Sailing

Its Christmas Eve and as exciting as tomorrow promises to be the thing that Ruby and Olive claim to be most excited about is the sailing trip. That’s right, when given the choice between presents or sailing Ruby said she was more excited about sailing. In preparation, Victoria and I are frantically working down the todo list. Here’s what the next few days look like Our good friends Sarah and Ricky are stopping by for a lightning visit this afternoon. Tonight we make our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. This year we’re adding Peppermint Molten Chocolate Cakes to the feast. After dinner we’ll do a video chat with Papa Verne and Gramora where Papa V. will read “The Night Before Christmas” (another family tradition.) After the kids fall asleep we’ll pack everything up for the trip, put out the presents, and hopefully get to bed early. In addition to the expected Christmas morning hullabaloo we will be preparing to leave (at noon? really?), and video chatting with the Logans. We’ll drive down to LA and spend the night there. Early on the 26th we will drive over to the marina where Vick will drop me off to do the check-in. She’ll head over to WF in Santa Monica to provision and we’ll hopefully be on the water by 11am. I’ve been told that the sail is ~7hrs to Two Harbors so we’ll be racing against the clock to get to the mooring before dark. ...

We’ve really needed a relaxing family vacation for a while, and with time counting down to the big trip, we also need to make sure that the family is up for extended sailing. Last night, after weeks of thinking about these two items individually a plan popped into my head that married both of these concerns into a harmonic union. This morning I asked Ruby if she would like to go sailing for the week after Christmas. She asked a bunch of probing questions – “Can I bring my dolls?” and “What will we do about pirates” – and when she was satisfied with the answers, wholeheartedly supported the plan. ...

After days of contemplation and discussion, I believe that Ruby has finally solved the pirate problem, for everyone. Ruby: I know, lets make a flag with a cake on it. I’ll make my favorite cake (chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles and flowers on top) and we’ll put the flag up. Then the pirates will know that we have cake and they can come over and eat it. Then they will like us and won’t eat us or take our boat. ...