The Phone Call

Yesterday, about 8:00 A.M., my home phone rang. It was my sister, who promptly said, "Somebody wants to tell you something." Shortly after handing the phone off, I heard, "Aunt B, I want you to come play with me." Come to find out that Carter had told Sue that he wanted me to come over and play and for her to leave. How in the world could I say no to that!

I had a few errands to run and Sue wanted to take Carter and Callen to be sized for shoes, so I told her that I'd call her to be sure they were home before I came by.

What a good looking bunch!

I ended up getting over to their house about 11:00 and, as I walked in the door, I heard, "Where is Aunt B?" When Carter saw me, he ran over and I scooped him up. He had been outside playing golf, so we headed out to the backyard.

Sunny wanted NOTHING to do with me! As soon as she saw me, she got a death grip on Sue and puckered up to cry. Sue reassured her that she was not leaving, but Callen was having NONE of it. She would hardly look in my direction, let alone allow me to hold her!

Callen isn't really sure she wants me anywhere near her.

We watched the C-man hit the golf ball for awhile. He was hitting it off a tee and, periodically, he would ask me to "make the tee bigger" for him. (Translation: Make it stick up higher so the ball is way up off the grass.) Of course, I obliged.

Carter was too cute while he was playing. He'd set the ball up on the tee and then squat down to look at it.

Assessing the situation

Connecting with the ball

His hand/eye coordination is fantastic! He was making that ball fly all over the backyard! I really think he has a good shot at being a great golfer.

Not to be outdone, Sunny had some new tricks of her own!

Drinking out of my water glass

Standing up and walking

I also got to help with lunch. Carter requested "chicken nuggets" with peaches and Callen got BBQ, peaches and peas.

Carter getting ready to gobble up his lunch

Callen and her peaches

(Doesn't that look just say "Woman, would you please let me eat in peace without all the flashes?")

I had such a great time visiting with the C-man, Sunny, and Sue! I am so glad they called! And I'm even "gladder" that they are back in Birmingham so I can see them much more often!

All Creatures Great And Small

Over the past few days, there have been lots of critters hanging around our harbor.

We've seen:

Green Lizards,

Brown Lizards,

A Great Blue Heron in the Marsh Grass,

A Great Blue Heron on Our Dock,

A Lesser Bittern,

A Momma Duck with Her Baby,

Sheep's Head Fish,

And this bird that we've not been able to identify yet.

We haven't seen the dolphins in our harbor lately, but we hope that they visit us again very soon!

Fourth of July Frivolity

Since the Fourth of July is also my dad's birthday, we had LOTS to celebrate this weekend!

My sister arrived Thursday afternoon with the C-man and Sunny and things picked up quickly around here.

There was an extreme amount of this going on:

And lots of "hands on" time by Bamma and me with this one:

(This is one of my FAVORITE pictures from the weekend!)

The Lock.ett Girls

After having fun in the pool, we all trooped inside for dinner. As my sister was getting the C-man's dinner ready, I grabbed a piece of baked eggplant off the stove from where my mom had been preparing them earlier. C-man saw me eating and said, "I want a cookie." I explained that I wasn't eating a cookie, I was eating eggplant. Of course, C-man wanted to try it and announced he wanted "MY OWN." I convinced him to try mine first, sure that he wouldn't want any more, but to my great surprise, he loved it! We went over to the stove and got him "my own" so he could have it. Before the night was over, he had eaten somewhere between 6 to 8 pieces of eggplant and kept asking for more "em-plant."

Eating Eggplant

After everyone had a bath, we all settled down in the living room to visit for awhile. Sunny tried to crawl all over the floor and C-man was being entertained by doing puzzles. At one point, to keep Sunny from crawling to and playing in the dog/cat water bowl AGAIN, I grabbed her up and hugged her close. C-man saw what I was doing, wanted in on the action and wanted to get some hugs too. He said, "We can be babies TO-GETHER, Aunt B!"

(Another of my FAVORITE pictures!)

After putting the kiddos to bed, we went and sat out on the front porch. The sun was going down and the wind was very still. This was our view off the porch:

What a great end to the day!

Friday morning, my sister got a call from Nick who informed her that his car had died on his way to work that morning not far from their house. Fortunately, my brother was still in town and was able to go help him out. Unfortunately, that put an end to Nick's plan to join us at the beach Friday night. But there was still great fun to be had at LBF! Friday and Saturday were spent like this:

More Swimming

Cooking ribs

Picnics poolside

Walking back up the dock from dolphin watching

Stylin' by the pool

All too soon, it was Sunday and it was time for the clan to leave. Sue wanted to get on the road ahead of the holiday traffic, and I can't say I blame her. I hated to see them go, but I think I pretty much speak for all of us when I say we definitely had a GREAT weekend! It's always fun to spend time with my family.

After they left, my dad wanted to drive over to the beach and see what, if anything was going on, so my mom and I accompanied him. I know it was the Fourth of July, but the whole "working 24/7" on the beaches is a farce. There were NO workers on the beach anywhere. We did see a good number of people out on the beach, but we didn't see anyone in the water. I don't know if that was a result of common sense or the double red flags posted. This is what it looked like from the Ro.mar Beach access:

It looked nice from the vantage point that we had, but we also knew that it wasn't as pristine as it should be.

When we got back to the house, we decided to have some adult beverages on the front deck. Even Bon decided to join us out on the breezy deck.

As we got settled, my mom pointed this out just above us:

It was a beautiful end to the Fourth of July, my dad's birthday, and a fun-filled family weekend!