August Sailing

We spent the month of August sailing. After circumnavigating Vancouver Island two summers in a row we were ready for a mellow trip so we spent the month in the San Juan and the lower Gulf Islands. Here are the highlights.

1. Before leaving Ballard for the last time ever (oooooh, do I sense foreshadowing here?) we bought four marine-grade folding bikes. These little babies are so wicked fun I can’t even tell you. We devised a plan for Isaac to row three bikes into shore in our dinghy Rosebud and Jason would put the last one into BlackBerry, our double kayak. The plan worked like a charm. We had so much fun peddling around the Islands. Our range of exploration was radically expanded and fun level was amped up exponentially.
2. We met my cousin and her husband in the San Juans and sailed a few days together before watching the total eclipse of the sun on Young Hill just out of Garrison Bay. Thank you so much for meeting us. We can’t wait to meet up again this summer!
3. We tucked Marinero away in her new slip on Orcas Island. I will keep the details of our first docking experience into her new slip in high winds to myself for now. Maybe later I will write a post about all of the docking experiences we want to forget :).

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Beartooths

Since I am so dreadfully behind the next couple of posts are going to be mostly just photos to quickly bring us up to speed.

In July we spent a lovely long weekend in the Beartooth Mountains, one of our favorite places on earth :).

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The Swedes!

Growing up, I had always known I had long-lost relatives left in Sweden. My mom had told me all about the family farm where my great grandmother had grown up. We had lost track of each other through time and had no contact with them. It had been a life long dream of mine to one day meet my Swedish relatives and visit the family farm. In December of 2013 my dream came true and our two branches of family, who had separated three generations ago, came back together again. I am so thankful we have been reunited. Time has gotten away from me in the blogging world, so I feel sheepish to say that in July of last year a portion of my Swedish relatives came to Montana to visit us and finally meet my mom. For me, it was another dream come true to be able to reunite my mom with our Swedish relatives. We spent three days together, packed full of love, family stories and fun. It is true that blood runs thicker than water. Thank you to Beret, Bodil, Törsten and Gösta for making the trek to meet us. It was a treat to share a little slice of our life with you.

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