Cheryl's Notes:

Last week we made the long drive to Charlotte. We were able to meet Maddey at her gate and then made the long drive back to New Bern. We made a few stops along the way. We went to a AAA to pick up guidebooks of the Carolinas. We want Maddey to be able to look up some of the cool places that we can visit. We needed to grab lunch on the way back and introduced Maddey to Bojangles. It is the best fried chicken in the whole world. We also made a stop at a Kohls. The closest one here is 35 miles away.

Our routine has changed drastically. Our entire day now wraps around schoolwork. We found out right away that Maddey is not a self-motivated learner. We have had to explain that you cannot do your schoolwork and email friends at the same time. We are also having trouble with the wifi connection on her laptop. It has been really windy here the past few days, and it causes her signal to be unreliable. She tried to take a test online and got locked out. We are now taking her up to the recreation center to do her online tests. They have a computer room with cable direct computers. The connection is faster and more reliable. I admit that I am a math geek. I have taken over tutoring her in Algebra. We have gone back to the beginning of her lessons and reviewed all of the material through her mid-term. She is now a whiz at linear equations. We have even contacted the teacher to see if she could redo some of her assignments. I should have her ready to take her mid-term exam by Friday.

Since I have elected to tutor Algebra, John got stuck with English. The final units for English cover the book the Odyssey. The units are really on writing composition, so she will have to read the book and do some comparison writing on the characters. It has been good for John. It is a chance for him to reread one of the classics, plus it keeps him quiet reading while we are doing our math.

We are quickly learning what it means to live in a marina with fixed docks. You cannot stumble off the boat, half awake and head for the showers. Some mornings you have to step up onto the docks, and this past week we had to hang an extra step off the bow so that we can get down off the boat. Yesterday the water was just under the boards of the docking. We were wondering if we were going to have to get our sea boots out. Maddey doesn't have a pair, so we told her she would have to roll up her pants legs and go barefoot.

We are hoping for better weather this weekend. If Maddey can get her mid-term exams done, we are thinking of driving down to Oriental. It is a great little town on the Pamlico Sound. There is a sailing consignment shop there. We have a few things to unload, including our old delta anchor and a teak folding cockpit table. We are on the lookout for chips for our old chart plotter, and someone thought that the shop would be a good place to start.

John's Notes:

To say that the last week has been intense would be an understatement. We are adjusting to a completely different daily routine now that Maddey is with us. School days have left us in a daze. We are getting up earlier and keep going till late afternoon.

Home schooling is definitely a lot of work. Maddey is not a natural scholar so Cheryl and I have to be more involved with the process. Cheryl is a math whiz, so that really helps. As for me, well, lets just say that I am struggling with "The Odyssey." What was Homer thinking when he wrote that book? Actually, in classic terms, it's a poem. Walking over a road covered with tacks would be less painful. I don't think I had Greek mythology until I was a junior in high school. Cheryl is helping Maddey with algebra. I should really be the one helping with this subject. After all, I did take it twice. Still didn't get it.....................

We had the boat out over the weekend. The weather was beautiful. Just went for a little trip down river. Still hard getting used to being in such shallow water all the time. They say it takes awhile. I noticed that our knot meter doesn't work so I'm guessing that the impeller is clogged with barnacles or whatever. The boat next door has a diver coming tomorrow so I might have him take a look. Our docking maneuver, however, was just about flawless. We have adjusted our dock lines so that the springs bring the boat to a complete stop. We are now bow in though. This gives us the afternoon sun in the cockpit which is nice. Lots of people here have full cockpit enclosures. We are still thinking about that. Nice to have the additional living space when it is cold but the expense is pretty high. We don't need anymore stainless work but I know that Todd and Kitty Jones spent a bundle on their dodger/bimini/enclosure.

It has been raining off and on all week so I have not gotten any work done on the hull. There is always next week.

With all the rain and wind this week, the river has risen considerably. We thought yesterday that it might actually be over the dock. Getting on and off the boat is now a little more challenging.

Can hardly wait to watch TV again. Now that the election is over, we can go back to beer commercials. Never thought I would look forward to that. Oh, speaking of the election, if the people of Minnesota re-elected Michelle Bachman, well, you deserve what you get for the next two years. Politics are weird here in North Carolina. For instance, the governor and lieutenant governor run independent of each other. Not sure I ever lived in a state that was set up like that. It's one of those things that you had to be here to appreciate, but, if we hear one more ad for Walter Dalton we will puke.

Halloween wasn't what we thought it would be. We had great costumes thanks to Cheryl but there really wasn't a party. We just went out for pizza but we were the best dressed. On Saturday night there was a party here in the marina but it was sort of a private affair and we didn't go. Actually, we weren't invited. It was a crowd of regulars and we just haven't been here long enough to be part of the "in" crowd. A dock neighbor said that we should join them but we just didn't feel right about "crashing" the party. I'm sure that by this time next year we will feel right at home just like at Port.

Maddey's Notes

So my mom and I left Crosby, my home town, on the 27 of October. We got to my grandma's house at 10:00 at night, and I went to bed. Then I got up at 6:00 in the morning, central time, on the day of my departure. Of course I didn't have to get up at 6:00, because my plane left at 10:20 in the morning. I just stayed up the two hours though. We finally left at 9:20, got to the airport, got through security, got to the gate, and then we had to wait another twenty minutes because the plane had mechanical problems. Well at least the problems were on the ground and not in the air. So when they finally got the plane all fixed, I was the first one to board, because I was an unaccompanied minor. When we finally landed, it was 2:10 in the afternoon, eastern daylight time, and I was so happy to see my grandpa and my grandma Cheryl when I got off of the plane. It was a 5 hour ride in the car from Charlotte to here. When we finally got here it was really late, so much for my first day in North Carolina.

School has gone better for me here than it has at home. Grandma Cheryl was an accountant so she is my algebra teacher. That leaves grandpa to being my English teacher.

First I'm really happy that the elections are over! I mean HOLY CRAP every single commercial break had campaign commercials in it! I'm very happy that Obama won. I wish that I could've voted, I mean after all I am only 14.