Sorry for the boring title of this blog post, but I basically wanted to share the random fun we've had during the past couple of months since my last update. Right before school started, we took our last summer break trip to Gainesville to visit Granddad and Sujata.
Dad's house is our second home, where we can play, relax, socialize, go to great restaurants, and play Cribbage. We were treated with a great rainbow that helped guide us back to Granddad's house after dinner out at Mr. Han's.
The kids love riding on their scooters, so a great discovery was that there's actually a skate park just minutes from Granddad's house.
The kids are very careful, but at the end of this video you'll hear Ronan's voice saying, "I'm okay!", which is his code for "I just crashed".
Back at the house, the kids showed off some acrobatics during "dance party" for Granddad and Sujata.
At Granddad's community pool, the kids dipped their heads into the water to create funny hairstyles.
This visit to Gainesville happened before school started. A little while later, during Labor Day weekend, we got news that St. Augustine was in danger of being in the path of Hurricane Dorian. We're very fortunate that we get to hear about these hurricanes over a week before they actually hit us. But the "spaghetti" plots of the potential path sometime leave us guessing whether Anastasia Island will be totally fine or if we're in danger of having the eye pass right over us. The mandatory evacuation of the island happened a few days before it was scheduled to arrive. If we didn't have kids, Kraig and I would probably have stayed a little longer to get more updated information. But to make sure the kids would be safe (or at least not terrified), we headed out of town when the evacuation order came. Thank goodness we had Granddad in Gainesville to provide us with a safe place to stay. Right before we left, we were presented with an amazing sunset rainbow, maybe as nature's apology for what was about to happen.
We did have a nice Gainesville visit for the evacuation. However, Kraig and I were a little preoccupied with watching the Weather Channel for updates on the storm, so I apparently only took photos one day when we were at Granddad's community pool. Brielle and I were trying to create that amazing water-hair-flip effect that you sometimes see in fancy photos. We didn't quite figure it out yet, but we had fun trying.
One thing we've learned since living here is that after a hurricane, once the beach opens again, it's time for a visit. It's a bittersweet event. Our local beach, which normally has a small amount of tiny shells, will suddenly be filled with large, fancy shells to collect. The hurricane apparently whips up creatures and shells from the bottom of the ocean and they wash up on the beach for a few days after a hurricane. We went out to see what we could find. Unfortunately there was a number of shells with living creatures in them. When they still seemed alive, we tried to throw them back into the ocean. But there were many other large empty shells that we were able to collect during this unique time.
With no hurricane damage to our home, we returned to normal life. When my time wasn't needed on the vending machine business, I put a lot of effort into my stock photography. Brielle is really interested in helping out as a model and even taking her own stock photos. Ronan will sometimes comply with my request to take photos of him, but Brielle will grab me and ask me to take specific photos when she gets a creative idea. She continues to be a wonderful (and beautiful) model.
However (and I've told her this), we sometimes end up with a fair amount
of photos where Brielle is displaying what I call "stock photo face"...
And sometimes Ronan "photo bombs" the shot...
The kids also had a fun time with Brielle's best friend, Mylah, when she stayed with us for four nights. Her mom needed to go into the hospital, so we were helping out. She was wonderful, and the kids loved a special super-long sleepover event.
Brielle's Girl Scouts troop continued to meet during the summer. At our most recent meeting, we gathered at a park near downtown that had an iconic carousel. It's been at Davenport Park for decades, but it was going to be taken down and moved a couple of days later. Apparently the owner died, and his wife wanted to honor his wishes and have it moved back to their hometown. Normally the $1.00 carousel isn't crowded, but during its final two weeks, crowds showed up to relive their childhood memories and have a final ride.
Ronan's Boy Scouts started up again a little bit after school started.
But this year, there's something new...Kraig has signed up to be the leader! He wasn't necessarily planning to do this, but a leader was needed to keep it going, so Kraig stepped up, to the delight of his son.
Summer lasts so long in Florida. In fact, this summer was the longest and hottest we've experienced so far. But that's meant that there have been plenty of opportunities to play outside. We took the kids to parks several times. I like this photo of Ronan. It's very difficult to tell what his facial expression is...
One of the kids' favorite outdoor activities is definitely riding their scooters.
Ginny was great with evacuating to Gainesville during the hurricane. We were lucky that Granddad allowed us to bring her and keep her locked up in the guest suite. One thing Ginny has loved recently is drinking out of our bathtub faucet. Pretty cute.
Today was "wear green" day at school, for some reason that I don't remember. Brielle was already decked out in green, but then she also ate a green Fun Dip candy that turned her lips and tongue green as well. Had to take a photo...
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