Ruth here:

“Hi and Bye to September. I got to say it now or else I’ll miss it!

We apologize for the lack of updates this month. It has been a crazy month for us but don’t fear it doesn’t mean progress has slowed down. We’ve visited family, had friends and family visit us, started laying down the deck, and managed to sleep a few times!

Our trip to California to visit my family was so great. We both love just climbing into the car and driving. I really miss my family sometimes and always love getting a wonderful reminder of how awesome they are. We went wine tasting, cooked some amazing meals, and Garrett even managed to find himself a project while we were there! My mom had offered, if Garrett wanted to disassemble their old wooden hot tub he could have the lumber. He took apart the old girl and repaired their deck in a day. He came to discover it is old growth Redwood, (can’t buy that stuff anymore) really tight grain and in awesome shape. (except for the ends) I’ll have to put up some pictures once we plane a few pieces!

Garrett’s brother, Reid, stopped in for a surprise visit. He helped with a few monotonous tasks, which saved us boat loads of time. Then we had to have some fun! We drove his VW Van to the coast for the weekend. He’s just completed his US Roadtrip Tour, so his van had been his home for the last 5 months and has everything you need. We all really needed to soak ourselves in some Northwest Pacific Ocean.

We went into Portland one day this month (couldn’t tell you what day as everyday this month feels a little blurred) to get 12 sheets of plywood. We sort of change styles once again on how we are going to lay up the deck. We’ve decided for the first layer to use 3/8 ACX plywood and top that with 1/2”X 3” strips of vertical grain fir with epoxy in between and finishing the last layer with the really pretty stuff we got off craigslist (from the planking stock) that gave us 1/4” left overs. If you’re confused that’s okay, me too.

     
<——Yes lady’s, he’s single! 😉          

We have a few sheets of the plywood on now but these are the most recent photos I have on my computer showing all the deck framing. I put my foot down and committed to making a post today! I was so busy earlier that I had to do this after work so I’m sitting in the dark empty restaurant filling all you in on the crazy month of September. This month is not over yet! We are having a great week of weather so we really hope to complete the fist layer of the deck before months end

Thank you for being patient. This building a boat thing is hard and takes a lot of time and much of my brain space. I’m still working on the next Episode as often as I get the chance and promise it will be out soon!”