Here is Sam driving Ben around the tide pools in a “boat.” He was very gentle and a good driver 🙂 We had fun running over in the double stroller, which I locked to the guard rail at the top of the hill. All went well – it was a nice change to jump in the water mid-run 🙂 We met up with our new friends Liisa and Mikko-Dakota. Liisa kindly blew up the floaty for me since I have a hard time forcing air into these things. I can’t even blow up a balloon. Very strange.

In other news, I took my new pack that Dave bought for Ben and me (a Kelty!) to the crazy shoe repair guy who fixed my diaper bag (a messenger back I got at Goodwill for $2). So I figured he could cut a little slit in the side of the pack for my water reservoir hose to go through. (Why Kelty didn’t do that I don’t know…yes, I called and am bugging them to let me be a gear-tester. It’s a great pack but there are some usability issues that I spotted right away…choosey gearhead that I am.) So anyway – take the pack into the guy, describe with gestures what I want to do (and show him my water reservoir/tube), and asked if he could do it. English is not his native tongue. So we gestured back and forth. He didn’t have grommets big enough, so I drew a picture of what I wanted – a reinforced slit. So he turned away from the counter, went to work on the previous customer’s bag, and seemed to have moved on. I was like “SO? Um? Come back later, then?” I jotted my name and # on a piece of paper, taped it to the pack and hoped for the best. He called to say it was done today. So I looked up call ID to call him back and see what the hours are. I thought I selected his number and dialed, got a man who answered just “hello” but I figured it’s a small shop, maybe that’s what he does. I’m like…”Ummm…Is this the man who has my pack?” The voice on the other end laughed! And I heard a lot of wind in the background. I’m thinking … this is odd?! Then the voice laughed again, and finally said “Alli, it’s Neil!” Neil is here visiting as his ship makes its way back to San Diego. He knew the whole pack story already, thankfully! He missed a golden opportunity to really mess with me! He could have said “no pack for you!”