Travel day. As a parent the days of doing a load of laundry at midnight, throwing the stuff from the dryer into a backpack, and leaving at five a.m. are over. Now our five a.m. wake-up requires days of planning that culminates the night before with a six p.m. bed time, performed so sneakily that neither of them even realizes it happening. Packing is a three day affair that requires a scale to weigh luggage; because fifty pounds of luggage is nowhere near enough per bag.

Randomly: I often wonder why you never see anybody drinking tomato juice during normal day-to-day life, but get on an airplane and suddenly half the population is knocking it back. “Would you like anything to drink?” Tomato juice, tomato juice, coke, tomato juice, water, tomato juice, diet coke, tomato juice. If all flights were grounded worldwide for a day you can bet that whoever makes V8 would be out of business.

The kids were amazing. We’ve seriously got the best traveling kids ever born. EVER I say. The stewardess commented to me on how quiet and independent Ouest is, and Lowe, well hell he even had the college guys behind us eating out of the palm of his hand. A businessman got up from his table at the Phoenix airport and came over to tell us what well behaved kids we have. Funny how much compliments from strangers can mean to us parents. Especially in the heat of a hectic day of travel. Ali and I sure wouldn’t have gotten any compliments on our behavior.

When we got back to the marina I went straight to the mall with the kids so Ali could get the boat somewhat together. Meaning get the kids’ beds made.

The boat was just as we left it. Eerily so. It’s strange to leave something floating on the water exposed to the elements for all that time and come back to find nothing changed. Seems like something should happen. But it never does, which is why we tend not to worry about it. People down here almost always hire someone to watch their boat while they’re away, and it seems like I’ve heard a lot more stories about that relationship going sour than I have about people experiencing problems if they had just left it alone.

The kids went right for the toy cabinet and started digging through the detritus that had been left behind. Ouest said hi to all the dolls that had stayed aboard in our absence. They were hungry. Then they went about playing up on deck. Straight into the car. It’s going to be a sad day for me when they outgrow that thing.

We had a canopy made for the front deck. Just a simple one to throw up for some shade during the day. It turned out even better than we’d hoped and is going to make a huge difference in our enjoyment aboard this season. Before, once the sun got high in the sky, the kids couldn’t go out on deck because it was so hot. Now we can go out there and play in the shade. Money well spent.

Ouest told the boat, “Me missed you boat. Me missed you.” Awwwwwww.