Hi All,
Kathy and I are back on Mystic Moon after a wonderful 2 months in the USA. We have just started our New Zealand roadtrip. We are currently in Napier, about to spend 2 days sampling the wines in Hawke’s Bay.
The Holidays were just a “kick in the pants fun” with family and friends. We first started with Josh, Courtney and little Sadie coming up for Thanksgiving. Wow o wow, is our granddaughter the cutest ever:)))) She was 10+ months then and almost walking, although she did not officially walk until just a few days before we left to go back to NZ in late Jan.
We did make it to KC to see my mom….she is still the same, does not recognize us and sleeps most of the time. Dementia/Alzheimer is such a cruel disease. We also were able to see my brother Gary/Clara and then took a quick trip to Springfield to see our cousins, Jerry and Kathy, Ida and Swad and Betty. We stayed with our good friends Rich and Vana (from the old Overland Park neighborhood) where we did opening/closing ceremonies in one night!!!!
Our Christmas was held over a week+….now that was some fun times. Kathy and I had Christmas day by ourselves, a first in probably over 30+ years…..it was a quiet and fun day and we made many calls to catchup with friends. The next day David and Dana came over for a Christmas celebration, followed a few days later with Kathy’s parents coming back from Dallas, and then Josh, Courtney, and Sadie came in for New Year’s….wow!!!
A few days later we went to Big Bear for a cruiser reunion. These are very good friends (6 couples) we met while cruising the PNW/buying our Selenes and the West Coast. Jo/Aide and Ken/Dottie both have houses in Big Bear where we all stayed. 3 of the couples still have boats, while we are the only ones still cruising full time. The other 3 couples have sold their boats and are enjoying RV and other travels.
We wrapped up our USA time with visiting Josh/Courtney for a few days in LA and attending Sadie’s 1st birthday celebration!!!
We had such a good time with our family and friends it was very difficult to come back to our other life….such different worlds/lifestyles we have!!!! Our sons make us so proud, our daughter-in-laws make us feel special and then there is little Sadie, so full of life and developing/changing daily….we are truly blessed to have them all!!!
AND, the best news yet for 2015, David and Dana are planning to come to Mystic in June while we are in Vanuatu…..Dana is all in for the vine jumping:)))))
So, now back in New Zealand. We have been back now for about 12 days. In that time, we have opened the boat back up, brought Mystic from Marsden to Auckland (72 nm, 9 hrs), done many projects (ER LED lights, new Warn winch, installed refurbished Big Bay navigational computer, new AP control head…well, new to us but it is a used unit and a host of smaller projects). Blair has finished waxing the boat….looks great although some of the gelcoat did not shine up as much as we wanted, new nonskid paint in the cockpit. While we are gone on the roadtrip for 2 months, Blair will strip and revarnish the caprail, hopefully fixing some of the damage and poor job the techs did last year. Steve will change out the starboard stabilizer cylinders, replace the GEN rear seal, and a couple of battery projects!! He will also help receive the 17 packages/boxes we shipped with Kiwi shipping…oh joy!!!
This roadtrip has been a long time in coming. We had hoped to have done this last year but activities in the USA last year kept our land time in NZ to a minimum. We had hoped to work on our spur of the moment/impulsive side by renting a car and just driving off into the sunset. Hmmmm…..so, we sat down and asked what do you want to see/do…..about 5 days later and a gazillion reservations we have our 2 month trip 90% planned…yep, we be the impulsive type….NOT (sorry Jim/Caz, we tried, we really did, just couldn’t help ourselves after we started to discover so many things booked months in advance).
The planned trip is about 7-8 weeks long, mainly in the South island of New Zealand but also parts of North island, about 3000 miles long and so far about 23 different hotels, many, many hikes (the longest a 50 mile 5 day backpack trip on the Heaphy Great Walk).
Hope all is well with everyone and we will try to blog often!!
John
Mystic Moon
PS: Josh did work on the website and hopefully the “email notification” glitch has now been fixed. If you are a subscriber and have not been getting the email notification please let us know!!
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Youngblood Family Thanksgiving 2014
John’s Mom Lydia: Happy Hour at the Forum
The ladies at Big Bear Reunion
Big Bear Reunion Jan, 2015