It’s Party Time!

Saturday finally came and we had a fabulous Bon Voyage party. We were thrilled with the turnout – it was great seeing everyone come by. We were only bummed we were not able to spend more time with everyone to catch up. Thanks to my good friend Sue Chenoweth, we have some pictures posted for you to see here. We are truly blessed to have such wonderful friends – and family! In a surprise move, Rene’s parents flew out from Wichita, Kansas for the day – yep, for the day – to visit & see the boat. It was a total shock to both of us. In fact, they both wore costumes to the party to try and conceal their identities as long as possible. Rene’s dad, Bill, wore a long white beard (think Santa Claus) and long, white hair with a stocking hat on top and was hobbling down the dock gangway with a cane and a severe limp. Mom, Sandy, was wearing a bright pink shirt and put on a long black wig, like a Cher wig. We were trying to keep one person up at the party, and one person on the boat and it was time to switch, so Rene was on the dock and Michael was trying to get off of the boat. The couple that Rene was talking to said “look at those two in costumes!” and when Rene looked, she thought it was someone else. But the more she looked, she realized – “Those are my parents!!”. It was great. Word quickly spread through the partygoers who those weird-o’s were and they were instantly welcomed.

We had lots of good food and drink. Nearly everyone brought something to compliment the catered food that was already here, special thanks to Rick for setting it all up for us. We had a keg of Heineken (no Coors Light for Rene….boohoo) and wine, sodas, & water. We started giving unofficial tours of the boat and everyone did a fabulous job of wearing shoes with non-marking soles or taking their shoes off. We were tickled that everyone who came through the boat said how beautiful it was and we both beamed, it’s been a tough couple of years getting it ready and we were proud of how she looked. Even Rene’s Christmas cactus decided to bloom a few days before the party and was displaying some beautiful, festive blooms. We had a sign-in book and gathered about 50 or so names & addresses so we can keep in touch.

We had people on the boat until approx 8pm and then started cleaning up a bit and opening the cool cards & gifts that we were given: CD-RW’s, water filters, laundry detergent, journal & pen, cookbooks, coffee, books, harness’, beading kit, Alaskan ulu and salad tongs, & cold hard cash, not to mention all of the wonderful food, wine, beer, & sweets. After checking out the goodies, we looked very forward to sleeping in our own bed! We were certain that we would get the sleep that we had craved the last couple weeks. But tonight wouldn’t be the night….we are temporarily docked at the commercial docks and there are BIG boats coming and going, picking up passengers at all hours of the night & dawn. And since those big boats and all their passengers weren’t using their library voices, we were up most of the night listening to all of the new noises – hahaha. We’re sure it’ll take a couple days until we get used to the boats moving in and out, at least Rene will get used to it. We spent Sunday morning with Rene’s folks – breakfast, pictures, & wandering the Farmer’s Market for goodies and once they left for the airport, we didn’t do a darn thing. Sat in the sunshine, read a bit, cleaned up a little more, and just generally took the rest of the day off to get some much-needed relaxation.

This week should be another quick week – we have the Generator guy coming on Monday, rigger coming on Wednesday, & some of the last-minute details to finish up. In fact, Rene’s horoscope said to prepare on Monday because the rest of the week would fly by too fast to blink, and Michael’s said he would have too many things to get done, and not enough time to do them all. That pretty much sums it up! I’ll get some pictures from the party up on the website as soon as I can get copies from those who took them and will try to update it soon. While we’re in this slip, we don’t have internet access, but can still receive e-mails. We’ll write more later….Rene & Michael