caught steeling oranges

We had a terrific Thanksgiving holiday. we hope you all did as well. Melissa, Sean and family came up from Miami, Brandon and Ali came up from Ft. Lauderdale, they also brought with them 3 couples from their ward. All in all we had 13 adults and 5 children. Dinner was great and despite the air conditioning breaking down we were relatively comfortable. Some of the adults played with the canoe while we cooked and after dinner we went to the beach and played in the waves.

Brandon and Ali arrived Wednesday night and stayed until Sunday morning. Saturday we took a trip to Orlando by way of A1A, a road that goes along the coast the entire way. We stopped at a Navy Seal museum and another museum that explained why the area is called the Treasure Coast. We learned about 11 ships carrying gold, silver and fine jewelery for a queen were wrecked in a hurricane and people today are still finding treasure along the beach. Our final destination for the trip was the Leu Gardens in Orlando. 48 acres of trees and flowers including a gorgeous rose garden.

Well that about sums up our week, the air conditioning is still broken and today is quite humid so I am anxiously waiting to hear from the repair man. we've added a few more coconuts to the count but I'm not telling how many or how many have grown yet some of you haven't added your guesses to the contest.

Blowing Rocks

Brandon and Ali came out for the weekend. They brought friends and a book of things to do in Florida. We discovered this place that's right across the intra coastal from us (1/2 mile as the crow flies or 1 mile as the car drives)

What we found there was amazing and we didn't even walk the whole area. Can't wait for you all to come on down and experience this with us.





Brandon after the fun!

windy day

October has been very busy. We had Natalie and Shannon visit with all three grandchildren. We did a lot of things while they were here including driving all the way to Key West and back in one day. (17 1/2 hours). We saw aquariums, a sea park with a great dolphin show where I got to pet and kiss a dolphin, a parrot show where Myra got to feed a parrot and a sea lion show where Natalie and Shannon got hugs and kisses. (To see the dolphins swim next to us in an open boat check out Chad and Shannon's blog.) in Key West we saw a man almost swallow a sword. I say almost because he took too much time gathering his crowd and a big thunder storm hit. We got very wet running for the car and we were still wet when we got home 5 hours later.
On another adventure we went to Lion Kingdom safari where we drive though the park and see all the wild animals roaming loose and free. we also got to feed the giraffes. See video this page.
It was a lot of fun to have the girls and kids visit and I really want to thank Chad and Doug for allowing them to come here for so long. Kent didn't get to do to much with us because he was very busy with work. Kent has been putting together a 40 page business plan for next year and for most of October he has been leaving for work and 4:30 a.m. and coming home around 7:00 p.m. he would visit with us until about 9:00 p.m. and then go to bed and start the schedule all over again. He has the plan done and in to a proof reader. it's quite impressive and I think it should be covered and bound. One day during that time he came home early and took Jordyn and I golfing. we had a great time. While Kent was in the bathroom Jordyn and I traded golf carts with him. His was faster and he would catch up to us and bump us. This was a great achievement as Kent was spending extra time in the flora looking for lost balls and found about 40 that were sitting loose in the cart basket. we thought we had to make everything look exactly the same or he would notice but there was a tear in his seat cover and he had spilled his sunflower seeds which we forgot to change. But in the end when we caught up to him a few holes later and started bumping his cart he was quite surprised.
I don't know if you get the weather reports on our tropical storms or not but we have had some fun with tropical storm Noel. He has caused havoc on Haiti and is headed to the Bahama's and even though he didn't come very close to our area he gets all the blame for the damages to our beaches. High winds that are actually caused by a low front has caused the waves at high tide to cut into the beaches and there are several areas that buildings including condo's are seriously threatened. Kent and I have been making visits to a near by beach to view the damage and made a couple of videos of the waves and surfers that are not supposed to be in the water but are having the most fun.