Our vacation from our vacation

Gosh, so much has happened I don’t even know where to begin…I guess from where we left off. We arrived in Beaufort and glided gracefully nicely into our slip; so we haven’t lost our touch with all of that anchoring. Lori and Chuck came all the way from Charlotte to Beaufort to lug us and all of our junk back to Charlotte. Thank goodness they came, because I don’t think we could have fit all of our stuff in any other vehicle than the van. We brought home lots of things we’ll need while we are home and we also brought home a bunch of stuff we decided we didn’t need on the boat anymore. They brought us to Charlotte and we spent a couple of days lying around with the dogs and watching the huge TV before the big Thanksgiving celebration. It was great spending Lori, Chuck, Cortney, Erin, and the whole crew at the Spencer house.

After Thanksgiving we came on home to the triad. We spent a night at the Whitings’ place, visiting with Christopher who is just getting cuter by the minute with his giggles and 2-tooth smiles…oh, John and Stef were there too. Stef fixed a fabulous dinner and we tortured them with endless pictures. Then we were off to Emily’s for a couple of nights where we hung out in the attic getting winter stuff ready for the visit to Austria. We ended up bringing even more stuff back to my parents’ house than the huge pile that we had already left there. We met the regular crowd for dinner to celebrate Nicol’s and Rosemarie’s birthdays; Robin and Jim made it to dinner as well, which was the best birthday surprise of all for Nicol.

Then I was off to work and Reinhart was off to Austria. He had a great flight and got to spend a couple of days with his family before heading off to ski. We’ve been emailing back and forth and it sounds like he and the guys are having a great time. Work has been a lot of fun for me. If you are ever wondering how long your vacation has to be for your job to become motivating again, it looks like 5 months off will do the trick. Of course it has been great to visit with everyone at work again and see what’s up, but I am actually enjoying the work I’m doing as well. Don’t worry about me getting second thoughts; it’s only a two week gig!

I had dinner at Giovanni’s one night with Lisa and the rest of the GSOC race team which was a lot of fun. I got to catch up with Nicol and Christy & Clay this weekend. Poor Clay, he got caught in the middle of our incessant girl talk. We thought we might have to take him by the hospital for an emergency testosterone shot, but he ended up being a real trooper. Next time we’ll make sure there’s a least one man around to fend off the fashion of-the-80s reminiscing; no man should have to sit through that! Sunday was John Christopher Scott Whiting’s christening. It was nice to be part of that very special occasion. Christopher was about as charming as he could be and I would swear he had two new teeth since last week. I hadn’t seen Hanna, Becca, and Harrison since we left in the summer and it was great to catch up with them and see what they were up to.

I’m just starting my last week of work…the one that comes right after my first week of work. There’s lots of shopping and researching to do before I head off to Austria, but at least I’ve got an epirb (emergency beacon) and some cruising guides on the way already. I may order a couple of sails before I head off as well. I’ll wait for Reinhart to help me decide which SSB receiver we’ll be buying and hope to have that ordered to come in before we head back down to the boat after Christmas. We’ve been procrastinating on so many of these things; I’m not sure it will all be ready to go for our trip.