What have I been doing for the past three weeks?????

It seems that everyone that I run into these days ask me how I am enjoying my vacation!  Well, I have been working my tail off trying to get everything ready!  There has been a few moments of relaxation, but leaving the country, and trying to outfit everything you might need (fitting into two suitcases) is a lot of work!  Below are a few of the things that we are doing to get ready to go:

• Cut and split firewood for the house. 
• Cut down a tree next to the cabin that died this year.
• Sold our Blue Chevy diesel truck :(.
• Sold 3 rail fencing and tractor auger.  (helped finance our new laptop!)
• Ripping movies into hard drive!  This is amazing, as we are taking our 100+ DVDs and ripping them into a 1 TB hard drive!  Ready for those rainy days on the boat!
• Finish projects at the house.
• Rented out our Lake Property RV Site!  Welcome Amber, Jim and kids!
• Sold tractor spray and seeder rig.
• Set up new accounts for IRA roll over.
• A 1000 tasks at the house!
• Traveled to St. Louis to see the Cardinals play! (this was a fun task)

When I was cutting down the tree close to the lake cabin, I decided it would be great for my brother to film the whole event!  Just in case it hit the cabin, it would make a great video, and maybe evidence for the insurance company.  Well, my brother freaked out just when the tree started to fall, so the video is a little lame.  He was instantly fired from him position as head camera man!  In his defense, if the tree fell toward the cabin, I would have freaked out too!  The tree fell perfectly where we wanted, so no damage done.  Here is the link to the lame tree cutting video!

    

       

Boat buying tasks

• Set up new company in Delaware: MokaKat Sailing Inc.  (I am now President and CEO..too funny!)
• Hire a marine document expert to perform the closing and validate clear title.
• Find insurance for boat!  This was a lot of paperwork and we had to create a hurricane plan!
• Establish a closing date.  This seemed easy, but there were a lot of variables.  The boat was moved back to Guatemala to install the new rubber boots on the saildrives.  We now have agreed on August 9th for the closing date!
• Sign off on the refit from the Moorings.  This will happen when we arrive and validate that our punch list has been completed.  We have high hopes with the local Moorings team and looking forward to a good relationship, as we will be staying at their marina for a couple of months.

Things we have bought to be ready:

• New snorkeling equipment!
• Charts for Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico.
• New boat laptop.
• 2 handheld VHF Radios.
• 2 underwater LED flashlights.
• Courtesy flags for Belize, Mexico, and Guatemala (also one for Colombia...special for Maria Paula!).
• New US Flag.
• TRX Workout kit - Thanks to www.ZerotoCruising.com!  This will allow me to workout on the boat without a lot of weight or equipment! 
• USB Hard Drives for Laptop backups and movies.
• Spices for cooking.
• Extra sunglasses.
• New underwater camera.
• Cruising Guide for Mexico Yucatan, Belize, and Guatemala.