Cheryl painting the cabinets

Big changes in our life: a total of 4 boat yard cruisers left the work yard for the marina (which isn't to far away and still in reach of a social life), 2 of them left the marina after a time to go SAILING!, we got a new wall at the work yard complete with a 'gate' currently made out of rope with plastic garbage bags tied to it - we had to get a pass for the truck and one of our friends couldn't get 'out' one night since it was 'closed' - gotta love Mexico, one of our boat neighbors left (for the marina) and we got a new one (very chatty and his wife HATES the boat he tells us alot) on the other side, the 'Grumpy Old Man' is back - luckily on the other side of our new chatty neighbor so the frequent expurlatives are muffled (luckily he isn't yelling at his wife, just the boat), our friends finally got back from the states from their holiday break with many things for us including cat litter ( not a moment to late - well yes actually- Hilo had pooped on our bed just the night before in protest to the shredded newspaper we were using instead - then I broke down and bought the very expensive Mexican cat litter before I found out they were back, said friends also brought down the much anticipated wireless card but our old computer isn't being cooperative so we are thinking about chucking our laptop into the marina - to bad it isn't heavy enough to be a mooring (though it IS much larger than everyone else's laptops we see at the wireless cafes), our hotel owner/friend's son passed away from a brain tumor he had been battling for a couple of years - we try to keep her distracted especially since her boyfriend is away until April, we saw our first Mexican movie all in Spanish but we enjoyed it none the less - it was filmed in Chile & Argentina - very beautiful, we finally got invited to the infamous Adali potluck dinners we had been hearing about - the Adali is a hotel that is owned by a world class chef - the flaming foil swans contained fish and shrimp in a yummy sauce, Scott got the crud (cold) that was floating around - he was only sick for 4 days but he did miss the Super Bowl ( we saw the whole game - the important parts anyway- the next day on the news- in 5 mins.), we discovered oil in our water tanks, saw the huge yacht that belonged to the helicopter that flew over our hotel - a rich Mexican owns it we heard - gather they left the next time we heard the helicopter- a week later, our hotel manager left suddenly and the new one was a American women who owns a house up the hill from the hotel ( a gated, very nice neighborhood) - she invited us to a party next week so I can't wait to see her house- she also is the first person in a long time to tell me a GOOD sailing story ( I gave everyone 10 last BAD ones before I started making other plans for my life - but we figure the BAD stories are just so much more interesting), we had our first and hopefully the last run in with the Mexican police - something about a guy trying to break into our truck while we were lounging on the beach - nothing was missing or broken seeing how he wasn't able to get in and we got another batch of mail complete with a couple of Christmas cards - thanks guys.

We celebrated 'St.' Valentines Day with another couple at a nice restaurant that actually had really good (American) food after a day of work on the boat. It was her birthday too.

The boat is moving along. I have most of the interior painted. I would have it finished had I not had to take a week to fix the part I was painting. That's how it goes. Scott is almost ready to paint the deck! He got inspired when we went to work one rainy day only to discover it was raining inside the boat too because we hadn't filled the holes that are waiting for hardware to be rebedded into them on the cabin top, yet. We had to place a gazillion cups and buckets around to catch the rainwater. I was hoping this wasn't his idea of a rainwater catch system (he said NO). We lit the stove on the boat - I stood by with a fan (to blow the thick black smoke [from the 2 foot flames] out of the boat) and a roll of paper towels for Scott to wipe all the soot off of my shiny new painted walls. Another time perhaps to figure it out.

We have big hopes of moving onto the boat March 12 (when our next month at the hotel is up) no matter where the boat is - in the water or not. Living in the work yard will inspire us to finish up more quickly we hope. Wish us luck.