Sold! One Great Idea.

Paul Bunyan likes to play. He plays hard. But he works hard too. There is very little sitting. Unless he's at work and there is no one dying. Then there is some sitting. But last week right after he got home from playing very very hard with the Mothership in Chicago, he started taking a class here. Now, be mindful that Paul Bunyan would like to retire tomorrow if he could but that wouldn't mean he would stop working less, especially in the woods. He just wouldn't be saving people's lives. He would, in his dreams, buy (or better yet, build) a 50 foot sailboat and sail sail sail.

We went to the British Virgin Islands in the winter of 1998 with 12 other Breckenridge ski patrollers. I was the only girl with 7 other guys on one of two 40 something foot sail boats. This picture is the only one I have access to of that trip. The others can only be viewed on an old school slide projector. I have one of those but that would mean you would have to come sit on my couch and watch my slides. But then you would see how messy my house is and that there are dead carpenter ants in every corner cobweb. And then I'd have to make you pop corn. So you'll just have to believe me when I say that trip was AMAZING.

So, I think Paul Bunyan has it somewhere in the back of his bald head that he'd like to actually do that again. Well, more than do that again; he'd like to actually live that again. Like, as in, live that way for a few months out of the year. So...he's in preparation mode.

Included in the price of this first step sailing class was a sunset cruise captained by a licensed for real professional captain. So we went. Last Tuesday. The official first day of summer.




We started out at dinner time.





But we had blue blue skies littered with only a few clouds.




And while Paul Bunyan helped rig the lines,




the kids and I sat and snacked. I imagined how this might go on our boat some day. Me sitting and watching and snacking.




And sure enough he was putting everyone to work.




I know, I know it's all about team work.




Claire was at the helm for a bit.



And Auggie took a turn too.







But it was Paul's day to shine...even though there was no (little to none) wind.




Claire wanted to be under the water instead of on top of it. And we decided that this is how she's supposed to be.




But I started telling her about all the incredible things she could do when she came south to visit us on the boat during her college vacations. How she could swim with the bioluminescent fish in the dark of night, actually carry air on her back to swim under the water for hours, swim to the bars and restaurants, swim with the sharks, swim in water the color of Timmy's life jacket, just swim all day every day.




And I told him he could pee off the boat whenever he wanted.




And I told him he could actually poop in the water if he wanted.




And I think...




I think that's all I needed to say.