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9/6/2005 5:00:00 PM
San Diego, CA
Shelter Island, Kona Marina

Where has the summer gone?

Just a week after Ms. Cowie's visit (Sebastian's kindergarten teacher) Hemma, Christoph and kids (Lucas 8 and Mia 5) came to stay with us for 5 days over the 4th of July weekend.

A wonderful day to you all!

Since so many people keep telling me I don't have to apologize for my delayed reports (where are the days when I sent it on the 1st of each month?..) - I just won't have any more "excuses". The only thing I do want to point out is the detailed reports I send. (I often hear "Boy it was so long and I don't know who all these people are.")  I am aware that for many of you some things are of no interest and too detailed but I do have to admit that this by now is almost like journal writing for me and a great documentation for our family. Robert's mom has already bound the first 8 years of it into 2 books and I am sure that either we or the boys will once read them again and therefore it has to contain some personal aspects - because I forget. Now with this said let's start -......

Our summer has just gone by in a zippy, I can hardly believe that we will be leaving for Austria in 10 days - jeix, we just had made the flight reservations!

Just a week after Ms. Cowie's visit (Sebastian's kindergarten teacher) Hemma, Christoph and kids (Lucas 8 and Mia 5) came to stay with us for 5 days over the 4th of July weekend. It was a really nice and harmonious visit, even though we we had limited space. The kids all got along wonderful and very much enjoyed being with each other 5 consecutive days. Also Hemma and Christoph had fun to live (our) boat life for a few days and agreed that is was quite uncomplicated and enjoyable. Even though we had a few things planed we also had some down time on the boat and just "chilled". We went to Legoland, the beach (Lucas also joined the boys 1 day at their surf camp), a Padres baseball game and on the 4th we went with 2 of our boat neighbors to Glorietta Bay (Coronado Island just opposite of SD downtown) to join the big water fest. We already were there last year and had such great fun. The whole bay is full of boats throwing water balloons, people going swimming, b-b-quing and watching the fireworks in the evening. We ourselves had 12 guests on board, plus the other two boats so together we had about 25 people! Our friend (hairdresser) Chuck and his partner Jason, his daughter Britney (14) and friends David and Steven came once in May for a sail and liked it so much that they wanted to come back for this event. As you can probably tell by the pictures we had a fun group and a great day.

The weeks after we had many things planned with friends in San Diego, and the boys went to another YMCA camp - Sebastian soccer and Benjamin mountaineering. Sebastian loves camp and probably could do more (they both were in surf/boogieboarding/skimbaording/kajak camp the last week of June). Benjamin on the other hand has always a though time in the beginning but at the end also has a good time and fun. The days off for me went by so fast I could not believe it. In their last camp week Robert and I flew up to Santa Cruz for 2 nights to see our friend Luke's performance for his new CD. He also played the song he had written for us (Sebastian's song/We set sail) and we were honored to be there. Maura, Bob and Melissa came as well and it was in overall a very special trip for us.

The week after I flew up again with just the kids for 2 weeks. The first week we visited friends and helped Maura with all the preparation for the annual camping trip to the Smith River. We always pre-cook a lot and there is a lot to pack for 15 people. We had planned to leave on Saturday morning at 8 - we all packed/cooked/got ready until 2am - at 7am Bob came into Melissa's and my room and almost collapsed in front of our bed saying he had strong kidney pain for the last 3 hours... To make a long story short - Melissa immediately took him into the ER, where he had to stay over night thinking that he also had some kind of a heart problem. He had to undergo one check after the other and the short hope that we could leave maybe at the beginning of the week faded away fast. It was the first time in 27 years that they had not gone, so needless to say that we were all (and poor Bob most of all) disappointed but the most important thing was that Bob was ok and had not heart issue - just a "little twist". He only got his kidney stones out the week later which kind of put us on a hold for any of the other activities we thought we could do around the area. I managed to see some more friends and the boys were happy to have another sleepover at Sammy's and Lucas's (we even had them sleep in the tent in the garden).

While we were gone Robert had worked a lot on the boat, improving all our electrical wires and done an exceptional good job, as always! One weekend Dave (Kusmik) came down from San Jose and the two of them sailed up to San Clemente Island (about 70 miles - 10 hours). Unfortunately they did not get to sail too much but still had fun going diving and Robert loved trying out the boat and some new features.

We got back a day before Benjamin's 6th birthday (August 9th) and the night was busy with baking cupcakes, wrapping presents (which we had gotten already before our trip) and mapping out a gift hunt on the boat. On his birthday we went to a waterpark with some of his friends (Phoenix 9 and Griffin 5 - our friends from soccer, and Jack 8, who also has birthday that day - our boat neighbor). Robert took the day off as well and Benjamin was in heaven. The next day we packed up again and picked up my 16 year old nephew from Munich. The first 4 days we spent at Barbie and Jimmy's so that they could get to see him and he could sleep out his jet lag in a "real" room. The other 2 weeks we were busy with some sightseeing programs, shopping, sailing and some days of doing nothing - at least for him!

One Friday we went with our boat neighbors Lisa and David and their sons Evan 7 and Alex 5 to the Corronado Islands. This small island group is only about 10 miles from San Diego already in Mexican waters. There is not much to do since it is a nature reserve and rather steep cliffs. It is fun for a night though, specially if you dive or fish. Our friend Luke from Santa Cruz came to see us for 2 days coming back from his trip to New York. He sure is one of our most reliable visitors, but yet has never been out sailing with us and so this was a great opportunity. We had two wonderful days of sailing, perfect wind, sunshine and warm weather. Lawur was in her best spirits and we all felt very comfortable. It was a good way to get into the cruising life. David and Lisa came with the power boat, because we would not have had enough space for them as well... Robert and David went diving the next morning before we went back on a great sail to SD.

The weeks with Dominik just flew by and the boys had great fun spending so much time with their cousin - even though the age gap is rather big. He really was sweet with them and when he said that he could easily stay another 1-2 weeks I was relieved since that indicated to me that he was not powered out by the boys (yet - thanks to the ear plugs for Sebastian's snoring! :o) The last three days we spent with Barbie and Jimmy again since he had his 59th birthday that we celebrated with a very nice family BBQ and the end of Dominik's 3 week stay.

We had exactly 3 days on the boat before we took off again for a 3 day family weekend in Palm Springs over Labor Day. It did us all good to be away from planing, schedules, errands, work, etc. We charged up on sun, quiet time and doing nothing - the kids were hardly out of the pool and we just relaxed big time. We also enjoy to be out at night when it still is warm , the boys could go for a swim in the evening without shivering, something we can't do here in SD, there is always a breeze and it gets moist and wet in the evening.

The next two weeks are going to be fairly quiet - Robert is going to have his last week and on Friday the whole office will come for a sail (15 people), the boys are having an "End of the summer" party and we'll get ready to go to Austria. On the 16th we'll leave and the 3 weeks seem to be filled up already - a few days for us in Tyrol, visit in Salzburg with Sebastian's godfather, a stop at my sister's in Traunstein and with Robert's mom in Aggsbach. Then we have 10 days left in Vienna with the highlight of Robert's father's 60's birthday. Sometimes it would be great if the day would have more than 24 hours...

We hope that your summer was just as fun and hope to hear some news from you. In the meanwhile we send out big hugs,

The 4 Schmids - Niki, Robert, Sebastian und Benjamin (stolze 6!)

PS Robert's personal news you can see on the photo - just for info he surprised me too!

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