It’s funny.  We’ve had a number of people who read our blog ask us if we have kids.  I guess they haven’t made many appearances on this blog.  Sorry kids.

So we do have kids.  Two of them in fact!  Mike is 27 and lives in Colorado Springs with his wife Jenny. Mike works for a tech company that supports Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. Kirsten is 21 and is a senior at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, majoring in Sports Management and completing her final year as a D1 athlete on the Tennessee rowing team.  Mike and Jenny and Kirsten and her boyfriend Sam (who is from Nashville, TN) arrived on the day before Thanksgiving and the festivities began!  Now six adults plus one dog on a boat in the cold weather can be cozy, but it works out and we had a ton of fun!

Like good cruisers, we spent Thanksgiving day… driving.  And cooking and eating, and catching snowflakes.  We left the boat at 6 am in two vehicles (we no longer have my “crew mom” big SUV) and headed to Kevin’s parents house in Wenatchee, WA (on the eastern slope of the North Cascade Mountains) with the turkey in the back of the Jeep.  Kevin’s Grandma joined us for dinner and for our annual birthday celebration!  Mike, Jenny, Kevin’s parents Sue and Darrel and Grandma all have November / early December birthdays.  This year was particularly special as Grandma is turning 100 (yes 100!) on December 8.  We had pie and chocolate cake to celebrate.

After cleaning up from dinner we headed toward Seattle in a snowstorm.  As Jenny and Sam had not been to Leavenworth, Washington’s Bavarian Village we had to stop in to see the lights and get out in the snow.  Gorgeous and festive!  Driving home to Seattle involved snowy mountain passes, torrential rain and a long slog back to the boat.

On Black Friday we decided to #optoutside and take a quick trip over to Bainbridge Island in the midst of 3-4 foot waves and a small craft advisory.  Barely felt it on Red Rover.  While we didn’t see another boat until we approached Bainbridge, suddenly there was Safe Harbour and our friend Sam Landsman, his girlfriend Anna, his mom and two dogs.  Fun!  Sam took a much better photo of Red Rover than the one I snapped of Safe Harbour.  Thanks Sam!  I’ll do better next time.

We wandered around town sampling the merchant experiences (and perhaps annoying said merchants), took walks, played with the dog, sampled various bourbons and beverages and went out to dinner with our friends Matt & Carrie.  A relaxing and lovely day all around.

On Saturday we cruised home on flat water and did a drive-by of downtown Seattle which resulted in many selfies and portraits from the parents and the 20-something crew. Mike and Jenny headed home on Saturday evening and Kirsten, Sam, Kevin and I went out to a fun dinner before returning to the boat to eat pie.

And now, on Sunday Kirsten and Sam headed home and Kevin and I have been manning the washer and dryer.  Zoe isn’t sure where all of her buddies went, and keeps looking in various staterooms where she is thinking they might be hiding.

A great holiday weekend with the kids, Zoe and Red Rover!

NAPS 2018 was, well, a bunch of fun! At least once we left the dock… Although NAPS officially didn’t start until Friday afternoon, Alison and I had planned to head up Thursday after she was home from the office. I had left the office early to go provision for the Saturday evening dinner of ribs/chicken and wine (courtesy of Dan Streech at PAE).

Between broken trash compactor that ended getting stuck in the down position and Alison having an extra long day, we decided to hang at the home dock and head up Friday morning.

We were up early, walked the dog, made some coffee and off the dock! Port Ludlow, here we come! Just out of Shilshole Bay Marina, our home port, we turned and saw Tom and Linda Hamilton in N5730 Set Free coming out of the locks. Fun! Someone to travel with.

About an hour later, the “racing Nordhavns” overtook N4717 Epoch with Scott Allen and Abby Nicholson onboard. We had some fun on the radio learning that Epoch is pronounced “Epic”. Now you tell me!

Once we caught up with Scott and Abby, the three boats juggled positions as we all were taking photos of each other. It was like a slow dance… or maybe more of a circus? There was a recent salmon season opening so the three Nordhavns encountered many fishing boats on the way. It mush have been quite a scene with the three boats coming at them “driving kinda funny”.

After we arrived in Port Ludlow, we settled in and enjoyed the arrival of the rest of the fleet.

The scheduled 5 o’clock appetizers and happy hour arrived right on time. The marina provided a couple of tables for our plates of food and napkins. What a great start to the weekend! Not really surprising, the socializing went on until after sundown!

Saturday brought another beautiful sunny day to Port Ludlow. This great weather allowed for the naming of two Nordhavns! Shawn and Elizabeth Krenke’s N43 and Tom and Linda’s N57 officially recieved their new names, Freedom and Set Free.

What time was it? Need to prep some ribs! They need to bake for a good three hours… Somehow, 50 pounds of ribs followed Red Rover to Port Ludlow and they needed to be prepared for some ovens. Fortunately we had plenty of volunteers offering up the use of ovens. We spread them around four boats… wow, the entire dock smelled like ribs!

Once those ribs were safely tucked away and cooking, there was time for some adventures….

One thing I wanted to do was to document the boats that joined us for the weekend. We had other owners join us by land as well, including a couple that flew in from Hawaii! Eric Clarke, N4023 Enfin, came and actually stayed in Red Rover’s captain’s cabin for the weekend. Larry and Mary Mason, N5737 No Plans, flew in from Hawaii. Dick and Peggy Koller, N55-20, had Isla Z anchored around the corner at their friends home, so joined us for dinner Saturday evening.

Ok, back to the good stuff. Food! Three plus hours later, the ribs were ready to be pulled and cooled before heading up to the Port Ludlow event tent for dinner. I realize I am focusing on the ribs, but we did have 15 pounds of marinated chicken thighs that were ready to go as well. We didn’t want anyone to go hungry!

We hauled the meat, sides, drinks and such up to the event tent. The marina also provided two large BBQs for us to use.

I should make a point here that literally every single person asked what they could do to help, before the weekend started as well as all throughout the event. As it was a pretty casual encounter, not much was needed. The oven space was a great help and I did have Shawn and Scott help with the dinner setup and BBQing of the meat. As dinner was wrapping up, Shawn and I took a few minutes to fly our drones around the harbor. When we turned around, the entire space was cleaned up! Thank you everyone!

Also, thank you Don Kolhmann for coming by with the box of Nordhavn caps and good cheer! We all know that everyone is short a Nordhavn hat…

All weekend allowed owners to tour the other boats. It’s great to go on the other models but the huge value is seeing the tips and tricks that the others are doing on their boats. I found Scott and Abby’s anchor hold down very cool and effective. It is now on my to do list!

We had some friends stop by, currently Krogen 48 owners but moving in to being Nordhavn Dreamers and maybe even owners sometime (soon Digby and Pam!)? We all started our goodbyes. And until next time…

Alison and I motored home on the flybridge of Red Rover. What a great weekend. It was wonderful to see the owners that we’ve met and cruised with before and so much fun to actually see the faces and shake hands of those owners we’ve only emailed with, had discussions with on the NOG or knew via social media. After getting back to the home port and giving the boat a quick rinse, it was time for some easy dinner up top.

Thanks to everyone that joined us. Maybe we should do it again?!?