Where to begin...

We now have the most beautiful floor EVER. We all love the floor. We can't stop admiring it and inviting people over to admire it. It is soooooo nice. Out of all the things we (being mostly Graham) have done to improve the boat, the floor makes the biggest impact to the beauty!

We didn't quite know how to go about making new floors but as with anything new sometimes you just gotta dive in! We checked into options for flooring and decided on buying plywood and teak & holly laminate to glue on top. It worked out really well but of course there was a bit of trial and error. We borrowed a saw to cut the plywood and had to find an area to do our cutting, which of course meant carrying wood back and forth. We traced each of our existing floor boards onto the new plywood and cut them out. Then we............NEVER MIND.....BORING......long story short....a few fights...more than a few swears.....LOADS of sweat.....unrelenting heat......many visitors while we plugged away.......late nights.......frustration....and then at last.......pride of accomplishment!

You guys have heard me say it but I am going to say it again.....Graham is amazing! He can now add "Make boat floors" to his list of things he can do, along with boss me around but that has been on the list for awhile :-)! It was a little strange to be his assistant on this project. Obviously he has more experience with construction and power tools, so there was no way I was taking the lead but I think I would of rathered work the jig saw than spread the contact cement! All totally worth it though.

The kids lives were not disrupted to much. They spent four nights away. They were more than happy to escape the chaos. They were thrilled to have Grampa Griff and Nana Cheryl here to spend time with and they also really enjoyed their time at Aries with Cheryl and Dave. When they were here, they were catching up on their homeschooling, swimming, buying ice cream, and playing with friends.

During the week we met so many new people it was unbelievable. I said to Graham that it is like we are in a movie and new characters keep entering. Most of the nights once we had everything cleaned up and were showered, happy hour began on deck and we had people over. One lady we met had the most amazing stories. She just arrived from South Africia. She single handed her boat most of the way from Australia, once her husband was emergency evacuated from their boat!!! He left in June and she has sailed all the way here since then. You can just imagine her stories and she looks like a granny!!! SERIOUSLY! She is the total opposite of me. Not emotional in the least. When I asked if she considered going back to the states and making sure her husband was ok after his strokes, she looked appalled. Why would she do that when she needed to get the boat moved? She said she had only talked to her hubby a couple of times since June. I guess after 45 years of marriage there wasn't much left to say?? She was 42 days at sea with only a couple of days break at day 12 on a small island. After she left Graham and I looked at each other and were like..."What the heck is stopping us from the world?"! It was inspiring.

Tomorrow Jason gets here and we begin a week of holidays. The kids will take a break from school work and Graham and I will take a break from boat work. We plan on .......HAVING FUN! Artemo and Mystic Journey will hopefully also see their first sail together. Stay tuned.

Missing you.....on our new floors in St Lucia

Julie