Thursday, June 4, 2009

21 Days and Nights

When Natalie announced that she was pregnant I scheduled my flight to come and help, I panned it around the due date and my departure for after when I thought the blessing would occur. It wasn't until I was booking a car rental that I realized the trip was a total of 20 1/2 days. WOW! So far I have had a great time and been very busy. I spent 2 nights with my parents, looked for pictures of my childhood and went to dinner at the sizzler. On the way to Idaho I stopped and spent a couple of hours with my granddaughters, Myra and Lexi then finished the drive to Idaho where I spent the next 10 days playing with James at the parks and zoo and cuddling Michael whenever I could.
Sunday, May 31, after church and after a delicious dinner I left for Logan Utah planning on spending time at my most favorite place - Bear Lake - with my granddaughters, this was not to be. My son Chad had had some stomach pains for a couple of days so Monday morning he went to see a doctor and ended up in the hospital with appendicitis. Needless to say the trip to Bear Lake was canceled but I have spent some great time with the girls anyway.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Catching Up:About Jordyn

BEING FUNNY

Picture photo shoot inspired by TV show America's next top model. (we were in a crazy mood)

THE ONE THAT I LOVE

Jordyn's choir had their variety show this month the theme was 50's music focusing on music from the movie Grease.

New Hair Style
(side note: Jordyn was voted "Best Hair" by all the choir 2 years in a row - the first year she was Best Personality)



GRADUATION
May 19, 2009 Jordyn graduated from High School
After we went to breakfast at the Breakers hotel
We rented a boat and drove around the intercoastal
Brandon and Ali joined us but Gypsy enjoyed the ride the most.
We finished up the celebration with dinner at a new restaurant


Thursday, May 7, 2009

VISIT WITH MIKE AND TERI

Our first day with Mike and Teri included a tour of Jupiter island, a walk on Juno pier and a golf game. The boys in one cart and the girls in the other. Teri and I had way more fun then the boys. we then drove to Old Town Stuart and walked through a few of the shops and ate pizza at Luna's.
Mike received a call from home during the night and needed to return home for a family emergency. we were really sad to let him go.
Before Mike left we went to the beach to see the sun rise.



after the good byes Teri and I headed down to Alligator alley. we started at Shark Valley.
again the water was really low and the sun was hot so we didn't see to many alligators and only in the water.
If you look close you can see the babies in this picture.

After we drove down the street and went on an air boat ride.


Friday - road trip to St Augustine. Supposedly the oldest settlement in the United States. (Spanish people lived here before the pilgrims came)

St. Augustine's Light house

entrance
219 stairs each way
Looking up
looking down
on top

the view

oldest school house





Flaggler community college
old grave yard

Dinner at Harry's
Cool street, trees growing across with Spanish moss hanging from the branches
cute house on street

State wild flower

Saturday With Teri
Teri and I started the day off on Conch Bar. we saw the usual conch and star fish but we also so thumb nail size baby conch, lots of them and then we saw a squid we didn't have our camera.
Kent joined us and we went to the beach for some sun.
Teri, Jordyn and I visited the Jupiter light house.

Look to the left you can see the moon.


Monday was Teri's last day with us so we filled the day with activities.
first on the list was the Luci Lock. What is a Lock you may ask. Well it is a way to transport boats from one body of water to another while controlling the flow and level of water. The Luci Lock is one of four locks allowing boats to travel from the Atlantic ocean to the Gulf crossing the state rather going around.

this is an empty lock

sail boat waiting to go east through the lockfirst one boat is going west. notice the water level in the lock

boat in, east gate closed, west gate opens enough to allow water to fill lock
when water in the lock is the same level as the west side the gate will open and allow the little boat out.

boats now going east can enter the lock

three boats going east. notice the water level now.
the west gate will close and the east gate will open slowly allowing water out. when the water level is again even with the water on the east side the gate will open and allow the boats out.
In the afternoon Teri and I also went to the Johnathan Dickinson park down the road and took the tour boat to Trapper Nelsons. Here are a few of the critters we saw on the way.





TURTLE LAUNCH, LIBBY LAUNCH, OR FREE LIBBY
we stopped by the turtle refuge place mostly to check out the gift shop. I made the mistake of leaving my camera in the car thinking that I have done this place so much there really wasn't any reason to bring it. Wrong. when we were looking at the turtles we were informed that they would be releasing Libby into the ocean. These pictures are from Teri's camera but neither of us were familiar enough with the camera to risk a video. It would have been great but here is the event chronicled in pictures.
I was amazed it only took 2 of them to catch and lift Libby out of the tank.

turtles always have to go potty when they leave the tank

They weighed her, 89 lbs. and they measured her in every direction.
They scrubbed al the algae off of her as this is not part of the ocean life
then they strapped her to a wooden gurney board for transport
carried her to the ocean side
and let her find her way

That's it. We'll plan new stuff for the next trip. hope it's soon. We love to have company.