Happy Birthday Michael! 8.23.09

Yep, that's right - another year older! (Something I will never stop reminding him of!! haha...) We worked the morning and had been (conveniently!) invited to a BBQ with some friends from the docks in the afternoon. There were about 20 or so people there and we all enjoyed kicking back and taking in the beautiful view from the deck of the waterfront house. The rain stopped and there was sun peeking through the clouds.



After a nice dinner of Sausage links and all the fixin's we brought out a cheesecake topped with Happy Birthday candles and sang (twice) to the birthday boy. It was a fun evening!



And here's another 'small world' story for you... When Michael and I first arrived in Mazatlan, Mexico in early 2008, Michael needed to fly to California to take care of some business. The airport in Mazatlan is very far from the marina and is a very expensive taxi ride so many of the cruisers will 'share' a taxi to get there. Michael announced on the radio he was going to the airport and if anyone wanted to share a taxi to give him a call. One of the other cruisers came on and said he had a rental car and would gladly give him a ride to the airport - sweet! So then, over a year and a half later...while we're up here in Ketchikan, we get an e-mail from some dear friends of ours who are working in Canada. They have a dear friend on a boat heading our way who needs to leave his boat for a couple weeks and wants someone to look after it while they're away. Would we mind? Absolutely not. We told them where we were and how to get in touch with us. So they arrive, M/V Maestra, and we go over to introduce ourselves. Michael keeps looking at John, and him back and they finally say, 'You look so familiar, I just can't put my finger on it!' After a few minutes of the 'where you here?', 'did you stay here?', they both remember...it was that taxi ride over a year and a half ago! I guess what comes around really goes around! Now we're meeting in Ketchikan, AK...a million miles (or so it seems) away from that first meeting in Mazatlan Mexico. :-)



Aren't the sunsets here stunning??





Rene

Newest family member 8.19.09

Introducing our newest family member! Michael's grandson - Nolan Scott Jacobs. Born on August 7th, weighing in at 7lbs, 5oz and 19 inches! He's a cutie! Congrats to Brandon & Alex Jacobs...Michael is a very proud grandpa! More photos of Nolan are located here...

Bears, bears, bears! 8.16.09

We spent a couple hours down at Herring Cove watching out for some bears and were pleasantly suprised to see not one, not too, but three separate shows!

Our first bear I like to call the 'catch and release' bear as he put on quite a show for us by catching salmon in the water...and then letting them go! Here's a couple pics...

Here he's running for one of them...



Splish, Splash!



Got one!



But he lets it go...



Then we had a 2nd bear come right up beside us, only about 40' or so from where we were standing!



And finally, just as we were leaving, a sow with 2 cubs, which were SO cute!!



I took a hundred photos, literally, and uploaded a bunch of them to the photo album if you want to view them! They're in the Alaska photo album here...

Blueberry Arts Festival 8.2.09

We love being in such a small town. There are always places to go, people to meet and festivals to enjoy! This past weekend was the Annual Blueberry Arts Festival. It started out on Friday afternoon with the Pet & Doll Parade down Main street.



Both the dolls and the pets were well represented, even if it was 2:00 in the afternoon on a Friday! The kids were enjoying walking down the street pushing their strollers while the dogs dragged their owners along!



The entire weekend we saw plenty of people in the spirit; those wearing blue, drinking blue drinks, and even those who dyed their hair blue!



It even worked for the pets – these poor fellas were blue too.



I’m trying out my new camera that my Mom & Dad so graciously sent me after I complained about my little point & shoot! Of course, I have to learn how to operate it as I’ve managed to mess up lots of photos I’ve taken this past week. Oh well! :-)

There were the ‘usual’ events that almost every festival has – a Fun Run/Walk, Arts Festival with lots of booths for artists, food, game booths, face painting, etc. But then there were some unique events too – like the Big Slug Contest, Slug race, Pie-eating contest, Spelling Bee, Trivia Contest, and the famous Blueberry ball roll!



And don’t forget the Beer Festival. Square Dancing, and Gigglefeet Dance Festival in the evening! Everything blueberry you could imagine was available – blueberry pies, funnel cakes, shakes, balloons, hats – it was all here!

Written up in the local paper, on the front page was: “Slugs aren’t known as speedy critters, but even by gastropod standards, some of the athletes in Saturday’s slug races could well hold the record for the slowest invertebrates in Blueberry Arts Festival history. Three circular tabletop tracks were used for the preliminary races at the Methodist Church parking lot, with the winner from each competing in the final round. Tables one & three finished up quickly, with a dark brown European taking table one by an antennae over a pretty green-mottled banana slug; and a white banana slug easily taking table three. Table two, though, had a slew of sessile slugs. Fifteen minutes after the ‘race’ began, none had made it out of the center ring. Race official Boyd Porter, a state Fish & Game biologist when he’s not wrangling slugs, misted the table with water, but the contestants remained sluggish. He then brought out a large sheet of paper to give the competitors some cooling shade. The shade appeared to inspire a couple of slugs, who – still rather reluctant – started moving. About a half hour after the race began, a broun European finally crossed the outer ring, giving table two winner an overall speed of about 2 feet per hour.”

Too funny! The celebration was great. I picked up a cold earlier in the week that had me pretty down & out (I even took 4 days off of work – wow!) but I made it out on Saturday for a couple hours. I believe most of the town was there for the festival on Saturday and there were probably 100 or more booths during the Festival. Great fun…



That evening we went to a friends’ birthday party, Kanoe Zantua, a local author who works at Potlach park, a spot we frequent with the Hummer tours. Many folks in attendance were drivers who frequent the park but we don’t get to meet them so it was nice to have an evening of conversation with new friends. Amazingly, we also met a couple, Kat & Dave, who also spend their winters in Mexico, though not on a sailboat. We enjoyed swapping stories about spending time in Mexico and we realized we are beginning to get homesick! We miss the boat! We are over the ½ way mark of our working summer, with only about 45 more days to go! How time flies…

We have certainly been working lately, barely getting time off for laundry! But that’s what we came up here for so we’re not complaining at all, well, maybe a little! On our days off we do all of the errands, laundry, and jarring that we can! Jelly & Jams, we’ve been busy! We made a batch of huckleberry and blueberry jam, have been jarring fresh salmon that we receive from friends, commercial fishermen, and what we have caught. We are so spoiled!