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.

Cloudy and Cool

 I slept for over 10 hours last night and awoke feeling rested at 5:15 am. The bed here is very comfortable, either that or I was exhausted. Diane and Mike left at 4:30 am for home pulling the boat home. About half way they had a blowout on the boat trailer. Diane wrote: Mike said this is what he lives for because he had everything he needed. I just don't know how he finds it.  The worst part was the smell of the road kill he had to work next to. She sent these pictures.

They took the beautiful sunny warm weather with them. We had a cloudy cool day. We first went to the Warf to charge the car then to Walmart leaving early this morning to beat the spring breakers. By the time we got to Walmart though a lot of them had already gotten up and were out shopping for their groceries for the week. Mark had a list and I had another. One of the items on his list was to buy a broom as the condo doesn't have one. He finally did find one by the automotive section. I needed to buy a new frying pan as the ones here are awful. We planned on being home in time to watch Peoria on-line and got connected just a few minutes late. Peoria had a visiting elder Adam Uhler from Smithville, OH. He came to help Craig with communion this afternoon but had both the morning and the afternoon message. We were able to watch both. I'm struggling with the internet at this condo so will post the link to both when I get home. We enjoyed the hot tub this afternoon. Yesterday the pool and hot tub were crowded but we had both to ourselves today. David and Stephanie's family came over for dinner. I had quite a time trying to find bowls in this condo big enough to serve the food. This place has 3 colanders but no big bowls.I was able to use one for the salad.

The meat was just served in the pan and the spaghetti was served in the next largest bowl. I used the new frying pan to fry the bread in butter. Below the spaghetti is cooking.

No pictures of dinner but all of the spaghetti noodles were finished as was all of the salad and most of the meat sauce. We all went down to the hot tub after supper. Benj's family joined us. 

The kids would get hot then jump in the unheated pool to cool down.

Mark had taken a walk but joined us once he came back. 

After they were all done swimming they came up to our place for dessert. We had 3 kinds of ice cream plus caramel sauce and chocolate sauce for toppings.

Elisabet loves playing with her cousins. This afternoon they all caught hermit crabs at the canal behind their condo. They had so much fun together. 

Rhonda took some of her family to the pirate ship.

Hopefully it will warm up tomorrow so they can all get out on the beach again. 

The LONG Drive

 We had decided to leave Friday morning around 10:00 am for Gulf Shores which gave me time to run over to the barn to do last minute cleaning. Mark did a lot of the packing of the Tesla and we left just a few minutes before 10:00 am. The self driving function is interesting and we were glad to have it.

We set our destination and the car told us where and when we would be stopping to charge. We decided to camp over night at a private campground just past Meridian as it was full hookups for just $25.00 but when I next looked up the car was going a different route. Evidently it found we would not be able to make it to the next stop. Since we were not sure what route the car would take us we gave up the idea of camping at a campground. One of the Tesla Charging stations the car was trying to take us to was into St. Louis then down I 44 then back up I 44 to I 55. We thought that was a waste of time so decided to find a super charger not from Tesla to stay on our route. That was near Collinsville but when we got to the charger station the adapter Tesla sold us would not work on the other brand. 

The traffic going North was stop and go for miles.

We got to a Tesla station but another route was now our way down.

The bad with long distance traveling with a Tesla is every 1.5 or 2 hours we stopped to charge and each charge took 12 to 15 minutes. Plus you must let the car direct the route. The good was it was a no stress job. I could sit back and not worry about anything as long as I was keeping an eye on the road most of the time.

We stopped at a Loves gas station around 10:30 pm but it was so crowded after driving around for about 15 minutes finally chose to keep on going. By 1:00 am I needed to get horizontal we found a Loves near Hattiesburg, MO that had room. Mark put the made to order front shade on while I put on the windows and back and soon we were both laying down ready for some sleep.

Above we are starting on the window shades and below we are both ready to sleep.

That is when we found the next problem. The Tesla has a glass roof and Loves have VERY bright lights. 

We decided if we try this again we will need a tarp or something to put on the roof to block the light. The Tesla has a camping mode and that keeps the sleeper comfortable and once that was on it even changed to computer screen to a camp scene with a tent and camp fire.

I slept until 3:30 then got up to go into the gas station where I bought some food and a big coffee. Mark was ready to get up when I got back so we decided to keep driving. The sky was getting lighter as we got closer to Mobile.

The sun started breaking through as we arrived at Mobile.

The car took us through the tunnel.

I took the video below as we were going through.

I also snapped a picture of the battle ship after we got out of the tunnel.

We had the car take us directly to the Waffle House in Gulf Shores and made it there around 7:30 am. Almost 22 hours since we left Hanna City. After eating a good breakfast we stopped at Walmart, bought a few groceries then drove to the condo where David and Stephanie are staying. They gave us an upstairs bedroom where we crashed for a few hours. Israel and Crew went to Beth's to play basketball while Elisabet went with her mom to the beach and found sand dollars.

Right now I'm feeling desperate for a shower and to crash in a 'real' bed. 

We were finally able to get into the condo we rented around 4:30 pm and got everything carried up and organized. The condo is nice but smells musty. David thought it was because it hasn't been used for while. So very thankful to have made it safely.

Shooting Sand

 We had a busy day planned. Right after breakfast I took the golf cart up to the foaling apartment. The weanlings were all still napping.

Once the foaling apartment was  ready for the guests coming in today The barn was next. The bathrooms were cleaned, the water heater put on high demand and the living area floor mopped. I also went on a hunt for Asian beetles and found some in both places. Mark actually bought a hand held vacuum to use to hunt them down at our house. I'll take that over to the barn in the morning and give it a quick once over before we leave. As soon as I got back we started moving bales. Evan was moved into his pasture before Mark brought the bale. I had the phone out on video thinking he would probably burst out running and bucking but instead he settled right down to graze. That good spring grass was just too tempting.

We moved in 5 bales today.

Evan's paddock got one, Valiant's paddock got one, the middle paddock for the weanlings got 2 and the far paddock got one. As soon as Mike and Diane come back from Gulf Shores they will need to bring back Star Temple as she is due April 18th. and she will need to be put close to the foaling apartment. David Sauder stopped in and told us the sand truck was here. Of course this is the biggest entertainment out here and we for sure didn't want to miss this. Below is the video of the start to the finish.

Mom stayed out until the end watching.

After that excitement I went home to work on our house a bit, getting all of the laundry done so we can pack. I met the new guests for the foaling apartment. They are here for their daughters wedding reception and are staying 3 nights. Storms are predicted again tonight so the barn was again full of vehicles. We currently have 2 trucks, 3 cars and the guests SUV. I'm assuming the storm will miss us but wanted to take precautions. We have had rain off and on and the rumbling of thunder but so far nothing violent. The temperature dropped from 85 to 55 in about 35 minutes. Pretty shocking when I went out to show the guests where the storm shelter was.

I took the picture above just before going into the house. The wind was blowing, lightning flashing off in the distance and that light is the the bright light in the back garage where the storm shelter is so the guests can find their way. It is almost 9:30, the storm is still pretty far away. Below is a video taken right before I head to bed. We really need the rain so hope some of those dark clouds will be heavy enough with moisture that we get some too.