We had our first family come for a visit this last weekend. My brother Kris Jaenicke (KJ) and his wife, Ann Jaenicke (AJ). The picture is the 'morning after', the tray that held the goodies that they brought for us that we served in the cockpit along with cold drinks as we caught up.

I come from a small family, both my folks were only children so beside our grandparents it was just our family. My folks came to our hometown in Rockford IL to work in a family business with my paternal grandparents, Jaenicke Distributing, a wholesale liquor distributorship that represented Hiram Walker. To this day I still drink Ten High bourbon and have a liter in the liquor cabinet on Big Frisky as I type. My brothers all left after college and my folks relocated to California to be with my maternal grandparents when I was in college in Iowa. The upshot? No one lived in the same state since the early 80's. I went like 20 years without spending a major holiday with my family. To say we rarely got together as a family was an understatement.

These last 5 years have been different. We married off all of KJ and AJ's kids, laid to rest both of my parents and got married ourselves! Each time Kris and I get together it's like no time has passed at all. Pamela and AJ joke that we have many of the same mannerisms even though we don't see each other that often. I have to admit I catch myself talking and acting just like Kris or my father and it catches me by surprise. Its that crazy thing called family. We can't help it. It's our nature or nurture as the case may be.

I miss my Mom and Dad most of all as they were the crazy leaders of this group. They used to show up on Parents weekend at University of Iowa with more food than we could eat together and more beer than we could ever drink. AJ and KJ showed up with two bottles of wine, a six pack of some of my favorite Ohio microbrew, cheese and crackers, a case of water, a cheesecake, shrimp, LoCor (KJ's firm) schwag like coozies and a cooler bags and cigars. Sound familiar? I love my family.

We took them out sailing on Saturday to show off Big Frisky. The wind was perfect 15-20 kts and our girl romped through it with glee. We very rarely have been able to just go and sail and choose our point of sail to maximize fun and this was one of those days. It wasn't without some excitement as we ran out of gas in the middle of the busiest part of Sandusky's approach channel on a Saturday in July. We had powerboats, ferries, sailboats and jet skis all buzzing while I went below and switched the tanks and then got underway again. I have to hand it to AJ she was unaffected by the uncertainty. It did give them an idea of what our life now looks like and a story to tell.

I was so pleased they made time for us in their busy schedule. It was a rare opportunity for Kris to get to sail a boat like ours. I've heard from onlookers as many times as I've said it myself. She is a dream boat and we're just lucky it's our dream. He had about the same sailing resume as I growing up with our family butterly and sunfish. He fell in behind the wheel and tacked while I ran the sheets for the headsail. She was running hard between 7.5-8.5 kts on a beam reach. Fabulous. An introduction for when he can come back for passage down the road in our journey.

They treated us to dinner at Zinc , a nice surprise for Sandusky. We caught up at the boat afterwards over cheesecake, cigars and port wine. Just like old times.