7. Jacksonville, Farewell For Now

    Pulling away from Jax with the last load of "must haves".

We aren't headed to the islands just yet but it’s all good!  

We’ve had an amazing last week in Jacksonville.  The girls both got to take their favorite dance classes and they were lucky enough to have lots of friend time.

    Why can't I just get a sweet smile?!

    Paige missed seeing one of her besties who was away at a cheer comp - love you, Olivia

Andrew & I had a red letter week!  It started the morning after we arrived with a phone call from St. Brennan's Isle (our mail service) that our Coast Guard Reinstatement of Documentation had arrived after only 6 days when they told us they had a 6 month backlog!  

The sewing of the sail was long and tedious but we got it done.  It wasn't particularly difficult, just a pain to wrestle with as it got bigger and bigger.  

    I get this close to the end of the last long interior stitch and run out of bobbin!

Now to attach all the hardware and see if she flies.  

One of the main reasons for our return was to liquidate most of Andrew’s tools and shop stuff which I thought would take all weekend, many Craigslist ads, and moving it a few items at a time.  We were lucky enough to have a one-check buyer come in early in the week and take it all, so that took that off our plate!  (Don't mention it to Andrew yet, it still a bit painful to see it all go)  Everything else had been listed previously with no interest but we were able to find a happy home for our remaining kite surfing gear that wouldn’t fit on the boat, extra parts we never installed, even an old flatbed truck that had been sitting in the driveway for 5 years. 

    Bye Big Red.

It was exactly what we needed!  And if that wasn't enough, we got a 2 year tenant on one of our properties that I had just listed while the current tenant is still in it!  AMAZING!  It seemed all the loose ends were coming together in perfect timing, we are truly blessed.  

So with all that going on, the week flew by.  Now we are all packed in and returning to our Abby in south FL.

    

    Too much stuff!

Things learned this week:

It is hard to downsize!  The struggle is real.  We are constantly torn between patting ourselves on the back with how little we are living with and complaining about where we will store all the crap we are bringing on board.  I’ll argue with Andrew about why he needs another screw driver but if it is my vacuum sealer, there is plenty of room :)

Even really excitingly awesome change is difficult sometimes.  I am surprisingly emotional as I walk through my house for presumably the last time for quite a while.  The beds all have sheets over them to keep the dust off, cabinets & shelves are empty, refrigerator cleaned out, trash emptied.  We are ready.  As I walk down the hall with all my favorite pictures up, where I stop at least once daily to admire my babies and have a moment of thankfulness, 

it seems to hit me hard that we are really doing it.  We are really leaving, everything is changing.  We are so excited, we've waited for this moment for years.  But I’d be lying if I said I haven't shed a few tears and Andrew woke up from a dream that the boat sank at the dock last night so I guess we are both manifesting in different ways.  But nothing could keep us from this adventure.  And when the girls can’t wait to get back to the boat, it just confirms we are doing the right thing for our family.

The lists of things to complete is getting shorter and shorter.  We’ll see what we can get done this week.

    Our wall of "to do"s at our home, luckily most items moved into the completed column.

A quick update on our friends from the last blog:  

After many hard days of mourning for the lose of their dog and an amazing, heartfelt tribute from Matt about how empty their boat felt without Goose, they decided to search for their next “baby”.

Sometimes one just isn't enough!  

    Meet Oyster & Pearl.  

Their cuteness is making it really hard for my girls to want to leave this marina :)

8. Work Hard, Play Hard