Celebrating Mothers Day at the Volvo Ocean Race Village

It was a chilly day for Mothers Day - but we still had fun - attending the Volvo Ocean Race village.  Everything was open today.

Chris liked the boatyard -where the boats kept all their sails & extra gear - and where they cleaned; fine tuned; and repaired parts

 

 The Volvo Ocean Race - 11 legs - from Alicante Spain to The Hague, Netherlands.  Long race around the world!

 East Bay Sailing Foundation got a group together for a tour of the sailboat Vestas 11th Hour Racing - tour by the skipper Charlie!  Cool!  Here are the kids posing before the tour

 and on the boat

Fortunately, the 'big' kids were allowed on too

Very basic living conditions for the 2-3 weeks they are at sea (at a time)

 How about this bathroom - nice and private - not!  It's all about weight and speed, so these boats are very bare bones

 Pretty cool day to be able to tour one of these - while they are still racing!  Newport was leg 8 so 3 more to go

 My nephew Bryan came along as well.  His wife Jie came - but isn't a fan of boats, so she stayed ashore in one of the warm buildings

Fun way to spend Mothers Day!

Rainy day - a litle of this and a lot of that!

We had a rainy Saturday - so we went furniture shopping.  It took all day, checking out just a few stores.  But we found our new set!

 

 We should have it all in a couple weeks!  Ready to get rid of our brown!

 

 Chris also found some time to finish the pool table.

 And we did some more sailboat cleaning - entering the final stages - yay!

Shopping!

We are still putting some finishing touches (and probably will be for many many months).  My mom brought some antiques that she doesn't need anymore.  So we put them in one of our cubbies

 

 And we've started furniture shopping!   This could be a long process too...

Family visit!

My sister & her family came for a visit -and brought my mom!  My sister's son, my nephew & his wife live outside Boston, so they came to visit them and us :)

 

We showed them around our house and neighborhood- then took a walk to the beach.  It's nice to be so close!  (Bolts was chasing the rocks into the water...)

 Lunch!

 A tour of Bristol.  It was a rainy day (although the rain didn't start until late afternoon).  So we walked around Bristol, toured some shops.  Then drove around Newport looking at the mansions (it was raining then, so didn't take any photos)

 The next day - we toured Boston!

 and got some tasty treats (Chris had to work, so I brought these home for him)

 and the following day - we toured Newport again.  And went to the Volvo Ocean race village!  The boats had just come in from Itajai, Brazil; so the village was still being set up

 7 boats on an around the world race!  We also toured the 295 foot coast guard ship (behind the sailboats)

 Our friend, and fellow yacht club member, captains this boat - Vestas.  They came in 3rd place on this leg

 Lunch again!  It was a short trip for the family, but I'm glad they came.  It's always  fun to show off your area and be a tourist again :)