catch up
It has been a while since we've posted what we've been up to, so we'll have to rewind all the way back to June....
Last year we left our boat in Grenada for hurricane season. There is soooo much work that goes into leaving a boat in the caribbean for the hottest, most humid, months of the year. Days and days of laundry, vacuum sealing, cleaning, purging, removing and storing the sails, packing, etc. After last summer I said I didn't want to ever do that again, but here we were. On the plus side it will be so nice going back to a very clean, very organized boat. It is amazing how much stuff you can accumulate in less than a year.
After days of blood, sweat and very sore muscles getting the boat ready for the summer we flew from Puerto Rico to Minnesota to start our summer.
Back in Minnesota we wasted no time... we brought Pancake home for the summer.
We did some house projects because after cleaning and purging the boat it was time to do some of that in the house too. We got rid of so much stuff... and it felt so good.
The one thing the girls really wanted to do this summer was get back into some activities - gymnastics for both, tennis for Olivia and volleyball for Emma.
We all are enjoying being in the land of plenty, with grocery stores full of just about anything you could want and homes with a bathtub.
We enjoyed some Minnesota summer activities with more to come - strawberry picking, fires on the deck and local festivals.
We celebrated three birthdays - Braden got Dairy Queen for the first time in a long time, Emma turned 11 and Olivia turned 8 1/2.
We got out on the water and did some kayaking and paddleboarding.
We got lots of honey from our bees for the first time in over a year. Fun fact for Austin - a worker honeybee produces 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime, which means it takes about 12 bees to produce 1 teaspoon of honey.
This was about 3,840 teaspoons of honey, which would take over 46,000 bees to produce.
We also tried some new things this summer... Braden and Emma entered a local rib competetion with our friend and came in 2nd place!
The girls tried out shooting and Olivia discovered she really likes archery.
Not pictured is all the time we've spent with friends, dentist and doctor appointments, a visit from my mom, pool time, trips to the zoo, bowling and so much more... with lots more to come before we head back to the boat in November.
