Thanksgiving 2013

We spent Thanksgiving 2013 in San Jose because Jim was crabbing and couldn't take the time off to go to the cabin.

The grandparents, Pat and Dave and Zena were our guests.

We started with a huge crab appetizer and then moved on to a traditional turkey dinner.

We ate on my great Aunt Loretta's turkey dishes which was a great tradition to carry on.

Grace made the artsy fartsy centerpiece.

Day Before Thanksgiving

Offloading the crab

We took a trip to HMB to see Jim at his "office".  We watched the crab get offloaded, then hung out around the boat for a little while.

Then we had the most delicious lunch at the Moss Beach Distillery.

Lifting it up

Dumping in big bins

Offloading station

Moving to their dock

Mom and Aunt Pat

Grace in the crow's nest

Grace and Uncle Dave

ST Park Hike - Day before Thanksgiving

Grace and I took a hike at ST Park the morning before Thanksgiving to place our Stache Cache Geocache.  Cindy, Bug, Renee and K joined us.  Plus all the dogs.

It was a beautiful day with the temp about 68 degrees at 11 am!

Took a break to sit in a tree

Found this cache in a fake rock!

The whole crew

Found this huge nasty spider!

Here is where we placed our cache

And here is what was in our cache.

Henna

Aunt Pat

Grace and I did our first henna this weekend.  Actually, Amanda did it.  We got the kit and got all ready to do the application ourselves and then called Amanda - the artsy one - to do it for us.

I love henna because its like a tattoo that goes away in a couple weeks.

This is who got the henna tattoos:

• Aunt Pat
• Me
• Grace
• Amanda 
• Jim

Grace did a beautiful flower on Jim's hand which had the other fisherman taking second looks!

Syd

This is my Aunt Pat and Uncle Dave's dog, Sydney.  She is a jail house dog!  She was trained by an inmate and then Pat and Dave adopted her.  Here she is taking a nap with "Flat Stanley".   Unfortunately, she lives in Kentucky so I have not had a chance to meet her in person - but I am sure we would be good friends!

Seriously?

Why have I been at the center of such drama lately - gas tank vandalism, dead guy on the bus....

Today while I was getting my scrambled eggs with tomatoes, mushrooms and spinach at the cafeteria at work, the burner that they use to make vegetarian eggs caught fire!  And I mean it was on FIRE - with flames two feet high!  It looked like the bottle of fuel was leaking and releasing tons of fuel.

The guys put it on the ground (it had been on a counter), poured salt on it and then poured water on it.  After a few minutes, they finally got it out but the burner was nothing melted plastic.

Such drama when all I wanted was some breakfast!

Jesus Cookie

Grace has to do a big project for her bible class related to The Acts.  She is summarizing the Acts on Christmas ornaments and putting them on a Christmas tree.  She also wanted to bring cookies in for her class.  Yesterday we found these perfect cookies -- Jesus cookies!  Stay tuned to see how ours turn out.

Deckhand

They left at 4 am.  Chopping bait on the way out.

Drew worked his first day on the Golden Girl today.  I can't wait for them to get home to give me the update.  Looks like a beautiful day and Drew looks like a natural out there!

What a beautiful day!

Snack time before the "hanger" sets in!

Friendsgiving

Had TNDC Thanksgiving last nite and did not get many pics.

But I did get one of the veggie turkey platter that Doug made and the TNDC pecan pie that Cindy made!

The highlight of the nite was the 20 lb turkey that was destroyed!  There was nothing left of it by the end of the nite!

Golden Girl

Got our Golden Girl gear.  I will try to get a better pic soon but this is the sweatshirt!

Choices - Just rock your choice!

All thru life you make choices.

It might be where to work, what to drive, what to eat, who to marry....

I think it is interesting to watch what choices people make in various stages of their lives.

For example, do some people burn out raising their children so that when it comes time to be a grandparent, they make the choice to travel the world, instead of going to their grandchildren's events.

Or does someone decide to drive a junker their whole life because the status of a nice car is not important to them?

I was thinking about this when I saw two gentlemen who were about the same age, about two miles apart yesterday.

The first guy was driving a completely renovated super sharp 1970's black convertible Cadillac.  He was decked out in a black suit, starched white shirt and a fancy watch.

He caught my eye and I thought, "you rock it dude!"

Then two miles down the road I saw a guy about the same age wearing shorts, tennies with white socks pulled two high, a jacket hanging open with his belly hanging over his shorts and his reader glasses perched on the end of his nose --- riding a yellow scooter!

I laughed after I just saw the Cadillac dude and thought "you rock it TOO dude!"

We all make our choices and its not my job to judge - just to appreciate!

My advice to you - go forth and rock whatever it is you choose!

Dumb and Dumber

This is Drew and his buddy Nick from a soccer game last weekend.  They have played soccer together for years.  Nick is usually in the goal and Drew is usually defending right in front of Nick - they make a great team!

In this game, they were winning 6 to 0 so Nick came out of goal and played forward with Drew.  This is the the two of them visiting them on the 50 yard line!

And then the ball finally came to them!

Bad Ass

I was in a meeting today and a guy leaned over, looked and my boots and declared they were "bad ass"!  I cracked up and walked out of that meeting with a pep in my bad ass step!

Sea Creature

Jim and team hauled this guy out of the ocean today.  It is a big ugly eel!  He got thrown back in!

End of Season Party

Last nite was the end of the season party for Grace's new soccer team.  It was a good time to assess the decision Grace made to join this team.  If you remember, she left her previous team after total soccer burn out.  She took about 6 months off and then decided she was ready to go back.

I myself also suffered from some soccer burn out so I told her that if she wanted to join a new team, she needed to go out and find it, try out and make the decision as to where she wanted to be.  She looked at 3 different teams and ended up with the Jaguars after considering the coaches, the team mates and the team philosophy.  No where in her decision process did the teams win/loss record come into play.

I have to say that I am incredibly proud of the decision she made.  She is on a GREAT team with a bunch of nice girls and positive, professional coaches.  It is exactly where I would have wanted her to be and she ended up there without my input.

It is funny because it wasn't until halfway thru this season that we we learned that the team had not won a game last season!  But that was not what was important to her.  And - this season was a complete turnaround for them - they won 7, lost 2 and tied one.  One of the players thinks Grace is the lucky charm because she was the only new player!

Update

The fisherman dropped the new pots and pulled about 70 pots yesterday.  In doing that they hauled in about 1000 more pounds of crab.

They came home again last nite to get a shower and for Jim to replace his phone.  Spent enough time at home to stink up the place and make a mess and move on! 

Is crab season almost over yet?

Stupid Smelly Crab

My whole house smells like crab:

• My laundry room
• The "clean" laundry coming out of the dryer
• The fridge
• The garage
• The wash cloth in the shower
• Jim's clothes in the closet

I am not happy about it.

Rigged and Ready

Jim spent all of yesterday rigging the new pots and had them all on the boat and ready to go out last nite.

He came home last nite around 10 pm and came upstairs with the flashlight on his iphone shining at me.  Apparently, the light wouldn't turn off...  the reason being - he fell into the water with his iphone and it was seriously on the fritz!  By this morning, it didn't work at all.  And "by this morning" I mean about 3 am when he left again!

So - we may be seeing a shortage of pics and news because we have no way to communicate with Jim!

Waiting

This what it looks like while waiting in line to sell the crab last nite.  They had to wait about 2 hours.  Total crab weight was 1800 lbs - which was less than the 4000 lbs they had estimated....they had made a math error! 

They are still pleased with the haul.

Today they get another delivery of 150 new pots that they have to get ready.  They will set them up, drop them and then go get the pots that have been soaking since yesterday.

Haul!

Here is the haul from the very first run - and only half the pots that are out!  Jim was happy with the amount they pulled.  Waiting for an update on the second half of the pots now!

Pots go out

Bait - mmmm!

Here is a big pile of bait.  Below it is in bait buckets ready to go into the pots.  Pots started being dropped at 6 am today.  They start picking up at 12:01 am on Friday morning.

Crab Eve

While I was rushing around last nite dealing with the stolen gas situation, Jim was celebrating "Crab Eve" on the boat!  They had pork roast in the crock pot to celebrate.

In the galley eating dinner

Update - stolen gas

Our mechanic confirmed that there were 4 holes drilled in the bottom of my gas tank!  This is  a pic that Drew took last nite.  He said he could see a hole but couldn't look close because it smelled so bad.