A couple weekends ago one of my best friends, Emily, finally came to visit me. I say finally because in the last nine years I’ve visited her in Burlington, VT five times. Burlington is an awesome little town and I love going there so I’m not complaining, but it was nice for Emily to come to see me this time. And even better, she got to experience this different way of life I’m living now.

She arrived on a Thursday late in the morning and after lunch we spent the afternoon chilling in the cockpits of Airborne and Astraea enjoying the sunny weather. When Nate got home from work we showed Emily the not so romantic part of this lifestyle – pumping out. Nate’s getting really good at getting Astraea in and out of the slip and over to the pump out dock. He can do it all himself, but we gave Emily some lines and had her help. We drove out to Ocean Beach for dinner to go to Pizza Port, an award winning brewery restaurant. I think Nate and Emily enjoyed the beers, but I really loved the root beer they made there.

On Friday it was Nate’s turn to go to the airport. Our friend from Nate’s first ship in Japan, Jeff, happened to be visiting the same time as Emily. Luckily we have two boats! We had the girls on Airborne and the boys on Astraea (the construction zone with no windows). More on Jeff’s visit in a later post. Some pretty bad weather came in around lunchtime, so Emily and I spent the day holed up on Airborne watching movies as the boat rocked back and forth from the wind and the rain splattered on the decks. It continued to get worse throughout the day and I think that the weather that night was the worst we’ve had since living aboard. The wind howled all night and the boat was really yanking on the dock lines.

We survived the night and though the rain was gone by Saturday morning, the wind wasn’t. It was the day of our planned Baby Shower/BBQ, so instead of having it outside by the pool, we decided to play it safe and move it inside to the boater’s lounge and upstairs deck instead. My friend Amy did an amazing job planning the shower. I told her I wanted a laid back BBQ with just a little baby stuff thrown in since Nate and other guys would be there. We had burgers, hot dogs and chicken on the grill and a ton of yummy sides that everyone had brought. After eating we gathered in the lounge to play Pin the Sperm on the Egg and have a baby bottle beer-drinking contest. Emily got her sperm closest to the sweet spot on the egg, and Trent was the best baby around (besides baby Bella!) and drank his beer the fastest.

 

On Sunday, Emily and I drove out to Coronado while Nate and Jeff worked on some boat projects. Between the bad weather and the BBQ, we didn’t do any sightseeing in the previous three days, so I at least wanted to walk around at the beach for a bit while the sun was out. When we were done the guys had Airborne ready for an afternoon sail. Emily had never been sailing before and it was fun to watch her hang on nervously as the boat heeled over past 20 degrees.

Four days flew by way too fast! It was great to see you, Em!