Belén and I cheered him on from my dad’s boat as Andy made his way around the west end of the reservoir. We are very proud of the boat he has rebuilt and I believe this takes us one step closer to a grand sailing adventure in the future. Details TBD.

In case you are wondering (I was), “her rigging is down” means that the mast (the big pole that holds up the sail) is no longer upright. Must have been a big storm. I cannot wait to read her account it!

Mamamones can subside for now. We are so thankful she is okay!

You have probably heard this on the news but Abby Sunderland, who I reported about awhile back, a 16-year old attempting a solo circumnavigation of the globe is in big trouble in the Indian Ocean (it was originally a non-stop attempt but she had to stop in South Africa last month).

Andy turned me on to this blog about a family sailing up and down the coast of México. Of course we will religiously start following it because this is a dream of ours to do this some day. Note to México, please clean up your drug wars so it will still be appealing in the future. If you don’t we will just have to do the Caribbean instead.

Both women (actually girls), at 16-years of age, are attempting to be the youngest person to sail, solo, non-stop, unassisted around the world. Jessica is mid-route and just rounded Cape Horn today. Abby is due to set out this weekend.

What I think the parts of the sailboat should be called.

Yesterday was fun! We crewed on our friend Brett’s boat for a regatta on Cascade Lake. It was the first time Andy and I have done something together that didn’t revolve around the baby (besides one date night) since Belén was born. Plus, it gave us a sailing fix which we have both been jonesing for. It had been over a year since I sailed and Andy hadn’t been out since last fall.

Another interesting twist to Aruba is that gambling is legal. On our second or third night there, we checked out the Marriott casino and it was hopping with people, but missing a poker room. We were bummed. I think we burned about $20 playing video poker but then quickly called it a night. A couple of nights later, we walked through some of the other hotels and found poker rooms in two nearby hotels including the Holiday Inn next door. Andy surprised me by his desire to play (he is not a “game player”).

So my real excuse for not writing for two months is because I am 14 weeks pregnant and the last two months (during the first trimester), I have been too exhausted to do anything but sleep, exercise, work and sit on the couch watching TV. There are a few exceptions to this, but honestly, I have never been so tired. I know it was all for good reason and that I should enjoy my pregnancy, yadda yadda, but honestly, it was not fun. I can say that more easily now because this last week I have started to feel pretty good again and am getting back some energy and am not disgusted by the thought of 80% of the foods I used to love (only 40% now).

Talking with him reminded me of all that we have learned living here and the naivety of a newbie. His business is commodities trading of some sort and his boss from Texas had sent him here because the China office was not meeting their deliverables and seemed to be disorganized. He has grand plans of getting things organized and fixed up in a few months while at the same time traveling extensively to Japan and India as well. I just looked at him and smiled and said, “good luck with that.” After that, he was talking to my friend Junie and he turned back to me and said, “you guys are depressing.” I asked why and he said that I had shot down his plans of doing well, rapidly at work and then Junie was explaining to him why you should not give money to children begging on the street. (Often, the parents will do cruel things to the kids to put them in a pathetic state in order to exploit them for money. Junie should know as she has spent countless hours volunteering at an orphanage that had kids without thumbs and eyes from parents doing just that. Also the kids on the street are not in school and by giving them money it encourages the cycle.) I quickly agreed with Junie and the guy looked genuinely depressed. I really had forgotten how much we have learned living here and it took a guy fresh off the boat and eager to succeed to remind me of all of the lessons learned.