Happy 8th birthday Anna

We had a fantastic day celebrating Anna's 8th birthday with sitings of wild horses, a giant horseshoe crab, swimming and a long dinghy ride.

Finn's Fishing Pole

We had a great shopping expedition tonight. Anna and Bob have been having so much fun fishing, we decided it was time to get Finn an early birthday present. It was dark by the time we got home (yes, we are learning to call Midwatch 'home') but Finn had to try it out! Enjoy!

Finn's new fishing pole

Uncertainty

One of the questions we seem to get a lot is where we are going to be at a certain time. Most of the time, we can’t answer. The closer we come to launch, the more plans change, drastically; I anticipate that uncertainty will be the only certainty in the coming years. As many of you know, we have planned to launch in November but with all the house activity we began to daydream of ‘fetching’ the boat and bringing it to Maine for the summer while the kids played on the farm and Bob and I got all the kinks (and yelling) out of the way before introducing the kids. A boat in Maine would be infinitely easier to outfit, trial and adjust kids to than one in North Carolina. But this almost-plan doesn’t seem to be taking hold.

Bob headed down to NC to work on the boat with his Dad in late June. There was a list of items that needed attention prior to launch. We both joked about doubling the anticipated time required to complete the projects. They spent 10 days and we are back again, anticipating another 10 days. We also had a surprisingly similar joke about the length of time to get the house closed/sold and that seems to be ringing true too. Apparently the advice I got from my realtor when I bought the Maine house all those years ago, not to get an FHA loan, were valid.

Enough of the serious stuff! We spent a few days in Cooperstown a few weeks back to thoroughly test-drive the new dinghy, ran a load of stuff to New Hampshire and returned to New York for a few more hours of fun at the lake. As we were packing to leave for NC on Monday, Bob and I were thinking, “This is it, this is when it becomes real!” Bob told me it seemed real to him now that we were bringing the dinghy. The funny thing was I had the same thought…only replace the dinghy with pots and pans. Is that were home truly is, where the pots and pans reside?

There is no way we could truly post about everything we have done the past month but I did develop a little photo journal below. Enjoy! Bob and Kim

Anna tested her ‘new’ wet suit (Bob bought it for her at a garage sale when she was about a month old!)

Finn and Bob testing out the new dinghy.

Getting in our last upstate New York summer nostalgia:

Corn and John Deere; visiting with friends and saying good bye.

We have been jumping through hoops for loan officers and appraisers. Here is Bob getting ready to scrape, prime and paint the BARN! I used my best engineering language and logic to talk our way out of this little hoop but to no avail.   

A “painted” barn…a finished set!

Here is Anna packing her ‘boat box’ for about the hundredth time. Each kid was allowed to bring whatever they wanted as long as it fit in their box.

Now in NC, we are taking morning and evening breaks from boat work. Anna was very excited to catch a speckled trout (see Anna’s page for her fishing story)

The kids have definitely made their room, ‘Atlantis’, their own! Most of the time Bob and I are not allowed in.