Third time a charm?

Well last Saturday we took the boat out, to try to calibrate the auto pilot again. It failed again. That was the third time we have tried to make the darn thing work, maybe next time. When we were out the fog rolled in, so bad that you couldn't hardly see across the boat. It was a good work out getting back to our marina, there was a lot of boats out and about for the Christmas Parade so we had lots of traffic to deal with. Good thing that our GPS works and that I am use to "flying blind."  Jen tried to steer for a little while but she couldn't keep her bearings, so she stuck to being scout instead.

Sat. night we went to the Kemah boardwalk for the Christmas Parade (still foggy) there was suppose to be over 120 boats, but only about 30 or 40 showed up. There were a few really neat ones. One guy turned his sailboat into a huge Snowman. Looked like tons of work. (The phone's camera doesn't do it justice.)

Had our steak/date night on Wed. Didn't stay long, just long enough to grill a couple of steaks, and say hi to everyone. Other than that it's working on the boat everyday. I've been going over the electrical system making sure all the electrons are going where they are suppose to. Which takes more time thinking about it than actually working on it.

Till next time Ryan, Jen, Sissy

Quoted

All who wander are not lost.

Work, Work, Work

I installed a new wind generator the other day, and as far as I can tell it's going to work pretty good. We already have three solar panels. We unplugged the shore power and went 30 hours, living normally, (running the microwave, vacuumed the whole boat, used both PC's, we even watched a movie on the projector.) and our battery bank was only down 2 volts. But we had to turn the shore power back on to run the heaters. All in all I'm pretty pleased with it. Although not quite self suffient on power. Guess I'll have to come up with something else. (I need more power Scotty!)

Almost done remodeling the starboard stateroom, and I am pleased with the way it's turning out, Lots of storage, and the room seems bigger. I'll be glad when it's done, it's been a bigger project than I thought.

We haven't done anything exciting lately, it's been too cold for us. We did go to the Turtle club last Wedenesday for Date night and ended up staying until they closed. Oops. But we did make a new friend so it should count for something.

Hope you all are staying warm.

Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving weekend

Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, and had lots of Turkey. We sure did.

We left our boat Wednesday and stayed at the Hotel Grenzebach in OKC. (Thanks again!)

We got up early and took off to eat turkey with the Wells family. It was great catching up with everyone and updating them on our plans. Thanks Bobbi and Graham for having us and feeding us, It was great. Then after we couldn't possibly eat another bite we took off to Woodward to eat with Jen's family (which we were late getting there, Sorry guys!) but they all waited around for us and even left a lot of food for us.

Needless to say we ate way too much hitting two Thanksgivings in one day!!

Friday Night.

Jen and her Mom spent the day shopping for wedding stuff while Tyson and I did Man Stuff all day. Then later in the evening we decided to have a night out on the town with Tyson & Connie. We started out going to the Piano Bar which is my favorite and ended up having one of those funny unforgettable nights that I can't talk about. But I will say we had a blast.

Gonna miss you guys when we are gone.

Saturday Morning

We woke up early and had breakfast at the orange juice restaurant. Then Jen, Connie and her Mom wanted to do a little more shopping. And since Tyson, the boys, and I weren't doing anything we decided to go with them. (We were in the same vehicle.) Anyway we were in GardenRidge on Black Saturday (pretty crowded) and Tyson's youngest thinks it will be funny to pants me, right there in the middle of the busy store, well the joke was on him (and me) because when he pulled on my shorts they dropped to my knees and I wasn't wearing any underwear under there. So the poor kid got a face full of my hairy butt and we were both pretty surprised. (I heard him telling Jen later that he sure learned his lesson and he didn't think he would do that anymore.) Lucky for all of you! Although I don't think I was near as embarrassed as he was surprised.

I knew you would get a kick out of that, everyone else did!

Well until next time...

There is a long list of stuff to do before the wedding and not near enough time.

It's been awhile.

Wow Time flies when your having fun!
We have done so much since the last time that we wrote that I don't think that I can get everything in, but here goes....
We (I mean Ryan) spent a full week in the engine room working on the fuel system and fixing problems. Then we decided to take the boat on a trip for a better test run. After talking it over on the dock we came up with a destination and a plan.
So we packed supplies and threw off our lines. We begin the trip with autopilot calibrations (since the last trip was unsuccessful) and after a few circles and about an hour of s turns we got the job done. (Finally!) So we set our heading toward Galveston. We pull into Offats Bayou about sunset and anchor for the night. The next morning we get up early and begin the trip to Freeport (Texas not Bahamas). We make it about a mile when again we have engine problems. So we end up dropping anchor right in the middle of the channel while Ryan tries again to figure out the problem. After about an hour he gets one engine running reliablly and the other intermittently. So we continue the trek to Freeport via the Intercoastal Waterway. We ran aground twice and couldn't get the wind in our favor to sail so we had to motor the whole way. Did I mention that we also ran out of fuel in the day tank? Well apparently had we been in the engine room while transfering fuel we would have realized that the main line to the day tank had split and was dumping fuel into the bilge instead of the tank. Soo we had to clean fuel out of the bilge and try to 'patch' the fuel line until we could get to shore. Finally after a long and stressful day we are close to Freeport when we get a call "The dock is going to be tight but you can make it. My boat does." Well Robert tight is a bit of an understatement it was down right snug. We were about to turn around when Travis hollers "You can make it! Just back right in here." Well believe it or not. That is exactly what Ryan did. He parallel parked the boat into a space that had it been that close in a car I would have drove around the block. He literally had 6 inches in the back and 2 foot in the front. It was impressive. So after we were safely docked we broke out the booze and Ryan gave tours of the boat to everyone within a five mile range. Travis was extremely nice and offered to take Ryan to town the next day in order to get another line for the fuel tank and gave him some pads to help get the fuel out of the bilge. The next day we got up late and puttered around the boat for awhile, picking up things that had fallen or that had been put away during the trip. Ryan invited Travis for dinner and we met Joyce, Tim, and Linda. We had a nice evening. Unfortantely the next morning we received bad news and had to head back to Oklahoma. So we quickly got the boat ready for sail and headed out to the ocean. (No more intercoastal for us) After a solid 17 hours of motoring and a 2 hour bout of rough seas we made it back to our dock with the sunrise. We slept until noon and then went and saw my grandparents before heading out to Oklahoma. We spent the night at Hotel Grenzebach and caught up with Tyson and Connie. It was nice, we have really missed them. Then we headed to Perkins and Stillwater. We spent monday night at Hotel Clinesmith and caught up with Trent and Rachel. It has been forever since we have seen them and it was really great visiting. Tuesday was the funeral and we spent the day with friends and family. The occasion was not the best but seeing everyone was really nice. Ryan really enjoyed talking to people that he hadn't seen in years, and I finally got to put some faces to a bunch of the names that I have been hearing about. Another night at Hotel Grenezbach and then back to Houston. We got home just in time to spend a nice weekend with Janice and Ray all to ourselves, and then fix a waterleak in the front head and then back to Oklahoma. Tuesday Papa was finished with all his radiation treatments and free to go home. So we packed up their stuff and drove them back to Oklahoma City. Since Oklahoma was cold and it was still early we decided to drive back home and sleep in our own beds.

And somewhere in the mix of all that.
* My computer developed a serious problem and is in the shop. So I am sorry for the slow responses to emails and the long gap in between blogs, but Ryan and I have to share a computer. I know it's torture!
* I have been trying to make wedding plans. (January 10, 2010 on the boat)
* Ryan has been working on the boat.
* We got the stencil for changing the boat name. (Another chore to be done.)
* Went to the Turtle Club and made a new friend.
* And drove over 2,000 miles on land and 150 miles on water.
Whew, I think I need a nap!
Well I think that about catches you up on the happenings here.
Hope all is well with you.
Jen, Ryan, and the brats