As I sit today enjoying the warm sunshine, it seemed the perfect opportunity to settle in and do a much needed blog post.

This has been a crazy, busy year for us. Each running in different directions due to employment and making the most of our time together when we could. Darren was working out of town for six months so our lives suddenly became a schedule of week on and week off, trying to cram "life" into a week. It proved to be exhausting, both physically on Darren and mentally on me and not something we were truly enjoying. We reminded ourselves that life is just too darn short to not be enjoying our time here. With this and some creative planning, Darren has since started his own business utilizing his lifetime trade of 35 years working with Glass! We are both much happier with him being home, and besides that, his time away was seriously cutting into our sailing/pleasure time!

Since August, we made the most of our sailing weekends, until one weekend which abruptly came to a halt with a mechanical, thankfully while we were just outside the harbour. The problem was not obvious and had Darren scratching his head. He replaced all of our water system, both fresh water and sea water and eventually discovered it was our heat exchanger. With that repaired, we were in a hurry to get out and spend weekends aboard every chance we could to salvage the little bit we had left of summer!

It had been years since we had put up and played with our spinnaker, so the first "light" winds day we cut the lines and were off to play! It was so wonderful, and so colorful, I can hardly wait to have the opportunity to do it again!

Fall is now upon us, and the weather is spectacular! I am very thankful for the opportunities we had this summer to feed our passion, and hopeful for many more! We plan on doing more winter sailing this year and heading out for day sails, simply to play. It still amazes me how you can leave the dock for four hours, and it feels like it has been a few days! We return with fresh perspectives and happy hearts!

We have so many things to embrace and be thankful for! Family, friends, & good health are definite on the top of our list! Wishing all of you a wonderful Thanksgiving!

XX