Time flies when you are having fun, or working hard. July is moving on by and August is on the horizon.
Saturday July 10, we went to the North Stonington Fair to eat some fair food and look at the various livestock on display. Natalie seemed to enjoy looking at the cows and goats and chickens when we first got there, and then we took a couple of loops around the rides and games that were set up. It was a nice fair, and there seemed to be a lot of people in attendance as the afternoon progressed.
We ate our way through a number of food choices. The first stop was bbq pork on a hot dog, bbq pork on macaroni and corn bread. Natalie ate a bit of pork, but mostly focused on the blueberries we brought along. We rode some tractors that were out and the Natalie took a bit of a snooze while we watched some wrestling and finished off the snacking with a Shaved Ice.
Wednesday, I went up to Rhode Island to pick up backpack baby carrier for Natalie to ride in, and stopped at the climbing gym on the way home for the first time in a while. Climbing was okay, but needs some consistency to get back into things.
Thursday was an evening out for Mom to celebrate a coworkers retirement so Natalie and I hung out and got everything cleaned up nice for her. (Maybe… or maybe it was more of a mess in the end)
Friday night was another concert in the park with a 90’s hits cover band that was pretty rocking. Natalie put on her good walking and crawling shoes and wandered all around checking out the other families.
Saturday July 17 was my Birthday (of course). Number 32 ended up being a beach day and Natalie had a great time playing in the sand and sun. I was slightly less enthused by the end of it. The stress of keeping everyone out of the sun and the heat dragged on me a bit and me reminded of my least favorite parts of the beach. Once Natalie settled in for a nap, things were a bit calmer, but the sun was still beating down on me.
The day wrapped up with a trip to the grocery store for cake and ice cream, some homemade pizza, and a viewing of Captain Ron (Kurt Russell plays a charter captain tasked with helping a clueless family get their inherited sailboat through the Caribbean to Miami). All in all a good birthday.
Sunday was a rainy day, so we set out to do some errands after filling Natalie with yogurt and raspberries for breakfast. Unfortunately, Natalie had developed a stomach bug and proceeded to throw up a lot in Target. I had to ditch the cart and find some new clothes for the poor girl. Her car seat was also an unfortunate casualty and was fully disassembled for cleaning.
The rest of the day was hanging out with Natalie and getting ready for a long week of travel for me. Monday was an early wake up to catch a 6:00 am flight to Cleveland to catch some sea trials on the Kiyi. Also on the agenda was an inspection and repair oversight for the Muskie which developed a crack in the hull the week before. Luckily, both vessels were at the same shipyard, so things were relatively easy.
The Kiyi had been in the shipyard since the day before Natalie was born for an extended refit period and engine repowering. Covid and other delays had pushed out the delivery date months, so it was great to finally get underway for testing, and to hear that they had left the yard on Saturday evening.
There were hopes to return home Tuesday, but those were quickly dashed as the return stretched to Wednesday night to accommodate scheduling on repairs to the Muskie. With things under control in Cleveland I arrived home late on Wednesday night/ Thursday morning just in time to get ready for a trip to New York Harbor on Friday for a barge deadweight survey. We also caught a concert at the beach on Thursday night with some friends we hadn’t seen in a while.
The long week wrapped up with a 5 hours drive home from the New York area (2 hours longer than usual). Marissa headed out for a hair cut while I ended up snoozing with Natalie.
O ya… while I was on the road, Natalie continued to battle that stomach bug with intermittent throwing up through the week. Thankfully, she tended to only throw up later at night, or first thing in the morning so Marissa didn’t have to take off more time to take care of her. For whatever reason, Natalie has been consistent at only getting sick when I am out of town which has been difficult.
She seems to finally be on the mend from her cold that turned into an ear infection that turned into a bad diaper rash that seemed better for a week until she got another respiratory virus (on Father’s Day) that led to another 3-4 days of a bad fever and a cough that dragged on for weeks and turned into a GI bug.
And Natalie reached the 11 month mark and received great news that Grandma and Grandpa booked a visit to come see us. More to follow on that.