What's next?

     I've been hesitant to post anything since Kyrie isn't officially ours yet and I don't want to post pictures until she is. However, there is so much keeping us busy in the meantime, so there is plenty I could talk about. The house is coming along, albeit slowly. Thankfully, Joe found a carpenter/laborer whose workload has slowed down considerably and is looking for work. Working together, the two of them should be able to get the addition done in the next month or so. That fits in our timeline rather nicely.
     What is our timeline? Maybe it's time to reveal our grand plan, as it stands right now.
Here it is, the beginning of November. First monumental task is to get the addition done. While all that's going on, I have started the job of going through all the stuff we've managed to acquire with three children. Come January, we plan to rent the house out and we're outta here! At least temporarily.
      As I mentioned before, Kyrie is down in Vancouver, British Columbia. We have to go get our boat at some point of course and bring it back up here to Juneau, but neither Joe nor I have any desire to travel by water during a Southeast Alaska winter--way too many chances to get caught in nasty weather and have to stay holed up in some harbor along the way. So our first leg of this adventure will be a temporary relocation--we'll fly south to pick up Kyrie in Vancouver and then take her to the Bellingham area for the winter. I'm rather excited about living somewhere else for a little while and getting to know our new floating home! The next stage is still slightly up in the air. We're about 95% certain we'll then be going to come back up here, pack up the boat with anything else we still need to live with, and then travel to Sitka. If everything pans out, Sitka will be our home for about a year and a half, and then the fun really begins!
      See, we started dreaming years ago about long-term cruising. Well, actually, Joe had the dream first and patiently worked at convincing me that buying a boat and traveling around the world would be an incredible way to live and raise our children. Now, not only am I convinced this will be good for our family, but I'm growing more and more excited over this idea. We're getting closer and closer to making this dream happen. Buying the boat and getting the house ready to rent are the first two big steps. Moving on the boat will lessen our living expenses and let us save money quickly, not to mention letting the five of us get used to living in a space about the size of our current living room!
       If everything goes according to the current plan, in about two years, we'll be on our way to Mexico to begin our season as a cruising family. With that leap, we'll be joining a group of people I've admired for years. I've read so many blogs already of families that have cut the lines to shore and taken to the seas to raise their children. I want that. Not only because Joe and I are both ready to make a break with the "ordinary life" we've lived so long, but because we want our kids to experience the world. The idea that it's going to be another two years before we can really get this adventure going is a bit frustrating now that the ball is rolling, but it's all prep work.
       P.S. Kyrie should be ours in the next few days. Once we are her official owners, I'll post some pictures and more details. In the meantime, if you're curious what she might look like, look up Prout Snowgoose for images.