Help From Afar

When my family told us they'd like to visit in February, we were torn.  Our first reaction - "GREAT" - bumped right into our considered reaction - "but we'll be right in the middle of the haul out then."

"No problem," came the reply.  "We know you're busy.  So we'll watch the kids while you and Alisa both work in the boat yard.  That still leaves coffee time in the morning and beer time at night for us to visit."

So they all came, all the way from Boston to New Zealand - my parents, my sister and her two kids.  And it worked out exactly as planned.  Alisa and I teamed up in the boat yard every day that it wasn't raining, and as a result we got way more done than we would have had I been soldiering on alone.  Our kids had a great time with the family, who stayed at the beach cottage just down the hill from our house-sit.  The whole mob made a few sightseeing trips out into the country, cause, hey, this was looking pretty certain to be their once-only family trip to New Zealand.  And we got that coffee-time and beer-time to visit.  (I notice that nearly every picture of adults taken during the visit features wine glasses or beer bottles.)

I'm very glad that they were willing to make such an expensive visit under less-than-perfect conditions.

Alisa and I made great progress on replacing portlights on Galactic while they were here.

The new event for the Yachtie Decathlon - painting with exam mirror in hand 

Busted knees and fierce concentration

Only the advent of a rainy spell kept us from finishing all five windows while we had the gift of unlimited kid-minding.  Yesterday the family left and the rain cleared in the afternoon.  Alisa and I got two more windows sealed up, even with the kids aboard the boat.  It was a pretty good performance by team Galactic - we got them sealed up just before the rain resumed, I only yelled at Elias twice (or three times?) and we were back at the house-sit in time for dinner.