So Tired!

The movers start packing all our crap! It only took them 2 1/2 hours and they packed it FULL! Best $200 we have spent :)


Note Dan left for the new owners!!


Dan walking toward his 24' truck. Danny was already in it and the truck was fully loaded! The hired guys from emove.com were great! Dan said Danny did great!! He was so excited about being in the big truck. Our realtor got him a travel pack and he drew and colored the whole way.


Yes, that would be the second rental truck that we had to run out and rent at 4:00 yesterday afternoon when we realized our stuff would never fit in the big truck. We were supposed to get a 10' but the rental place did not have any and gave us a 16' for the same price, which was amazingly lucky since it is FULL! Dan & I were loading it this am at 6:00 and finished at 8:30, just in time for the walk through with the buyers:) Thank heavens my mom was here to help as she ended up driving it, with her sidekick Ginger!


This would be the convoy! Me up front in the pick up, Dan next, then mom. We stopped at McD's for a quick lunch and a fuel stop!


Here is Victoria and Maggie sound asleep! They both did GREAT! Victoria only whined when she was past tired and did not nap till 3:30! But luckily I had the DVD player so she watched Elmo, Dora and Teletubbies.

All in all a very tiring couple of days! We luckily presigned yesterday so we were able to take off as soon as the walk through was done this am. The buyers are just so excited about the house, it really makes us feel good.
We left the house at 10:00 and reached my mom's place in Jacksonville at 5:30!!

Unfortunately we have to unload tomorrow into the storage unit! Thank heavens they had already upgraded us to a 30' unit before we had any idea that we would actually need it :( The movers up here are about 1/2 the price and I already told them it will probably be about 3-4 hours.
Here it is 8:00 pm and the kids just finished their tubbies and getting ready for bed! Mom, Dad and Nana will be having a big glass of wine and a very big motrin!

I didn't even have time to be upset about leaving the house, I just wanted to get on the road.
Onto the next big adventure!!
Dan is making a run over to the boat tomorrow to check on it, hug it and give it a kiss :)

Fav Foto Fri (ok - a day late, kinda busy)

"helping" daddy :)
What are we up to?? Packing, Packing, Packing.......

Wordless Wednesday-Just Chillin

We got a Huge Sign!!

Hard to believe that we will be moving in 1 1/2 weeks!! yikes! ;0
We have typical sellers remorse now that the time is here.
We will miss our house and the weather, but not too much else about down here :(
Our realtor had asked us a couple of weeks ago if there was anything we would miss and I remember telling her that I wish our Jacaranda tree would bloom for us.
The story behind this Jacaranda is that it was a gift from Dan's job after his mom passed away. We bought it in a 25 gallon container right after her death. We bought it because it is very resilient and has blue flowers. Dan's mom loved blue flowers and we could not wait! We initially left it in the container because at that time we were selling our house in the Cape and moving to Bonita. That poor tree lived in that container for about a year. The nursery told us it takes about 7 years for it to bloom.
We have had this tree for 10 years now and it is huge! It has been through several hurricanes and has survived with scars.
Today we were hanging out with friends having a wonderful brunch, when I looked out the window and saw something catch my eye:



I had to walk outside to get a better look because I thought I was seeing things :)
Right below the flowers is a dove, one of the most peaceful birds. The kids and
I had been watching one walk around our railing outside the kitchen window just this morning and I had them both making cooing noises.



I thought about it for a sec and realized what an incredible sign from Dan's mom (the original Victoria!) she was such a peaceful, calm, loving woman.
I calmly walked back into the house and got Dan's attention to come outside for just a sec. We both stood on the porch and cried.
We both felt our angel watching over us!
What an amazing feeling :)
Everything will be ok.

Wordless Wednesday

Can you all just feel the love??

Day 5 of our grand adventure!

The kids doing their morning chores :)


The Bridge of Lions in St. Augustine being overhauled. It was scary driving the boat through it with all the construction going on.


This is the Fort in St. Augustine. Lots of boats around, but the weather was really windy and cool.


Hey bubba!! Passed this shrimp boat in the very narrow waterway!


This area is called Cabbage Swamp! So there are obviously lots of people who moved to Florida after buying swampland!! :) This area was all slow speed so we got to admire lots of yards.


The very unexciting entrance to the St. John's River! The wind was blowing like stink
(as Dan likes to say) We were rocking and rolling all over the place.


This is what greeted us on the St. John's River!!


Taking a rest before we get to nana's!


We were up at 6:30 and off the anchor by 7:00! We wanted to get moving to get as far as possible as there is supposed to be yucky weather tomorrow. We had done most of our traveling during the week so we would not have to run into weekend boaters! We ran into them lots today, many just do not know the rules of the road and it can be pretty scary when we are so big and only can manuever so much.
We were able to really get going, up on plane and trucking right along at 16 knots for quite a bit of the day. We even saw several eagles!

Today we traveled 108 statute miles! We traveled from Daytona Beach to Jacksonville! It took us 9 hours!
When we got to the marina at 4:00 and the dock we were supposed to tie up to was full of racing boats so we ended up tied to the fuel dock. The wind and waves were so strong. We were being slammed against the dock even with 8 bumpers along the side.
Danny was just beside himself when he saw nana coming down the dock and almost jumped right off the boat!! Luckily nana was able to take both kids onto land and keep them occupied, along with some goldfish.
Luckily we had another boater give us a hand, he was truly sent by god! He actually helped Dan set up our mooring lines so that we could get off the dock and sit at mooring. While they were busy doing all that I was packing everything up down below so we could get moving.
We had to bring all 6 bags to shore in a small work boat, but Dan did not get anything wet! We had to pop into the exchange so I could buy a car seat as I had forgotten victoria's in the truck.
both kids were so tired! Nana had a wonderful dinner ready to go, we all ate, showered and were asleep by 8:30!
I even got all our clothes cleaned! Nothing better than having mom around :)

Oh - did I mention that our realtor called the other day to tell us that the buyers were anxious to close as soon as possible and could we move up the closing date!! :)
Why wait a month and then want to rush? My guess is they want to spend memorial day here in fl. So we will be heading back home monday now to get things moving quickly!!
Both kids are missing the dogs something fierce!!
Hope everyone has a wonderful mother's day tomorrow!!

Day 4 of our Grand Adventure!

Up at 6:30 and off anchor by 7:30. Very cloudy and overcast day :(


Proof that the Captain does change diapers :) :O


Victoria chasing the love bugs. She could not figure out why she could not touch them - they were on the outside of the windows :) She kept leaning up to the glass and kissing them! totally freaking Danny out.


Huge fires over by Cape Canaveral! We pulled into Titusville to load up on diesel fuel :O. While fueling up, the kids and I hit the store. Danny had a really good ice cream while Victoria munched on cheez its. It has gotten really hot but luckily still breezy!


The Haulover Canal that connects the Indian River to Mosquito Lagoon. We had to travel really slow and there were lots of people fishing everywhere. I guess Friday's are a popular day off around here :) Mosquito Lagoon brought back lots of memories from our travel down on our sailboat. We hit bottom the whole way through back then!


This is a dredge we had to go around by New Smyrna Beach. The going was really slow and the waterway pretty shallow. We had been following a much larger motorboat till he missed a turn and went aground :( He then followed us for a while :)


Poor guy still does not feel well, he napped again today :(


the Kids were fascinated by Dan's impression of a turkey!

We anchored off Daytona Beach and relaxed! Pulled pork sandwhiches for dinner along with Dora! Nice showers again, popcorn and caillou in Danny's room and all asleep by 8:30!
We traveled 85 statute miles in 9 hours. We traveled from Eau Gallie to Daytona Beach.

Day 3 of our Grand Adventure!!

We were up at 5:30 and watched the sunrise. We could not go through the lock till 10:00 so we just hung around and chilled.


Yes this is how tired little missy was! She slept like this till I noticed and moved her feet back onto the seat. She slept through the whole locking process. She has not been sleeping well at night, it usually takes her a day or two to get used to the boat and so her naps have been really long. Too bad mommy and daddy are tired:(


Finally locking through at Port St. Lucie Locks. As you can see this lock lowered us by over 5 feet! That trickle of water is the height of the water outside the gate!
This time I remembered to take a picture of it!


This is our first glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean from our own boat since 1995 when we traveled the US Eastern Coast and ended up in SW Florida. This is the outlet to the ocean from the intercoastal waterway at St. Lucie Inlet.


Some nice property along the waterway in Fort Pierce.


Both kids passed out. Victoria actually napped almost 3 hours! Poor Danny is not feeling well and seems to have a fever and actually napped himself.

We anchored behind Dragon point. There used to be a huge green metal dragon on the corner named "Annie" but it got destroyed in a storm years ago. The winds were pretty fierce so Dan did not sleep so well :(
We had chicken and dumplings for dinner and took showers! It felt so good to be clean.

We traveled 89 statute miles in 8 hours. We traveled from St. Lucie to Eau Gallie.

Day 2 of our Grand Adventure!

Ready for a new day! We were up and off anchor at 8:00.


We got stuck at this railroad bridge because it was actually down for a train! You can see the train on the tracks up on the berm. Danny was just fascinated to see a train drive on the tracks over the water.


Danny decided he knows how to direct me to drive into the lock at Morehaven :)


Waving to the lockmaster at the Morehaven lock. We were the first boat of the day to lock through as it had been closed down because of the smoke and limited visibility from the fires all around the channel. We had hoped to see lots of alligators, but the smoke must be keeping them away.


Danny balancing on one of the boat bumpers. We had to leave them attached to the rails because we needed to put them out every time we went through a lock. He sat right outside the door to the salon so Victoria could watch his every move.


The fires were burning all over these spoil islands. The smell of smoke was overwhelming. We found ash all over the boat after going through this for almost two hours.


The channel out into Lake Okeechobee. This is the only area we touched bottom at all. We went slow the whole time. Where you see this tall grass used to all be underwater. The lake levels are so low it is incredible!


Danny lovingly doing his "chore" of helping his sister fall asleep. She slept for two hours just like this!


A look at Lake Okeechobee. There were NO boats at all on it anywhere. We were all byselves the whole way across. We were so nervous about the crossing but it went really well. Once into the lake we increased our speed till we were up on plane.


This is how Danny entertained himself during the Lake crossing and while Victoria was napping :)


Here we are entering and exiting the Port Myaca Lock. The levels in the lake and the waterway as so similar that this lock is now open and you just have to drive through.
Unfortunately we hit it just as some divers entered the chamber to do a fix so we actually had to wait an hour :(


This picture shows why so many people refer to the intercoastal waterway as the "ditch"


A little fixer upper just waiting for some loving :)


Waterfront property with a dock to nowhere! With the water levels as low as they are here what used to be waterfront is now beachfront or weedfront!


The kids were just facinated that the cows were right on the bank! We saw them in lots of places.


Everyone needed a little levity at this point :)

We knew we would not make the St. Lucie 3:00 opening since we got stuck at the Port Mayaca Lock so we anchored just north of the lock, had a wonderful pasta dinner in the cockpit and were all asleep by 9:00.
We traveled 63.5 statute miles in 9 hours. We traveled from Moorehaven to St. Lucie.