Happy New Year to all!  And thanks for reading! 

Our 2012 Recap in Photos is over on commuterCRUISER.com -- click here. 

In a nutshell, we hope to be back aboard -- still 10 feet up in the air, on the hard, within a week or a bit more!   And with any luck, we'll be back in the water a day or two after that.   Stay tuned for the continuing 2013 adventures of sv Winterlude and her crew!   HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We just got an update photo from Mike, Winterlude's bottom is sanded and drying out more while we philander our time playing with grandkids!  Isn't being a commuter cruiser wonderful? 

Here's our latest experiment .... newborn photography!  We were lucky to have such willing subjects!  Big Brother Rowan and his Baby Brother Chase!

We'll be in Atlanta a couple more days and then back to the Midwest to get ready for the holidays and then Andy & Jackie's baby on December 28!   TWO grandbabies in one month!  How lucky are we???    :)

I'm a Gramma again!  2 1/2 year old Rowan is the best big brother ever!  Chase was born this morning, 8 lbs 7 ozs 20 1/2"!   We'll stay a few days here & then head back to Illinois for another grandbaby, December 28!  It's BABY month!   :)  

Many cruisers want relationships with their grandkids and don't want to leave to go cruising because they'll lose the time with the kids.   We're commuter cruisers, we spend "special" time with the kids when we're back and one of these days the grandkids will come and spend time on the boat with us!   Special times!   :)

As we've observed before, there's not much exciting about watching a boat's bottom dry - it's much less interesting than watching paint dry or even grass grow ...  so we're off on a different tack!  We ARE commuter cruisers, after all!   Today we're commuting to Atlanta where.....

Oh darn, someone has to  play with grandson, Rowan, while his mommy & daddy go off to the hospital to have a little brother or sister for Ro!  "Bean" as the baby is currently named, will be born on Monday, December 3rd & believe it or not, family IS more important than boats ... especially those with drying out bottoms. 

So we won't post daily on what's going on aboard Winterlude, but we will post when there's an update - it appears that Mike's sanding test to bring moisture to the surface is working, so we're hopeful Winterlude will be sporting a newly sanded bottom by this time next week!  Then THAT bottom can dry for a couple of weeks while we travel back to Illinois for our second grandbaby in a month!  Plus Christmas festivities which are always more fun with 2 & 3 year olds around!   :)      See you soon!