I’m extremely happy to report that it has stopped raining at our house. After 4 long days {& nights} of nothing but torrential rain, strong wind and thunderstorms, I believe, according to what Justin tells me, Tropical Storm Lee has finally moved on. We hunkered down, battened down the hatches Friday, and rode it out with our sofa pulled up to the sliding glass door for a front row seat at what proved to be a show like we’ve never seen before.
I took this Friday and texted it to my friend Abby, explaining that this weekend probably wasn’t going to be the best to come for a visit, and I was right. It went from bad to worse and the water was so high it completely covered our dock by Sunday morning. Thankfully, it would go up and down a little with the tide, but not much. We busied ourselves inside with books, homemade kites, PBSkids.org, drawings and coffee… all while keeping an eye on our “backyard”.
Thankfully, the lightening didn’t strike the child in the stroller, just popped the balloon. Sometimes I have to ask for a little clarification.
The water in the bay came clear up to the top of the bulkhead {seawall} and crashed over it… do you remember when I showed you how shallow the water is near the dock in this picture?
It’s amazing what 4 days of straight rain can do…
This is where Justin was standing in ankle-deep water earlier this summer…
Thankfully, we never lost power, just sleep. With little to block the wind ripping off the bay it sounded like a train was blowing through our house for the last three nights. We are thankful to be on the other side of it now and hope it just provides rain to those to who need it and nothing worse.
Last weekend was a different story, weather wise. We had so many beautiful days in a row and many sunrises that looked like this…
Rover’s Ray Bans are $5 from Target, my children aren’t to be trusted with name brand shades yet, we just call them his “Ray Bans”!
Justin had an opportunity to go deep sea fishing last week for a few days with a group of guys from his office. He had a great time and came home with the motherload of Yellow Fin Tuna, Black Fin Tuna, and Amber Jack. The kids and I met him at the marina as the boat was pulling in last Saturday, and it was an exciting and new experience for us all.
This is one of him on the boat with a BIG {70+ lb} Amber Jack. They were fishing near oil rigs off the LA shore. And he managed to keep all hooks out of his hand this go. The treble hook in his hand {in the last post} had to be “surgically” removed. All three hooks were past the barb and then one hook got accidentally “lost” when it was snipped off premature of pushing the point with the barb through… a little more “digging” with a scalpel and an x-ray and they found the missing hook. Somehow there was a miscommunication and Justin thought the stitches would dissolve. They were graciously cut out by a friend 2 weeks later than they should have been, and now we are still “retrieving” stitches from his hand. I will spare you photographs post-hook removal!
When we got to the marina the kids hopped on the boat before the guys could even get off. It was a very cool operation to watch unfold. And a very sweet, very large boat with enough room for the entire crew, plus eleven guys to stay comfortably at sea from a Thursday to a Saturday.
I stood right here by the “wheelbarrows” where the fish were being thrown and found myself wiping fish blood and juice off my arms, legs, and camera before I decided to move.
The deck hands unload the fish, stage it for photographs and then clean it all and bag it…
They would toss scraps/carcasses into the water behind the cleaning table, and the salt water catfish would go absolutely nuts. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen or heard before… they were ravenous.
The Yellow Fin Tuna are beautiful… and delicious.
We ended up with a ton of fish, my freezer is completely full!
And I rolled my first sushi roll the day after he got back. This is a poor photograph but there was no tarrying for the big camera. We were hungry!
And now it is time to catch up on lost sleep!
I’m looking forward to some warm weather when we return to our Southern life. Hope you get some more sunshine soon!
