Guest Blog - Kevin

For all of you faithful followers, I'm going to pull back the curtains, just a little bit, and reveal something you may not know about this blog. There are many, many evenings that Sam asks (no, begs) me to "guest blog" for her. She tries to convince me by saying the "Fourteen Hours Forward followers" actually want to hear from me, but I know the truth, she's either too lazy, tired, or more likely, just has nothing much to say that night. But to her credit, she's done really well keeping up with the updates on a fairly routine basis.

In any event, I told her tonight would be the night I post another blog (partly because she didn't make me go to swim practice with her and the girls, and partly because my day was way more fun than hers).

The morning started out uneventful. Played some Wii with Maddie and Ellie (we love the New Super Mario Brothers Game - I always have to be Mario, and they get to pick some other, non-mustachioed male plumber character). Then the GTA maintenance man came by and fixed our telephone, internet, and TV signal. It went out yesterday around lunch so I was happy he was able to make it out on a Saturday morning to fix it. All three signals come in on the same wire, so when one goes, they all go. This usually happens at least once a month, more during the rainy season (July-Dec for those keeping track).

After that, Maddie and I hooked up with our buddy Mike Thornton and he took us sailing for a couple hours on his boat. I was lucky to get a few decent photos. One of our (my) Christmas presents was a waterproof case that fits over Sam's little Canon digital camera. It works really well (meaning - it hasn't had any leaks yet)!

Below are some of the photos. I was lucky to get really close to a couple of the fish and Maddie was almost able to touch a few of them. It's funny how some just don't seem to mind people too much.

Sailing was great. Maddie got a good lesson in steering, and we all managed to avoid getting hit by the boom. I don't mind telling you that despite the fact I am a "sailor" in the Navy, I got a little nervous as the wind was pretty strong and at times it felt like the boat might capsize. In reality I don't think the boat was ever in any danger of tipping over, it just felt like it to me. In the interest of full disclosure - no, I did not get seasick, although I got a wee bit queasy when I went into the tiny cabin to get my mask and fins - blech.

Everyone's home now from swimming, so I'll close this out. I rented The Hurt Locker tonight, it's about EOD guys doing what they do in Iraq. I've heard it's a very good movie, filmed documentary style. The jury's out on whether I can convince Sam to watch it with me.

Take care,

Kevin