Since Ronan's birthday

Since Ronan's birthday, we've done mostly random stuff, so I couldn't think of a good title. :-)

Of course the kids have enjoyed playing with Ronan's birthday gifts. Grandma Pat gave him a "Scoop Ball" set that we've all played with at the park and in the front yard.

When it hasn't been excessively hot, Brielle and I walked around the neighborhood to take photographs.

Yes, gross, it's eating a bug. But I was impressed with how long it sat there and posed for photos.

The squirrel isn't totally in focus, but I liked this photo because it looked like it was smiling.

When I work out in the pool in the morning, I often get to enjoy watching a lizard family playing on the plants and screen right in front of me. I started thinking it would be fun to make a play habitat for them. So one day we all got to work on one. We decided to put it in the front window so Ginny can enjoy sitting on a chair and watching the lizards play. We used a tree branch from our yard, a shell for a water dish, another shell just to play in, a food area using a part of a palm tree, a toilet paper tunnel, and a hanging hammock made by a piece of a candy dispenser. Did the lizards enjoy it? Well, they were pretty hesitant the first couple of days, but we have seen them on there since. I haven't caught one swimming in the water dish or hanging on the hammock, but maybe Ginny has... she's on the watch every morning.

One day we decided to go to Jacksonville for a Trader Joe's run and take-out Ethiopian food. We decided to stop by a park we know in Ponte Vedra so the kids could have some outdoor time. It went perfectly. The sky was overcast so not too hot, and we only saw a couple of people in the distance. The kids enjoyed the bushes maze (I know, it would be easier to tell what it is if I had an aerial photo).

It's not a famous park or anything. But it's a lovely, peaceful place to walk around a lake with birds and turtles.

And there's a playground (with no other people in it that day).

And, fortunately, it's right next to a public library that was actually open, so we got to use the restrooms.

A very exciting development this month was that the kids allowed me to teach them how to play Cribbage! We started with the wooden board and cards to show them the basics. Of course Ginny got involved. Later we started playing against each other online, just like I've been doing with Granddad. I think it's made Granddad happy that he can now play against the kids, even from a distance, and enjoy a phone conversation with all of us at the same time. We're certainly enjoying it!

After seeing this product online, I decided to get a surprise gift for Ginny. It's a realistic-looking stuffed toy fish that flaps its tale and flops around. The genius thing is that it flops for a few seconds then stops. As soon as Ginny swats at it, it turns back on and starts flopping around again. The person who invented this definitely knows how cats like to interact with their prey. Ginny loves it. I made a few videos but accidentally deleted them. If I get an amusing one in the future, I'll post it.

Finally, we faced our first potential hurricane of the season. It looked like Isaias was going to stay a tropical storm or be a Cat 1 hurricane at the most, so we assumed no evacuation would be ordered. We moved outdoor objects inside and charged flashlights, but didn't do much other prep. The outer bands of the storm started drifting in during sunset last night. We watched it moving in and took some photos.

It honestly didn't look more impressive than any other storm, but we always love watching storm clouds. The eye wasn't actually near us until this morning, and it was so far out that there was only a light sprinkling of rain. We definitely dodged this one.