Glad To Be Home

 Mark checked the rain gauge this morning, we had 3 inches of water in that from the last 2 days. The drives really will need to be graded but today everything was just too wet and muddy. I went over to mom's around 8:00 am and had a nice visit then over to the apartment to make sure there were no dead Asian beetles or stink bugs on the floor. I was glad I checked there were a few. The heat was turned up and then it was time to get breakfast cooked. About that time the picture below arrived of a Maderia x Evan colt now grown up.

Below he is just a few weeks old.

He turned out gorgeous! Aldi was next on the list to get some food in our fridge for this next week. Diane sent the picture below just as I was finishing up at Aldi.

I drove straight to mom's to find lots of vans parked. 

They were just about finishing up when I arrived.

Joan and the kids had blown out the eggs and used that for their breakfast casserole this morning. Below are the decorated blown out egg shells.

This way nothing is wasted. I slipped my shoes on and started walking back to the car when I realized the shoes I had on were WAY to loose, looked down and was wearing someone else's tennis shoes. They were Jacob's shoes. No wonder they were too big. My excuse was they are blue and so is mine.

I drove home, put the groceries away, then it was over to the barn to restock and check bathrooms. I found 2 caterpillars on the gym floor that had been stepped on so had to get some cleaning supplies to clean up caterpillar guts. Nasty sticky stuff that turns black if not cleaned up. Mike helped put Disco and Roseberry into the stall barn. The family that are buying Disco booked the foaling apartment to spend time with him. He hasn't been stalled since before weaning but once he is at his new barn will need to be in a stall. Disco was put in one stall then Roseberry was put in the stall across the aisle so they could see each other. They were both given a handful of grain, plenty of hay and just a half of a bucket of water. They were checked on when I got back down to the house. They were both standing quietly.

The family buying him arrived abought 10 minutes later so I went up to show them where he was and how to handle him. They did very well with him but I did check on them through the camera. I was really pleased with how well he behaved and how well they did with him. It is an excellent match.

Then it was time to get to work on the desserts for our Easter lunch. I am just making the roasts, potatoes and one of the desserts. I decided since I have no chocolate Easter candy here to make Reeses chocolate peanut butter eggs. They didn't look as beautiful as the picture of the recipe but they tasted ok.

I made 4 dozen of those.

I had left over almond bark and pretzels so made a batch of those too.

The roasts were taken out of the fridge, seasoned and wrapped well. I have 5 of these 

nice size roasts that will be cooked tomorrow.

Below they are in the fridge and hopefully will be put in the oven at 225 degrees around 4:30 am.

We are eating our meal at 1:00 pm and I want them to cook very very slowly.

This evening the kids brought the supper to the barn. Nolan had smoked 20 pounds of fresh pork roast and had lots of pulled pork with a four different sauces to go with that. The pork was so tender and delicious it didn't need any but I did put a little on some just to try and that was also delicious. They had lots of side dishes to go with the pork. I think we all ate a little too much. I still need to clean up the kitchen before going to bed. Today was cold, windy and damp. Such a change from Gulf Shores but I'm glad to be home. 

Home James

 We were up at 4:00 am, packed and on our way home by 5:30 am.  This trip went much better than the trip coming down. We pulled in at our house at 10:01 pm just 16.5 hours after leaving Gulf Shores. Mark named his car Fred so instead of saying "Home James" we really should say "Home Fred." Fred did very well taking us home until we got near our house. For some reason Fred wants to take us all the way back to Hanna City.

Another Perfect

 Mark went out early to walk but instead of walking I sat down by the pool to finish the book I've been reading. 

The title really should have been when religion kills It really did open my eyes and brain to why religion without the truth goes so very wrong. Jesus really did turn the world upside down. Christians are the only ones who are to pray for their enemies and as they are being killed can pray, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." If you want to be great in GOD'S kingdom you really do need to learn to be a servant. This book is written by a self proclaimed atheist yet even he admits to praying to God when in trouble and also admits when he sees amazing beauty in creation his heart wonders. The sun broke through the clouds just as I finished the book.

We made arrangements with David and Stephanie to borrow their children for lunch. Israel had been wanting to go to the Throwed Rolls Restaurant (Lamberts) so we left at 11:00 am to go for lunch so we wouldn't have to wait in a line. We got right in, ordered quickly and about then the rolls started flying.

Elisabet caught her's too. She decided to wrap it up and take it home.

The food came pretty quickly. I had ordered the special which was smoked chicken for $18.00.

Before I even took one bite the pass-a-rounds started coming and they put a a big spoon full of fried potatoes and onions next to the coleslaw and yes we each got a roll and had some molasses dripped on it. The kids each ordered a child's meal, Elisabet the chicken fingers and Israel a cheese burger. Those also came with 2 sides and both ordered fries and peaches. Kids meals are $10.00 each and also come with a drink. Mark just ordered a side salad. Our bill including tax and tip was $59.00 for the 4 of us and we brought home enough for 2 more meals. As we were getting ready to leave the rolls started flying again so each child caught another, wrapped them up in a napkin and carried them out to the car. As soon as we got home we changed into our suits and walked back over to the beach. Israel joined his baseball friends and they went first to the pool while Elisabet played on the beach until Anna and Kattie took her to the pool to play with Kattie's girls. They soon were back on the beach. Israel was skim boarding with a friend.

Elisabet and Bexley were busy catching live shells and carrying water back to watch them open.

Israel's group put down the skim boards, grabbed the boogie boards and were back in the water boogie boarding.

They were catching some great rides all the way in to the beach. It just seemed like another perfect day. We are leaving for home tomorrow morning so I went back to the condo and am getting all of the laundry and packing done tonight. Mark took the car to the Warf and got it all charged up for our trip.

Mike went to Middle Grove and brought back Cookie and Star. He sent back the picture below.

Spring Break

 Mark was up before 4:00 am and I tried to sleep in but finally got up at 4:30 and started the coffee. I don't have a view of the sunrise nor the sunset in this condo but could tell when the the sky started to light up. 

David and Elisabet walked over to the beach to watch the sunrise. David sent back the 2 pictures below:

I walked over to Diane's condo bringing a few supplies over for later. Her condo is perfectly suited for a family that loves the beach and the pool.

Above I am sitting on her deck looking out toward the beach and below I turned the camera over to the pool area.

Phil and Anna arrived around 8:00 am after driving all night so Mark and I gave them our condo and we moved over to Diane's until they were able to check into theirs. Soon everyone ended up on the beach. The waves were great for boogie boarding and we watched the kids do that for hours. 

Mark and I decided to go into town for lunch and decided to try the food truck 'Rouses had outside their store. We were kind of hoping for fish but they were selling pulled pork or some kind of southern sausage with rice and beans. Each dinner cost $5.50 so we decided to try.

Below Mark is ordering,.

We took it into Rouse's to eat in their diner.

The rice and beans were bland but the sausage was spicy enough, if mixed it was ok. We wasted a lot of the rice and beans but went home no longer hungry. We stopped at Walmart to pick up potato salad for our dinner tonight. At 3:00 pm I started the dinner. Mark was going to grill steaks and those needed to be seasoned. The onions sliced and sauteed, the mushrooms also sauteed in butter, the salad mixed up then everything packed in the cooler we keep in the car. We drove to David and Stephanie's condo as the grill at that condo association worked well last night. David helped carry the food over to Phil and Anna's condo where they had plenty of room for us to eat inside and even had enough silverware that we each got a steak knife, fork and spoon. Ours and David's is sorely lacking in that department. Why I'm pretty sure at David's they only have 3 spoons. Phil rented at Island Royale and ended up on the very top floor. After a delicious supper we adults went out on the balcony to watch the kids playing ball on the beach.

They were much to far down for us to be able to see what they were doing.

I zoomed all the way in.

News from home is Zion caught a huge bass in the pond at their new house.

Rhoda took Zeek for a walk in the woods and he found treasure!

I'm sure glad everyone is having a good time on Spring break both home and in Alabama. Today was such a nice day.

Fun Filled

 As today is Nancy's birthday the sisters in Illinois made plans to take her shopping then out to eat for supper. Diane sent the picture taken at mom's birthday taken yesterday. 

She is just missing 3 of her daughters in that picture, Nancy, Beth and of course me. Beth and I were just too far away to get home to this party. Ruth took mom to the Berean office today and also picked up a dozen donuts for the Berean volunteers. Ruth said Shirley also brought a treat but both were appreciated.   Mark and I walked down the main public beach and on the way saw Joy, the dog that looks the most like Molly down here this time.

We saw some of the most strange yard ornaments. 

Some yards were getting ready for an Easter egg hunt.

We decided to go check out the wheel chair ramp at the park to see how close it would take a person to the actual Gulf waters. 

We were disappointed to find it ended pretty far away from the water.

Too far to watch the fishermen.

The day turned out to be really beautiful, sunny and hot. The kids and David went boogie boarding for hours. Even Elisabet. when she finished with swimming built a chair to sit on while watching the others.

When we got back to our condo there were many people sitting around the pools and even quite a few IN the pool. I had finished all the books in this condo so went down to the library and found a really interesting book about Lepers in America and how they were treated. The title is The Second Life of Mirielle West by Amanda Skenandore. I learned so much and recommend reading the book. It really was horrifying how people were treated. Mark is reading it now. Mark and I walked over to Diane's just as the new patio set for the pool was being delivered. 

I called Diane to let her know and she was going to call Spark to put it together.  When we got back to the condo I started on supper making hamburger patties and gathering everything needed for the meal tonight. That was all packed in the cooler in the car and driven over to David's condo. Mark got the grill going.

The cheese burgers turned out great. After supper David and Stephanie's family went for a walk on the beach.

After the walk Israel went back to their condo but David, Stephanie, Elisabet and her cousin came here to enjoy the hot tub.

They would jump in the pool when they got too hot then were glad to jump back into the hot tub. What a fun filled day.

Relaxing

 We were both up at 5:00 am and ready for coffee. After breakfast we took a walk on the beach. The clouds were trying to cover the sun but the sun was bright enough to shine through. 

It wasn't long on our walk that the sun broke through and lighted up the waves.

There were fishermen out and that brought Fred. He waits patiently for a fisher man to pull up a fish then give it to him. 

We stopped in at Island Royal to check out the grills and picnic tables for our Wednesday evening dinner of rib-eye steaks. We do not have a tool for grilling so may need to buy something. Mark was also shown the library and exercise room. Someone had started a puzzle so I pulled some of the end pieces out to help and also picked out a book to read.

We continued our walk still heading West but turned around after an hour as we still needed to walk another hour back. At home around noon all of those that stayed home had a birthday parry at mom's house. Mom turned 94 years old. This picture popped up on my facebook page taken in 2012. 

Mom is where most of us got our love for horses. Spark also had a birthday, he was born on mom's 20th birthday and each year they have a competition on who can wish the other happy birthday first. Today Spark sent a text to Joan around 5:00 am telling her when mom wakes up read her this text. That really isn't fair! Spark and Rhonda are down here with Tara's family this week.

We left around 1:00 pm for Rouses, a fancy grocery store that has food and salad bars and even an olive bar. That is sold by the pound not cheap, $8.99 a pound plus tax.. By the time we picked out what we wanted for lunch we spent $26.00 for the two of us.

After lunch we went back to the condo to read our books. I finished mine then went down to the library at this condo association and found a Louis L'amour book I hadn't read before. I took that outside to read. Our condo looks over the pool and since today is sunny there were many people enjoying the sunshine out by the pool.The picture below was taken from our balcony.

The hot-tub is hard to see from our condo as there are trees around it for privacy.

Sophia the Golden came over to visit. She is 7 years old and such a loving dog.

Dogs are allowed at these units but most of them are small dogs. I'm a little biased on the bigger breeds ever since Rhoda bought Darcy. We still miss those Big Loving English Mastiffs.

David's family went to Bahama Bob's for supper tonight but we were still full from our late lunch. After they ate they walked to the ice cream store but Israel decided he would rather come here as he was full. I've finished 2 books and both will be returned tomorrow so I can pick out two more books.  This evening we watched a movie based on the true story of an Italian restaurant on Staten Island that had Italian grandmothers as the chefs. It was a cute story. This day was such a relaxing day.