A Day Late and $5,674,987.47 Short

But since we are doing our "family Christmas" today, I'm not late.
However, I am still $5,674,987.47 short.

And It Never Rains In Southern California...

I never understood that song as a child.
Still don't.
Must be missing something.

Yes, California had seven days of straight rain.
Yes, we made national news... or so I was told by friends in Texas... not watching national news, I'll have to go along with what they told me.
Yes, we had mudslides.
Full rivers.
Full creeks.
Full streets.
Flooding.




And almost self launching boats.



I didn't mind the endless rain.
The wet cockpit.
The wet walls.
The wet floor.
The puddles.
Even the driving.

What I did mind?
The endless talking about it.
The discussions.
The amateur weathermen.
"The low is here.
It will bring in more rain."
No s##t.
It's rain folks.
Water.
It falls.
It stops.
Then it does it again.

Parade of Rain Drops Lights ~ 2010!

Well Ventura was due.
Seems for years Channel Islands Harbor has been on the receiving end of rain for their parade.
Been years since we had rain on our's...
And we got it.
Non-stop.
In fact it's been raining for close to four days straight.
And we are supposed to have two more days.
Then a break.
Then two more days.
Good thing we float.

Ahh... back to the parade.I have to give these people credit.
Out there in the rain.
Generators running.
2000 wire ties on the lifelines.

Two nights of guests.
Rain.
Lasagna.
Rain.
Eggplant parmesan.
Rain.
Empty wine bottles galore.
Rain.
Fireworks.






Great fireworks!
In the rain.

Happy Birthday Alan!

Well, we won't say how old he is.
Just that we surprised him and hoped we didn't give him a heart attack while doing so.

A complete look of confusion at the door.
A few minutes of disbelief.
And a little shock.

Then all smiles!

Friends, family, fun, food and a really late night!



I think we will just continue this birthday celebration on into that Costa Rica trip.
Alan's big birthday.
My big birthday.
Susan's something or other birthday.

"Napa is for Auto Parts, Paso is for Wine"

Or so the bumper stickers and t-shirts in the one Paso Winery stated.
We'll go for that, as we didn't really need any auto parts last weekend.
So Paso it was.
With Mike and Wendy of "Bodihattsva".
I have to do a google search on the spelling of that word every time I type it.
Really.
We'll call them "Bodi" for the weekend for short.

Mr. Bill came too.Our favorite times to go are holidays.
Halloween, with cool decorations.
And now Christmas, a new favorite time.

Mike not only drove the entire time...
He also carried our wine.The views were beautiful.
The brick reds of winter vines.The dark, deep purple of late harvest grapes.The gang.The hand holding dog at Penman Springs.The traditional pose with a pirate in Cayucos. The by-passing of the tavern.
The next day:
Geocaching. Harmony. Apple picking. Mud. Wineries. Dogs. Drive home.













It was all good!
The fun.
The laughter.
The cases of wine.
The friends.
The weekend...

Drive All Over SoCal & Eat Like a Pig... aka Thanksgiving

I think we set a record as to how many Thanksgiving meals we inhaled enjoyed over this four day weekend of eating.

First "The Wild Animal Thanksgiving".
Or "Brett Cleaned Out His Freezer".
Or "This Is Not Normal"...
Seriously, this was not normal.

We had lobster, elk, turkey, wild turkey (no, not the kind that comes in a bottle), ham, pheasant, duck, wild boar and about 27 side dishes.




The best part?
Besides the over the top feast?
The friends!
Brett, Terri and dog, Beau.
Melissa and Brock from our old C-Dock days!
And met Melissa's husband, Lee and baby, Ciena.






Awesome day.














Next day we hit a couple of wineries in between eating leftovers.





















Third day, Jim cooked his traditional (meaning no pheasant or wild boar) Thanksgiving on the boat.
Excellent!
Then off to a going away party for Ed on G-Dock who is after all these years of swearing he would, sailed off to La Paz.

Fourth day ~ family Thanksgiving with tri tip as we were turkeyed out.

Second Attempt at Surviving Winter Fall North of The Border

Frost warnings in November?
Several rain storms before Thanksgiving?
Running two heaters all night in the fall?
I have no idea how we are going to do this.
Yes, I know we live in "Sunny SoCal"...
Where it never rains (yeah, right).
It's sunny (yeah, right).
It's warm (yeah, right).
And the palm trees are happy all year.Be like the palm trees...

My Amazing Cousins...

Walking 60 miles in the rain!First of all, I stole this picture.
I'm not there.
I'm at home.
On the boat.
It's pouring rain in SoCal.
And my incredible cousin Julianne and her equally incredible daughter, Delaina are walking 60 miles in San Diego this weekend.
In honor of Julianne's mother, Carol Clark.
In honor of my sister, Donna Stapleton Carter.
And in honor of their friends.
I just made my donations!
Go JULIANNE!
Her link.
Go DELAINA!
Her link.

Mini Vacay in Carpinteria

An absolutely beautiful weekend in SoCal!
79 degrees outside.
Sun is shining.
Not too windy.
Islands look like you could swim to them.

So since Marvin flaked on getting his cabin ready for this weekend, we went to Plan B instead.
Plan B was to inundate Cherryl's brother's house in Carpinteria.
So we did.
And only 19.9 miles away!
Makes for a nice mini-vacay!



We biked around town.
Had a cocktail.
Made a few un-necessary purchases in a cool store with stuff from Bali.
Bill and Julie came to assist in the inundating.
BBQ'd steaks.
Steamed giant king crab legs.
Made a salad.
Had a glass of wine or four.
Baked potatoes.
Ate like pigs kings.
Thawed some chocolatey pie thing.
Told stories.
Stayed up too late.
Slept great in one of their three guest rooms.
Walked to breakfast today.
Walked around town.
Walked down the beach.
Exhausted from too much fun the night before...
Found a geocache.
Played with the chickens.
As well you can "play" with chickens...
Drove the 19.9 miles along the coast back home.
Saw dolphins in the waves.
Beautiful!
Just beautiful!

Week In Week Out

We had a GREAT dinner and time on Friday night celebrating Jim's birthday.
Excellent food and drink at Aloha.
Of course Cherryl knew our waitress...
But I knew the owner!

Our brand new computer's card reader croaked.
So there went the birthday pics...
In trying several times to load I went the alternate route of re-formatting the discs, thinking it might just be the camera.
So no birthday pics.
Alternate route No. 3 meant purchasing a card reader usb thingy.
The thingy works, so at least my camera was not the problem!

Last week the computers at work croaked.
Computer Croaking Virus.
Must be going around.

We really did have a great weekend!
Spent Saturday poking around a few stores.
Somehow ended up with new hiking boots and sunglasses for me.
Nothing for Jim.
It was his birthday weekend, wasn't it?

And went and said "hi" to all the dogs at the animal shelter.
And said "hola" to the 97 pit bulls behind bars...
Spay your dogs!

Uh what else?
Watched some movies.
Did some cleaning.
Tossed bags of crap away and piled up some things for the thrift stores.
I so want to lighten this boat up!

Last night I spent about a half an hour reading some of my old posts from two years ago.
You remember, La Paz Life?
I forgot I had so much fun...

It's Sunday night, then the next thing I know it's Thursday night.
Get up, go to work, come home, do a load of laundry, make dinner, wash dishes, go to bed.
Then it's a year later.
We seem to do a lot of things.
Take a lot of mini-vacays.
Have a lot of visitors.
Just nothing to post on a daily basis.
Week in.
Week out.
Did I invent those lazy, but interesting La Paz days?
Did they really happen?
Did I really have something to post on here so often?
Was it sheer boredom?
Or was I really finding something interesting each day?
Something beautiful.
Something funny.
Something to talk about.
Maybe it was just different.
Different than the get up, go to work, come home, do a load of laundry, make dinner, wash dishes, go to bed thing that we all working and living in the US seem to do.
Week in.
Week out.

Happy Barfday Birthday Jim!

Another 365 days gone by since the last one.
Good lord!
Must mean it's Jim's birthday!As Dave and Cherryl's birthdays were a week ago, the celebration tonight will be for the three of them.
Not me.
Ask me about the time we did their birthdays at Disneyland.
They hand out little "Happy Birthday" buttons with the birthday boys' and girls' names on them.
The ride operators are required to say "Happy Birthday you old schmuck" or whatever name the person at Disneyland Hotel decided to write on your button.
So all 832 rides we got on in those two days we heard:
"Happy Birthday Cherryl!"
"Happy Birthday Dave!"
Then a mutter of OMG...
"Happy Birthday Jim!"
Then a blank stare at me as they wondered where the hell my "Happy Birthday" button was.
Then we heard me say:
"Not my birthday".
About 832 times.

Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY WONDERFUL, HANDSOME, PATIENT, AWESOME FISHERMAN, INCREDIBLE SAILOR, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO CHARGE THE AIR CONDITIONING IN MY CAR, SWEET, KIND HUSBAND!
And his two side kicks!

This Is Not Our Boat

This is what was left behind by the other boat.
The boat that hit us.
Left it in the hole in our boat.I'm holding it for ransom.
You know, along the lines of...