with
some geek's idea of a joke-- Office 2015 or whatever, --who probably has never
written in English in his life!...sorry, I'll stop ranting now.
Excuse # 2 [ and by the way, this keyboard sucks...you practically have to stand on the keys to get them to work...sorry...focus], the kids were very high maintenance this summer! We had a great time visiting every animal rescue / refuge center in Florida. We spent hours every day at the beach in 100 degree F heat. We went to NASA and the NAVY SEAL MUSEUM [ Todd wants to join up, like, right NOW!]
We didn't get much done in the way of work but it was
so hot that kids or not we couldn't have survived working on the boat for long
every day. At night the mosquitoes were relentless, when it wasn't
storming! We had threats of thunderstorms
every day [practice for hurricane season]. We had a couple of really good
storms but it didn't slow is down and when we couldn't stand the heat any
longer we went shopping...in any store that had A/C!
When it was time to come home, we came up through the
central states and via Kenora and Thunder Bay. It was great to see the people
we managed to visit. For those we didn't get to see, we're sorry, but we just
didn't have time. Besides the kids were frantic to get home by then. When we
got to the ferry Todd was so anxious to get home, he was vibrating!
So that means that the kids have travelled through 15
States in the US. WE tok a highlighter and drew our route across three maps.
Now we have to put them up on Todd's wall so they can see and remember
everywhere we went. Last night we
watched all the videos that Rick took on the Go-Pro of them swimming and
holding gross things! I wish there was
some way to turn that into a geography lesson, but our schools are so
"anti-outside the box", it's practically impossible to make use of
the information. I tried to convince the guidance counselors at the high
school that the 2 weeks Quentin will be spending this winter working with
biologists on the iguana studies [yes, doing that again!] would be great for
his science credit, but they don't see it as part of the "curriculum"
. I guess cutting up frogs is more educational than cleaning fish.
OK, so we are spending the month finishing up here in
Owen Sound with appointments and downsizing and getting rid of stuff we now
realize we don't need. We are also waiting for Quentin's course work to show up
from ILC. As soon as we have our ducks in a row, we will head south quickly and
get the boat ready to head off-shore, assuming the hurricane season has
subsided.
I will continue the blog as soon as we are back into
the sailing route. Apparently I am not as boring as I thought I was and some
people actually look forward to reading this, so...thanks for that, and I will
try to keep you all entertained :)
