Was it really an off day?

All were up early with a great debrief by Roberto encouraging the children to be more focused on sailing and less focused on everything else.  A little less slumber party and a lot more sail boat racing.  He discussed the importance of boat preparation and the first 3 minutes of the race.  If they get 25% of what he teaches they will all someday be great sailors!

We transitioned to the yacht club where we spent the next 5 hours measuring boats, sails, dagger boards, rudders and anything else they could find.  After sanding center boards, moving sail numbers, procuring new protest flags and a broad assortment of other activities the entire team is offically measured and ready to go for Nationals.

By popular demand we spent the rest of the afternoon at the "mall".  Over the course of 2.5 hours we procured clothing for Roberto's children, 2 Build a Bears, a Pilanimal (a stuffed animal that turns into a pillow and back to a stuffed animal ), a baseball cap (with some logo they tried to explain to me but frankly was lost on me regardless of how hard they tried), the world's shortest shorts (you can tell we do not have girls as I asked if they got a discount since they were missing half the fabric of normal shorts) and an assortment of other "girl stuff".

A dinner of pizza and salad was followed by a 2 hour debrief by Roberto on team racing.  Turns out after last year's great LOOT performance, the current LOOT team is slotted in the first round against LISOT (last years #1 ranked team and by all accounts still the kick ass team) which will likely result in complete destruction of the current LOOT.  Roberto tried to impart a lifetime of team racing learning on the children (the majority of whom have never team raced and in general seem to have only a vague sense of the rules of racing) in 2 short hours with all on a full stomach of Texas' best pizza.  We have high hopes but all have been forewarned when the results are posted tomorrow :)!  We are thinking of it as a great learning experience!

As if a small gift from God, Texas Comcast went down during the Roberto debrief and for the first time since we got here there was no TV blarring (recognizing Shannon and I do not have cable so the idea of the TV always being on has been hard to adjust to in these tight quarters).  So a dessert of brownies and ice cream with then all to bed as tomorrow begins a week of getting up at 7:00 AM every day...

As proof that your chidren are alive and well here are some great photos (think we have figured out the technology despite our advanced age:)!):  Notice the creativity of the LOOT lego block that the boys built at the mall to entertain themselves while the girls "shopped"....

We are ready to start team racing with everyone in good spirits and good health!!

D&S