Outside adventures

It has been a fun few days and I am only now just getting around to jotting it all down.  It all started Friday afternoon.  After a long week of work I was looking forward to spending some quality time with Carie and the nephews.  They made it to my house just after 6 and we sat down and had some french fries and chicken nuggets.....or in Elias' case, a little chicken nugget with his ketchup.  As dinner was drawing to a close the boys started to ask about watching a movie.  I thought it was still too light outside for that so we grabbed a frisbee and a bat and ball and walked down to the park.  I took the kids over to the play structure and Carie went to grab a treat from the icecream man who conveniently came around the corner just as we arrived at the park.  The boys had a fantastic time.  They climbed, slid, jumped, and ran all over the play structure.  Elias and I played some frisbee, he's pretty good for just shy of four years old.  Isaac laughed alot, played some baseball, and finally decided going down the slide would be ok.  It was so much fun watching the boys play.  Then we headed home back to my house.  We had some donut holes and then we put on the movie Cars and Carie and I got to visit.  After a little while I brought out my toy helicopter and the boys were pretty excited to see it flying around the living room.  I think I crashed it one too many times because now the whole copter spins endlessly to the right.  Something isn't quite right and I'm not sure if I can fix it.  The boys were pretty disappointed that it wouldn't fly anymore.  We finished the movie and they headed home.  It was a fantastic night.

Saturday morning early I got up and watered the garden, did some chores, and then made my way out to the Ikea in West Sacramento.  I met up with Kristi and Jeff so that we could carpool down to Richmond for a day sailing on the Aldebaran.  Along our way we stopped in Dixon to pick up Rosemary.  It was a fun trip down, getting to know everyone in the car.  We made it to the Brown's and gathered our things, stowed them below, and got ready to sove off.  Captain Brown took us out, and we had an amazing sailing trip around the bay.  We passed lots of other sailing ships.  We went out under the golden gate and were treated to some kite surfers showing off their skills.  We saw a coast guard ship leave the bay, it was big.  Then we headed back in under the gate and toured the city along the shoreline waving at the folks at pier 39 along the way.  It was a really unique way to view the city.  I'd never seen that view of the buildings before.  As we passed many piers I didn't even remember seeing before, we headed out under the bay bridge.  As we headed under the bridge we looked back and saw one of the biggest cargo ships ever coming in toward Oakland.  It was loaded to the hilt with cargo containers and looked like it should be sinking and not floating.  All I can say is wow to engineers who can build ships like that.  We looped around and went the other direction back under the new bay bridge, it looked like it might be a tight fit, but as we were under the new section, all was well.  We hit the open water running fast......the boat was well tipped to starboard, and we crashed through the waves.  At one point I stood and had to lean so far forward to keep from tipping over that I felt like I was leaning at a 45 degree or less angle.  It was intense.  I loved it.  We headed back to the port of Richmond.  We unloaded the people and then it was time to cover the sails, not such an easy task.  I left that part to the professionals.  I headed up to the Brown's home to await the scrumptious meal being prepared.  We had some pizza, salads, cookies, and pasta.  What a lovely way to conclude an afternoon adventure.

Fast forward to Monday and more outdoor fun.  It was FHE time and the group was coming to my house to offer some help in my desire to get some landscaping done in the backyard.  Marie, Laura and Nadia worked feverishly to remove the river rock (nothing against the rock which is very nice, I just prefer mulch).  I helped with some rock, then moved on to laying the weed barrier, and spreading the beautiful black bark.  It took the four of us only a couple of hours to finish quite a bit of the area.  If I'd had to do the work on my own, it would have taken 2-3 times as long.  I am so grateful for wonderful friends who were willing to spend their evening giving me a hand with my labors.  They are the best FHE group ever.