We hauled out the boat and we are hauling out of the country again.  The last two weeks have been relaxing at times and busy at times.  As soon as we landed in the US in Fort Pierce, Florida, we headed across the Sunshine State to St. Pete Beach to visit with Marc’s parents at their condo.  Marc, Camden and Ken (Marc’s dad) went deep sea fishing.  Have we mentioned before that Cam likes to fish?  Meanwhile, we girls (Joellen, Maria, Mary Ellen (Marc’s mom), and I) hot footed it straight to Target.  Even Maria cheered as we walked in the entrance.  Marc’s parents then flew back to Indianapolis and my parents flew in.  We spent a week with my parents here, fishing off the docks, visiting with my Aunt Dinah and Uncle Doug, going to lunch with a friend from my hometown Stan Vanlandingham and his wife Tammie, fishing some more, hitting Target again, and fishing even more.  This was all the relaxing part.

Over the last two weeks, Marc made two trips back to Fort Pierce to winterize Adagio.  He had to take pretty much everything off the boat.  Books, clothes, food, etc.  You cannot believe how much stuff you can shove and store on a boat.  He also had to take down all the sails, change the oil, stabilize the fuel, pickle the watermaker, vacuum seal the bedding, take down the bimini ,dodger, and grill.  He also brought the dinghy up on deck which with one person is no easy task.  The list goes on and I’m only touching the surface.  Needless to say the back massage Marc asked for was granted.  Here are some photos of the boat after Marc cleared her all out.  She looks so naked and lonely.Once my parents flew in, my dad accompanied Marc on another trip back to the boat.  This time it was to pull Adagio out of the water and get her dry docked and ready for hurricane season.  My dad took these photos of the process.  My dad loves manly equipment, so he was in his glory watching the machinery and cranes pull the boat out of the water.Tomorrow we head to the airport and fly to Costa Rica.  When Marc took everything off the boat, he threw it all in bins and brought it all over here to St. Pete.  Over the last week we have been going through all our stuff and organizing it into two piles.  Pile #1 goes back in the bins and will go back on Adagio next December.  (Marc’s parents are super nice to let us store some things at their place over the next 5 months.)  Pile #2 goes to Costa Rica.  We do not own suitcases anymore so we are showing up at the airport tomorrow with these stylin’ boxes.  That’s how we roll now.  I thought we would need 5 boxes but we actually got it all in 4.  We are planning to stay in Atenas, Costa Rica through the beginning of December but Costa Rica has a law that you can only stay for 90 days.  The way around it is to leave the country for 72 hours (we’d go to Panama) and then re-renter and get your passport re-stamped.  You have to book your return flight for under the 90 day mark so currently our return flight is for late October.  We will see how things are going and if all is well then we will change our flight and return back to the US in December.

We are extremely excited to get to Costa Rica, meet Cherie who runs the foster care home/orphanage, and meet the kids.  Joellen is most excited about making bracelets with the girls (we bought lots of yarn for making bracelets) and Camden is most excited about playing soccer in the yard with the boys.  Marc and I are most excited about helping out in the foster home in any way that is needed.  We simply feel honored that Cherie wants us to come and help out.

Okay, so what about the Spanish?  Even though I took 10 years of Spanish, I have not used it in the last 15 years and my Espanol is very rusty.  Well, I guess it’s sink or swim time.  Tomorrow I will have to grease the Spanish wheels in my brain and get things cranking again.  Marc took French so will be doing lots of hand motions and charades.  Joellen and Camden have been learning through the Rosetta Stone homeschool edition but still feel nervous about using it in real life.  But we know that Jo, Cam and Maria will pick up Spanish faster than Marc and I.

We look forward to this new leg of our journey and feel beyond blessed.