Sunday, November 30, 2014

More wood carvings

Mike continues to work on his wood carving skills to prepare himself to carve a figurehead for our next boat. He made this fisherman as caricature of a good friend at work. Lance and his wife Jo Ellen loved the little guy. Jo Ellen said that it looked just like Lance, but Mike was a little generous with the hair. The pelican on the stump was made for Brenda's desk at work.

He carved this happy yet devious little wood spirit just for fun.

The sea captain was a challenge to make something really small that still had good detail. He is only 1 3/4 inches tall!

Finally, he just finished this Santa too.

Mike has a couple more caricature pieces planned for additional practice before he starts working on a larger scale carving.

 

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Happy Thanksgiving

 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. We have all three of our kids home which makes this a really great holiday. The turkey is cooking, Dee (Mike's mom) lovingly made 5 pies for 10 people, the kid's 3 dogs running around, the smell of fresh coffee in the air and the beautiful scene of fresh snowfall out our back windows. Awesome.

 

Have a great day!

Mike and Brenda

 

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Sailing 2014

 

The sun has set on our 2014 sailing season. The O'Day is stored under her tarps for the winter and all of our sailing gear is tucked away in our basement. As you know we planned on being in the Gulf of Mexico sailing full time by now, but fate had other ideas. We continue to wait for our house to sell before we begin our adventure.

We still had a great summer of sailing and spending time with our friends and family. We loved having the sailboat in a slip because it allowed us to sail whenever we had free time. Neither of us missed the chore of trailering and rigging a sailboat every time we wanted to go out. Lake Mendota is a really nice sailing venue with plenty of room and a few spots to disembark for drinks and dining.

We also trailered the O'Day 7 hours south to Carlyle Lake for our annual Carlyle Lake Rendezvous. The friends we have made at this outing make it such a fun event. We still hope to attend future CLR's even if we are just crew on someone else's boat.

Missing our sailing trip to Door County with our good friends Jim and Joni was hard. It just wasn't in the cards this year due to some family health issues. Hey Jim, buy a big enough boat so we can fly up and sail with you guys next year.

Now we are looking forward to the Chicago Strictly Sail show in January. We have attended multiple days of this great event the last few years. The seminars are very informative and just spending time around sailors and sailing equipment really helps get us through these Wisconsin winters.

We have had some recent activity on our house. There have been a few showings again with some interested parties. I guess we just have to continue waiting for the right people to see it. I sure wish it would happen soon. There are some really nice cruising boats listed right now at great prices.