Food prep

As we prep for our trip south, I’m in full-on provisioning mode!  We don’t have a ton of space, half of us are vegetarian, and we are considering going to places where fresh vegetables are limited and/or expensive.  But...we will have water!  I’ve decided to add freeze dried and dehydrated veggies to the pantry. Honestly, this started as a quest to add flavor to the beans and rice, but now I’m kind of excited about having a stash of veggies onboard!  Tins were transferred to Foodsaver bags for storage flexibility.  So far, happy with the result.

Moving Day!

Maybe “moving week” would be a better description.  After a delay due to Hurricane Dorian moving up the coast last week, the kids and I set off on Monday to move our storage unit stuff to Florida and set up the boat and car registration down there.  We arrived in Jacksonville yesterday after a stop with some friends in South Carolina.  We settled in at NAS JAX and got straight to work on school and paperwork preps.  I swung by St. Brendan's Isle to drop off forms and get some last-minute tips for shifting my residency, filled out paperwork at the storage unit, and even managed to declare my domicile!

Today was a long, tough, awesome day!  After an hour and a half at the DMV, I have a license, the car has snazzy new FL plates, and the boat and dinghy are registered!  The staff there was AWESOME!  You can't say that about every DMV.  Afterwards, I "enrolled" the kids as homeschoolers with Clay County.  Then it was back to NAS JAX to check some schoolwork and gather my helpers for a brutal afternoon of emptying the truck and filling a storage unit in 90F temps. It. Was. Brutal.  But these kids...they are amazing!  In fact, they helped out with the stacking so that everything fit.  I couldn't have done it without them!  They earned some Dairy Queen!

Tonight we are completely vegging out on base.  We got frozen dinners and are just enjoying long baths and TV!  We've decided that tomorrow we are going to get up early and try to make the whole trip back to MD in one day.  We have another trip planned next week and we all just want to get home.  Time to rest up!

Shaw Bay Concert

Ah, it’s time for one of my favorite annual traditions on the Bay—the Eastport Oyster Boys concert in Shaw Bay!  This casual, friendly, fun event raises money for Shorekeepers and is always a great time.  This year, it coincided with the return of the jellyfish so we had to bust out the nettle net for our pre-concert swim.  We brought hummus and veggie crudités and buffalo chicken-stuffed celery to pass during the show and loved sampling the other passed treats!  I really loved that the EOB dedicated a song to the Bahamas as the northern islands have been devastated by Hurricane Dorian.  It was a fantastic show!

We ended the evening with board games and a movie...a perfect family get-away!