Whew! We had a doozie of a party last night to celebrate Dave’s birthday and Jake’s graduation. Fun times. 🙂
Tag: friends
On the threshold.
Here we are again – the last day of the year. 2015 brought lots of things: fun parties with friends, lots of visits from friends and family, more time spent in Washington State, a wonderful family reunion, the passing of my mom, happy moments on the lake, stargazing, beautiful spring flowers, roadtrips, the passing of a friend, cooking, sunsets, Seahawks (!), much more reading, breakups between good friends, exploring local breweries and wineries, El Niño rain, a nearly full lake, birthdays, more sunsets, amazing girlfriends and our trip to New Orleans, music, dancing, laughs, tears.
Tonight we are headed to a friend’s house to ring in the new year. Last year we hosted the New Year’s Eve party – here’s a shot from that night a year ago… how fast time flies:
Pause.
This week a friend of mine died unexpectedly – a fellow sailor, a husband, and father of 3, who worked in the IT industry by day, and sang karaoke at night.
This week is also the 3 year anniversary of the unexpected death of a cousin of mine who was my age.
Mom died not too long ago, not unexpectedly, but creating a great hole in our hearts.
An aunt died without any warning signs, mourning the loss of her husband 2 years before.
My sister-in-law’s brother died this year unexpectedly as well.
The impact of all these losses piles up, in the mind. And it causes me to pause. And maybe because of that when I saw this quote posted this week, it touched me:
So live your life that the fear of death can never
enter your heart.
Trouble no one about their religion;
respect others in their view, and demand that
they
respect yours.
Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all
things in your life.
— Chief Tecumseh’s Words of Wisdom
I shall strive to do so.
A fun, full, first weekend of Fall!
We’ve been busy! This past weekend, we made a roadtrip out to west, stopping first at William Chris Winery, where we caught up with a friend of ours that we ran into, by chance; then we hopped over to Wildseed Farms to pickup a bunch of seed; then made it over to one of our faves, Becker Vineyards, where we had a tasting, a picnic, and checked out their new field of zinnias. Just beautiful.
On the way home we headed over to the Real Ale Brewery in Blanco. We took the river road south/southeast from Hwy 290 to Blanco, and stopped along the way several times to check out the now lazy river that was uncontrollably raging just 4 months ago, tragically sweeping away homes and families over Memorial Day weekend.
At Real Ale, Monte sampled a flight, and I sipped my favorite – Hans Pils.
Then Sunday rolled around, and we headed out to see the Anderson Mill historical site, near its original location at Cypress Creek on Lake Travis. The Anderson Mill Gardeners do a wonderful job of preserving the site and its history.
We made it to the boat in time to cheer the Seahawks on to their first win of the season, enjoying the recently repaired air conditioning on Nirvana (yay!).
About an hour before sunset, Kurt, Barbara, Dakota and little Leila joined us on the boat, and we motored out to the body of the lake to drift and watch the supermoon lunar eclipse.
Have I mentioned taking photos of the moon and stars on a moving boat is hard? I didn’t get any good shots. But I thought this one was kinda cool… you get the idea.
It was a great weekend, indeed.
Sunday’s for sipping.
I met some friends over the weekend to catch up. We’ve all been off doing our own thing for quite a while. Yummm – white sangria!
And *poof* … 5 years gone by.
Sunday was the 5 year blogoversary for sheila365! I meant to draft a post ahead of time, and post it bright and early on March 8th. But I just looked at the calendar and time has snuck by on me once again.
That’s ok. In these 5 years sheila365 has evolved, and I think I have a bit, too. My blog started as a post-a-day 365 project during the first year or two, which had me snapping photos during the day to make sure I had something that I judged “share-worthy;” and now it has become more of a leisurely, post-every-week-or-so project, which I have to say has been much easier, though less artistic in terms of trying to capture beautiful photos, but rather just moments from my day that struck me as special or interesting in one way or another.
So happy blogoversary to me! 🙂 I thought I’d go back through my posts from year 5 and pick a photo from one post from each month that especially makes me smile. I have to say it was very hard to pick just one picutre from each month.
March 2014: Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. A visit to the walled El Morro. Beautiful Caribbean views.
April 2014: British Virgin Islands sailing trip – this was taken while snorkeling off Cooper Island.
May 2014 – A trip home to Seattle. One of several last year. It is a beautiful, special place for me.
June 2014 – Back in Austin for fun on the lake with some of my crazy sailor friends.
July 2014 – An amazing trip to Panama City Beach to celebrate a very special anniversary with a very special family.
August 2014 – A roadtrip to the Texas Gulf Coast. One of my favorite places to relax.
September 2014 – A lovely anniversary trip through the Texas Wine Country.
October 2014 – A fun girls’ trip to Washington, D.C. Lots of laughs, lots of wine, and lots of walking. 🙂
November 2014 – An oh so special birthday.
December 2014 – Family visiting means showing off Austin and the Hill Country. Never gets old.
January 2015 – Hiking as many trails as I can before I had to go back to work after taking a few months off.
February 2015 – Yep, more tulips.
What an amazing lap around the sun!
Thanks for coming along for the ride. 🙂
Girls’ trip 2014 – Destination Washington, D.C.
Last year five of my girlfriends and I went on a trip together to San Diego and had a really great time. We said we’d try to make it an annual thing. And we did! This year’s destination: Washington D.C.
The fall weather was beautiful. We rented a townhouse on Capitol Hill just south of Lincoln Park – about a mile and a half walk to the Capitol buidling. What an amazing place to live.
The Highlights:
We walked about a hundred miles (!), mastered the Metro, and took in some amazing sights. We visited the Library of Congress & National Gallery of Art, and their outdoor Sculpture Garden. We took a 3-hour Segway DC Monuments & Memorials tour with CitySegway (I highy recommend them, and our wonderful guide, Ray). We caught a showing of the Broadway musical Evita at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. We drank a couple barrels of wine. And danced the night away in the townhouse. We we sure crammed alot of fun into a 4 day weekend.
The Eats:
– The night we arrived we ate at the highly touted Spanish tapas restaurant Jaleo (2 blocks from the Archives metro station). This madrileña gives them a bleh and a thumbs down. Service was ho hum, their traditional tapas like gambas al ajillo were not traditional at all… (made with red, spicy pepper sauce with no garlic!). When we complained, the waiter said they’ve changed the way they prepare them now and we should have ordered them traditional if that’s the way we wanted them, even though that’s how they were described on the menu. We shared a pan of lobster paella which tasted like new orleans dirty rice made with a burnt roux. Sorry José Andrés, you let us down.
– for breakfast the next day, Friday, we ate at the Madison Cafe atop of the Library of Congress’ James Madison Memorial Building. What a great, unassuming breakfast stop, with reasonable prices. Spectacular view of the Potomac, but apparantly you’re not supposed to go out on the patio unless accompanied by the Capitol Police (oopsie).
– for lunch on Friday’s sightseeing marathon (seriously, Laura’s pedometer said we walked about 23 miles that day!), we happened upon a really wonderful farmer’s market/outdoor food court in the Federal Triangle – Capital Harvest on the Plaza. In contrast to last night’s meal, the paella I got here on a paper plate was perfect and the real deal. They are open Friday’s through the end October.
– for dinner on Friday night we ate at the fabulous italian restaurant Graffiato (a short walk from the Gallery Place/Chinatown metro stop). Now this was a great meal! The service was fantastic. We tried nearly everything (watercress salad, caesar, mussels a la vodka, potato gnocchi, homemade pasta, white house pizza, and even more that I don’t recall) and came away wanting more. Delicious!
– Saturday morning we walked to the nearby Eastern Market – a historic indoor/outdoor food and arts market and a hub of the neighborhood on Capitol Hill. We bought ingredients for our planned dinner-at-the-townhouse later that night. The menu: spinach soup, grilled salmon steaks, asparagus risotto, green beans with lemon vinagrette and goat cheese. We outdid ourselves!
– for brunch on our last day, we headed to Le Greniere, a fantastic french bistro on H street, about a mile walk from Union Station. Their weekend brunch menu has a great variety of delicious choices. My croque-monsieur could have fed 2 or 3. 🙂 excellent service and brunch menu. We were all thankful for the walk afterwards.
And then, *poof* it was over. Til next year!
Some of the sights:
Humpday pinochle.
We met Tom and Doray at our local pub for dinner, brews, cards and to catchup. The girls cleaned up (and I don’t mean bussing the table)! 🙂
Almost Friday.
I kind of zoned out there.
My posts for the last few months have been a tad infrequent. And it’s been two weeks since I last posted. I think I have just been decompressing. I have had a great summer – spending time with family, and then coming back to Austin for a couple of downtime weeks to play with Monte. Somewhere, in there, the summer has nearly slipped by. That’s ok, though. Onward!
Yesterday Sue & Marty joined us on the boat for a windless day on the lake. We headed directly for our cove, set anchor, jumped in and floated until just before sunset. A great day! Here is a shot of the blinding sun on its way to the horizon. 
SoCo birthday night.
I went downtown tonight to celebrate Laura’s birthday. We ate at Perla’s, and strolled up and down South Congress til it was time to call it a night.
champers night cap at Hotel San Jose…
the (blurryish) soco view towards downtown… 
A reflection of the Frost Bank Tower on the building next door… 
Happy Birthday, Laura!
The circle of life.
Today we met Julie’s new dog, Blake. She’s a good doggie, and I know will bring much happiness into eachothers lives.
Today we also learned that another one of our canine friends, Kokopelli (aka “the Admiral”), left us for the big boat in the sky. Farewell, Koko, you were a great boat dog, and a good friend to Marty and Sue for many years. Sail on…. we’ll miss you.
April 9 – Heading home.
Wednesday, April 9.
We all flew to San Juan together. Then headed to our respective destinations. What a great trip! Monte, you were an awesome Skipper. Susanne and Laura, you are TROOPERs! We’re so glad you could come along on this adventure.
This is our third charter with ProValor Charters, thanks Jim & Cecilia!
Thanks to Doray and Tom for Keeto-sitting.
And thanks, too, to Marty & Sue for teaching us the charter ropes on our past trips with them. We are looking forward to you joining the next trip with the crazy B-dockers.
I go to come back!
Our route…
So…. would I want to do the whole check-out-of-BVI, check-in-and-out-of-USVI, then check-back-in-to-BVI Customs & Immigration thing again? Not sure. St John was amazing, but it did burn some of our days planning where and when to check-in/out. I guess the take away is that it is best to be flexible….especially with the weather… and just roll with it.
April 3 – New day, new country.
Thursday, April 3.
This morning we topped up the water tank, got some ice and emergency provisions (i.e., Dove Bars) before heading out from Great Harbour.
Destination: St. John’s of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Since we’ll be leaving BVI and entering USVI, we have to visit Customs & Immigration to check out before leaving here, and check in at Cruz Bay once arriving in St. Johns. This is our first time to go to USVI by boat from BVI and deal with the Customs/Immigration thing. I’ll let you know later if it’s worth it.
We didn’t go ashore in Cruz Bay other than to clear customs. We caught a ball in Caneel Bay and ate lunch, then waited through some rain showers for the other 2 boats’ crews to come back to make a plan for the night. The original plan was to stay in Leinster Bay on the north side of St. John’s. But we’re getting intermittent rain stroms, and the wind is really kicking up now. So, the NE swells would make for a very rough mooring. Instead, Monte suggested Lameshur Bay on the south side of the island. Maggie stayed in Caneel Bay, since they were unable to anchor if it turned out they didn’t get a mooring ball. But Tan-a-Na and Jim’s Dream decided to make a run through the rain for a very remote and unspoiled Great Lameshur Bay, and got two of the last remaining mooring balls in time to watch a beautiful sunset.
Pinochle at the pub.
We headed down to our nearby pub after work to grab dinner while playing a few rounds of cards with Tom and Doray. This hand was typical of most of mine all night. “I pass.”
Sheila365 