June 4, 2021- June 21, 2021
I forgot to include this picture in my last blog.
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| Rachel is taking the picture of me, Lili, and Juan during our Rummicube game on the last night of my visit. |
I’ve had a whirlwind few weeks! After a few days of preparation I flew from Baltimore (BWI) to Huston on Friday June 4th. My son and grandson picked me up at the airport and after a quick stop at their home we headed to Lake Conroe in Montgomery, Texas for a week’s vacation. We rented a 2 bedroom/2 bath condo with a full kitchen and living space. As a bonus there was a loft bedroom that I claimed right away! The condo had a beautiful view of the lake and was a short walk to the pool complex. The original weather prediction was for rain all week, but the weather turned out to be sunny and hot with only a few cloud bursts late in the day or early morning. Every morning Acen (my grandson) and I took a walk by the lake and around the resort, had breakfast, and headed to the pool for a day of fun. His parents joined us later in the morning. The snack bar at the pool had access to the country club restaurant and we ordered from the menu and had lunch delivered to us at the pool most days. Acen and his dad went fishing every evening at the lake and caught enough fish for one meal for Acen! Needless to say it was a relaxing and fun week together that ended much too soon.
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| The view from our balcony - can you see the rain drops? |
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| Acen and I met a friend on our morning walk. |
Fun at the pool!
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| Fishing with Daddy. |
My flight home was due to get into BWI at 8:50 but was delayed. Bob and I didn’t get back to the boat until midnight. This wouldn’t have been a huge problem except that I was due to leave for a sister get together at my daughter’s in Johnstown, PA. at 9:30 the next morning. It was a tiring four hour drive, but it was so good to see two of my sisters, finally. Although I have seen Becky a couple of times recently I hadn’t seen Laurie since before the pandemic. My oldest sister Nancy did not make the trip but we all Zoomed that evening to make it a complete sister get together. Getting to connect with family again is the biggest blessing of being fully vaccinated. Jessica and her husband Joe were super hosts. Joe grilled kabobs while I made crab cakes for dinner. Jessica added a fresh salad and it couldn’t have been better. We talked and laughed the night away. In the morning we set out to tour the Waterfall House (Frank Loyd Wright) in a nearby town, but when a fierce thunder storm erupted we decided to turn around and save this excursion for another day. We had no trouble filling up the few hours we had left together catching up on family doings. The party broke up mid-afternoon and I headed back to Kent Island.
Jessica and Joe on their front porch
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| Becky and I just before we left for home. Laurie had left earlier. |
It was great to be home again with Bob and Lola, but I miss being with my extended family. Bob had been busy with boat projects while I was away. One project was cleaning, waxing, and polishing the cockpit. What he has completed looks great. My job now was to reinforce the snap closures on the backrest for our cockpit cushions. After cleaning the cushions thoroughly I removed all of the the snaps on the cushion covers and reinforced them with a small piece of sunbrella fabric. Bob was all set to re-apply the snaps when we realized that we did not have the right tool to make the holes in the sunbrella before attaching the snaps. Amazon is our friend - so Bob ordered the tool and it arrived a couple of days later and the project was done! Next on my list of boat projects was to create hatch covers for our small midship hatches. It only took me one afternoon of measuring, cutting, fitting, and sewing.
What do you think of the new hatch cover?
I had been having difficulty with one of my teeth and I made an appointment to see my dentist one afternoon. Bob had thoroughly cleaned the sail cover that morning and wanted to get the waterproofing done before we left for the dentist. We finished half of the waterproofing before we had to go…we completed the other half when we returned that evening.
At the dentist, after an x-ray and some tests, I was informed that the tooth that was bothering me was dead and needed a root canal. So off to another appointment to be examined by the endodontist who specializes in doing root canals. He also discovered a resorption in the front of the tooth that would need to be repaired. I’m scheduled for my root canal at the end of June - fun, fun, fun.
We also took a trip to Kunkletown, PA to visit our new kitten at six weeks old. Originally we had thought we wanted one of the all black females, but we were charmed by the exuberance of the female brown tabby of the litter and chose her. After a couple of days of reflection on our choice we decided that the sweet and shy black kitten would actually be a better fit for our family and changed our reservation to the larger black kitten. We are looking forward to bringing her home on August 9.
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| How could we resist that adorable face? |
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| But we changed our mind and here's our soon to be new family member, Kali. |
Linda, the friend who does most of my machine quilting, let me know that the quilt I had left with her was completed. I picked it up on Friday and finished the binding over the weekend. This quilt was inspired by the southwest with it’s mountains and beautiful sunsets. I will be shipping it to my youngest child on Tuesday who lives in New Mexico.
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| I'm sitting in the cockpit hand stitching the quilt binding. You can see the backing of the quilt, but not the top. |
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| As you can imagine it is difficult getting a complete picture of a king size quilt on a boat. This photo features the braid style piecing. |
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| This photo shows the borders. Do the colors say Southwest to you? |
Till my next blog - Thank you for reading my blog.
