Readying for the season

     We have been so busy lately! I've been posting a lot of photos on Instagram, which I know show up on the blog, but I haven't sat myself down to write anything about it.
      Let's see about a recap of the past month.

Celebrating a birthday boy!

     I can't believe it, but our boy is 11 today! Therefore, I must embarrass him by posting photos from over the years. :) In all his glory, here is our first born! 

This boy broke us in as new parents and continues to keep us on our toes. Love you bunches, buddy bear!

Thoughts from a boat mama

     Being a mom is hard. Don't get me wrong. I've been a mama for almost 11 years now and most days, I love it far more than I find it... complicated. (Side note: my first born is going to be 11 years old in a little more than a week!) But being a boat mama takes it to a whole new level sometimes...

Boat life is sometimes messy

     It seems like I have to eat my words every time I make mention of the weather, so I'm feeling a bit of trepidation even saying this. Is spring at last worming its way in and kicking our long-lasting winter out? For the sake of my skiing-loving kids, I hope the snow can hang on in the mountains a couple more weeks, but otherwise, I'm so over this cold! The docks are clear of snow, we're wearing shoes instead of boots, and watching the temperature reports to decide when we can take Kyrie's winter cover off.
     A few not-so-fun things to deal with these past few days. No surprise, we have a dehumidifier on board to dry out all the moisture that develops from a marine, temperate rain forest environment and five people living in such a small space. The first one lasted a little less than a year and then stopped sucking up moisture. Unfortunately, we didn't buy any sort of warranty with that one. We learned our lesson and when Joe bought the new one, he made sure to buy Home Depot's extended warranty. Money well spent as the second dehumidifier lasted about 13 months. Early last week, we realized the reservoir wasn't filling up at the normal pace and on Wednesday, it didn't have any water in it at all. However, the humidity level inside Kyrie was noticeable. Yuck! So, it was off to Home Depot for a new one. Thankfully, the warranty was accepted and we walked out with a brand-new dehumidifier that is actually quieter than the old one. Hooray!
     Next fun event happened Friday night. Backtrack a bit. A little over a year ago, Joe and I made the decision to replace our old Lavac toilet with a composting one, to avoid living in constant fear of one of the kids clogging the toilet in the middle of the night, among other reasons, of course! After a bunch of research, Joe decided the C-Head composting toilet system would serve our family of five the best. After a bit of a learning curve (those things are a bit tricky to figure out for us girls), I have to say I'm very happy with that toilet. Keep a stash of gallon milk jugs for the urine, and wood shavings from our local pet supply store for the bucket and we're in business. One thing our big girl discovered Friday night though--you have to make absolutely certain the jug is placed properly, or else the funnel squishes the opening, instead of threading inside, making a mess whenever someone tries to use the toilet! I discovered a few things I really appreciate about the C-Head that night. A) Everything stayed pretty well contained, instead of going all over the floor. B) The different pieces can be removed for ease of cleaning. C) Once the jug and bucket were out, the rest of the system came unlatched from the floor easily and Joe and I could lift it and dump it out with no difficulty. The verdict: Easy to clean, but I would be extremely happy to never have to do that again! Of course, it could have been much worse.... No brown navy awards for us, thank you very much!