Hi all! We arrived back in Toronto a few weeks ago, after spending a few weeks in St. Pete, getting the boat ready to rest for a few months. We spent about a week redoing all the brightwork. Now there is a stressor on any marriage! But it's done now and the boat looks great. We also rented a climate-controlled storage unit to store all of our mold-able and mildew-able things on the boat, so there were lots of trips back and forth to storage. Thank goodness Nina's brother has a truck. That helped a lot! It was also nice to have the opportunity to visit with my family in St. Pete as well, which is always special. Memorial Day weekend was very memorable with a kayak trip of about 200 yards to see a band on a barge and walk around in waist deep water carrying around a beer for the afternoon with a group of friends! I also had a lovely afternoon with Mom with lunch and a tour at the new Dali Museum.

Most memorable of all though, was arriving at the airport with 4 very heavy bags. The weight limit is 50 lbs. or you pay a $50 overweight charge. One of our bags was 58 lbs. and the woman behind the counter said she couldn't let it go through as is, unless we paid the $50. So picture John opening several of the bags at the check-in counter counter floor reorganizing items to get below the limit. Of course as he was reorganizing, the line was growing longer and longer. Then, the worst happened: the zipper broke on one of the bags! The woman passed over a roll of packing tape and said to tape the heck out of it! We did, and John also got the zipper working again. Whew! Thankfully, his visual-spatial skills are excellent, and we only held the line up by a minute or two. At the time, though, it seemed far longer! I wonder how we appeared to others in the airport...like refugees from some third world country?

After living with so little on the boat, we realized how our lives back home are so filled with "stuff". As a result, we've spent quite a few days in the garage and in the basement "purging". We've even made $300 at our garage sale last Saturday! As I write, John is on his way to the dump to deliver his fourth load! And there is more to go: so far we have 12 bags and 2 boxes to be collected by Cerebral Palsy. Best of all, I really don't feel like shopping!

We look forward to seeing all of our Canadian friends now that we're back for the summer!