Join us in the adventures of our family, with our Belarussian Prince, Guatemalan Princessa and Ukrainian Princesses!


Tuesday, May 6, 2008

We are outta hereya!

We decided to head out on our big trip today, so we scooped Danny out of school at 1:15 pm and were on the boat by 1:45 and off the dock by 1:50!! We hope to be in Jacksonville by Saturday barring any unforseen circumstances. We will keep the boat at the naval marina. Can't believe that when we get back home next week we will only have TWO WEEKS till we move :O


Tied off to a dolpin outside the Franklin Lock. We thought it would take us longer to get there and had to wait 45 minutes for the 3:00 opening. This lock only opens twice a day so if we had missed the opening we would have had to wait till 10:00 the next morning.


Entering the Franklin Lock. This lock only raised us up about 1 foot. Danny was very excited to get to hold onto the line and help us! There are two other boats ahead of us.


The lock gate closing behind - goodbye Fort Myers!


Leaving the lock to head out on our great adventure!!


Taking a breather - all this excitement :) Poor thing had a horrible night last night because of her teething.


A fish trap off the side of the intercoastal round about Alva. The houses on the river were beautiful!


This is one of the really old bridges over the intercoastal. Once we called to request an opening we had to wait while the traffic was stopped and the bridge tender walked from her house to the center of the bridge, unlock the control box and then hand operate the mechanism.


This is a picture taken as we headed out of the Ortona Lock. I would have taken a picture while we were inside but I had a death grip on the stern line to keep the boat from moving too much. The water raised us 6 1/2 feet inside this lock!! It was incredible watching the other gate open up about 2 feet and having the water on the other side above our heads!!

We decided to not go all the way to Morehaven to anchor as the smoke from the fires around Lake Okeechobee made it miserable to breath. We stopped about 5 statute miles upriver and dropped anchor in the middle of the intercoastal.
All told we left our marina at 2:00 and dropped anchor at 6:30. We were all pretty tired so we just had pb & j sandwiches and all climbed into our bed and watched the sun set, the moon rise and the stars come out. Danny passed out at 8:00 and Victoria was soon after!
Dan & I sat in the cockpit and had a cold beer and relaxed!
We had a great breeze and opened up all the windows and fell asleep quickly!
Tomorrow is the big day as we finally cross Lake Okeechobee!! Please pray the water is deep enough and we don't do any damage to the boat! We are a bit nervous! :)
We traveled 41 statute miles in 7 hours. We traveled from North Fort Myers to Moorehaven.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Friday, May 2, 2008

Fav Foto Fri


Danny had a "Hurray for Pre-K" show at school today! The kids were just so darn cute!
This outfit was for the song "Old McDonald had a farm".

In this short video clip the kids are singing Happy Cinco De Mayo day!!


Today marks one year since Victoria was in our arms forever! It was one year ago today that Danny & I landed in Guatemala to get Victoria and wait out the rest of the adoption!!!

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Busy Busy!!

We had a great weekend - headed off to the boat to enjoy ourselves and get away from the house and the boxes!


Sunday AM - in Danny's room on the boat!


Sunrise over the Caloosahatchee River! We will so miss this!

Yesterday we got the go ahead from our realtor that the bank has approved the loan, so the appraisal was ok!!
The buyers are already working on insurance too!
I went and booked the moving truck, the moving helpers on both ends and booked our storage unit. Today I called to set up final readings on our utilities. Dan spent quite a bit of time cleaning out his workshop and boxing up lots of things. I cleaned out two closets and went through DVD's and VHS's. Hard to pack too much as we still have a month to go and have to live :)
We leave next Wednesday to bring the boat up to Jacksonville and we are so excited about about the trip across the Okechobee waterway. We have to go through several locks and hope to be up in Jax for mother's day. We have talked to several employees at the marina and they are just wonderful!
Dan spent this morning with the mechanic working on the engines and it turns out they need to be flushed with some chemical, they are really gunked up. The coolers are completely plugged!
Not to mention the fact that our holding tank is plugged and won't empty. You really don't want to know how we know that! :( Let's just say Danny was Thrilled! to be able to pee in a bucket all weekend :) aahhh boys ;)


The proof! He will kill me someday :)
So once we get back from Jax we have TWO WEEKS till we close!! YEOW!!

Friday, April 25, 2008

Fav Foto Fri


woo hoo!!
May not seem like much to anyone else - but she has FINALLY accepted two different sippy cups!!!! Each day she has drank more and more. We are down to bottles only at wake up, naptime and bedtime. Hopefully in the next week or so we will weed out the naptime one, then I will work on the wake up one and lastly the bedtime one!!
Hopefully we will "lose" all bottles in the move in one month!!

Wednesday, April 23, 2008