Hooray!  Our good friends Karon and Alan and their two boys Alec and Collin are here for a 10 day vacation!! We are very excited!  We have been friends for about 13 years and our kids have grown up together.  They have been a very integral part of our trip.   Alan helped Dan on the delivery, when they brought Alegria from Tortola  BVI to Charleston SC.  Then when it started to get cold in January, he helped Dan move the boat down to Palm Coast Florida.  Wesold our house in the middle of December 2006 but we weren’t ready to leave our jobs until the end of January 2007.  They stepped up and graciously offered to let us live with them.  (They really should have thought that through!)  So, Dan, Tristan, Tessa and Rasta (our Jack Russell) moved in with their 2 boys and their dog.  Now when I say moved into their house, a more accurate picture would be to say we occupied.  We took over their garage, their living room, their bedrooms.  Any empty space we could find became ours.  They were extremely nice about it, especially since at that time we did not have a clear departure date.  Incredibly it worked and we had the best time.  They were so accommodating that Dan seemed to forget what an inconvenience we were.

“You know,” he said to me one day.  (I think it was day 20 of the occupation).  “I think this has worked out really well.  I don’t think our being at Karon and Alan’s has caused any problems .”

“Really?”  I was amazed.  “Did you forget that they can’t use their garage because we have all our stuff in it?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Did you forget that we have taken over their kid’s bedrooms and their kids are now sleeping on the floor?”

“Yes, but…”

“Did you forget our dog bit Karon?  Twice?”

“There was that,” he agreed.

“Tristan clogged the toilet?  A vase was broke.  We possibly introduced a rodent to their garage?”

“Well…”

“What part of all that suggests no problems to you?

“Well,” he says quietly.  “I still think it’s going well.”

And so it was and did and we will be forever grateful to them.