suck it Irene!

Not that there is ever a good time for a hurricane to come through, but this was a particularly bad time. My father's boat is still in the water, so clearly something needed to be done about that. However my father was not in a position to be able to take today off from work - but I was. So I burned a vacation day to go down the cape to take my father's boat from one harbor to another so it could be pulled and stored for a few days. Sounds easy enough, right?

In theory it was easy. But I also did a ton of work today. I drove to the cape, met my mother at the marina so we could leave a car there. We drove to the harbor where the boat is moored, and I rowed out to the boat, brought the boat back in from the morning (towing the rowboat), but the docks were full of people trying to get their boats out of the water at the public ramp. So I took someone's empty slip, and then rowed the rowboat back to the dock where it belongs. We took the boat to the marina where it was going to be pulled, took everything off the boat and carried it back up to the car. We drove back to where the mooring is so I could properly secure the rowboat. We went to my grandmother's house to take everything, all the outdoor furniture, tables, pool supplies, etc and put it in the garage. We went BACK to get the rowboat, and I rowed from the dock where it is kept, down to the bottom of our street. I pulled it out of the water, dragged it through the marsh, to where my mother was waiting for me with a dolly and we dragged the dolly back up the street to the house (we only had to stop about 5 times to rest - that thing was heavy!) Oh, and I went to Walmart to buy some food and water (no flashlight to be had!) and some more toys for Baby Girl since I think we will be stuck in the house for a few days! I also brought the 5 gallon gas tank up to be filled and then had to carry it back and forth between the car and the pump.

I am EXHAUSTED. This hurricane has kicked my ass and it hasn't even hit North Carolina yet.

And let's review: I own neither a house nor a boat.

I probably should admit that in the middle of the day my mother and I ended up at the yacht club for lunch and to sit on the beach and take a break. And what a break it was, I enjoyed that hour at the beach more than I did any beach trip all summer!!

And after it was all done, I drove back home and was met by my daughter who had a VERY stinky bum. Mama got home just in time to change a diaper! I have the best timing...

hot hot hot!

Ahhh, heat and humidity. How I miss you during those long cold winter months. How I loathe and despise you when you are here. I'm learning that I'm actually much more of a spring and fall girl than a summer girl.

Heat never bothered me when I was younger. I suppose that's due in large part to the fact that I sailed all summer long and there was usually a breeze out on the water on those hazy humid days. And if there wasn't... well cooling off was as far away as jumping off the boat. But now that I'm an adult and don't even live in a town near the water (don't worry South Shore - I'm coming back as soon as this housing market turns around. I fully expect to be there by the time my baby is in high school), the heat and humidity is tough.

Yesterday my baby girl turned one. Can someone please explain to me where that year went? Where did my little 6 pound, 13 ounce baby go? She's now 22.9 pounds. And she was 19 inches long when she was born. She's 29 inches now!!! How is it humanly possible to grow 10 inches in a single year?

Random aside - I got a pedicure today and every single woman there had a DD iced coffee except me. I had planned on getting mine after I was finished. As soon as I walked in, I clearly knew how wrong that decision was, but it was too late. I don't think I've ever wanted a DD iced coffee as much as I did during my pedicure. They should deliver!

Memorial Day

In honor of Memorial Day, go the the Pioneer Woman's blog, and click on her Photography tab. This week's challenge was "homecoming" and there are incredible (some happy; some heart wrenching) pictures of soldiers coming home. If you don't at least tear up, there is something seriously wrong with you.

What a weekend. We had much better weather than last year, so that was exciting. I actually made it to the beach yesterday! Of course working mother guilt set in after an hour and even though my baby was napping when I left, I immediately felt like a terrible person for not spending my non-work time with my child. But I don't need more than an hour in the sun anyway, my pale skin was not meant for long trips to the beach.

We took the baby on the boat for the first time on Sunday. At first it was going fine. She doesn't love the life jacket - and I can't really blame her, it's all up in her face and there's no way to fix it. But she was doing well and looking at everything around her. About 25 minutes into the trip, she lost it. She went from 0 to 100 in about .01 seconds. Huge temper tantrum and I couldn't get her to calm down without taking the life jacket off. Which I wasn't going to do while on the boat so all I could do was hold her and try to get to to calm down. We still had to go relatively slow on the way in, as we had another baby and a pregnant woman on board. But we made it, she calmed down after I got the life jacket off her and gave her a bottle. We'll try again in a few weeks. I don't think she will make it to the Vineyard this summer unless we go on the Island Queen, but she's still really young. I was happy she made it as long as she did. Andrew will be more than happy to stay home with her though, so I'm sure I will make it.

You can see how happy she was:

summer

What a whirlwind weekend.

It started out Friday night in town at Jen's apartment, which happens to have a perfect roof deck for Beirut.

me, Bree, and Val

Andrew and me

Ian and Bree

Then on early Saturday morning (like 6am early) we headed to Falmouth and just made it in time to join my parents on the boat. We were really lucky that we caught them, because it turned into one of the best boat days of the season. Even though the season is only a few weeks old, I can already tell we won't get many days like that. We headed over to Vineyard Haven for breakfast at the Dog and then when we were leaving the water was just perfect. So we took a right out of the harbor and went over to Edgartown.

Andrew, en route to Edgartown

Edgartown bank- I don't know why I love this building so much, but it's one of my favorite on the island. I think because it still looks like an old fashioned bank

This pink rose was blooming in a yard of one of the really really old mansions in Edgartown, relics of when the elite families on the island were old fishing and whaling families.

a flag flying on one of the aformentioned houses . Saturday happened to be flag day and the island was full of flags.
view of Edgartown Harbor from on top of Edgartown Lighthouse.

So Saturday was pretty fun. We had some G&T's at the yacht club and there was a wedding there - we saw the bride and groom roll up and get on a boat to go take pictures in the harbor!! I'm sure those pictures came out absolutely beautiful, but she is extremely lucky that the weather was perfect yesterday. The chance that the yacht club was going to be completely fogged in was really high. Good for her though, she gambled on the weather and she totally won. I wish I found out the name of her photographer so I could stalk the website and look at the pictures when they came out!

Sunday kind of sucked for a few reasons - but I happened to be standing in my grandmother's kitchen and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a fish swimming in the pool. That didn't make any sense, so I investigated and found this swimming in the pool!

I have no idea how the little guy got into the pool, but I got some really cool pictures of him. My cousin scooped him out of the pool and let him mosey on his way on the grass.

It was a pretty good weekend, though I still have not made it to the beach!