A visit and two birthdays.

We left FDR State Park heading for Daphne. Ollie and Sam's birthdays were in April and we missed our friends. Our tentative plans for next year will have us staying out west until 2014. It will be hard to do but finances may have to decide it.  Anyway, we stayed at Maher State Park on the causeway, a park right on the Mobile Bay. We stayed there last year and it was quiet and convenient. Here is a view from our site.

This is looking across the bay at I-10. That's a 10' alligator swimming around about 15' off shore.

While we were at the park Ollie came a stayed a day with us, Kim and Barb visited with us one evening for drinks and a sunset and Chuck and Debbie came over for an evening too. (We spent time at their house visiting too.) We also got to spend time with Mo's Mom and she fixed us a dinner salad that was wonderful, while we were there we also visited with Father Deasy, he's always a spiritual uplift. Can't forget to mention Oscar, probably the most known baby in Fairhope, AL! We're sitting in Ruby Tuesdays with Sam, Leah, Ollie and Oscar and Oscar's toddling around the table and some lady across the restaurant comes over and asks if that's "Oscar from the Coffee Loft?" He's one way cool little boy, for sure.
The highlight of the week stay was Ollie's 7th birthday. We celebrated at Debbie's house, of course. Chuck chef'ed burgers and dogs on the grill and Ollie and his friends ran wild for 3 hours in the yard. The adults kinda did too but in an adult way! We did take a few pictures....

the quiet before the storm!

It's started....

Debbie bought some blow up 'light sabres', Seemed harmless until the 'war' started.

Sam and Oscar observing

Father & son mug shot

Debbies neighbor, from Spain, brought over his gueine pig... ON A LEASH!

Ollie finally got to unwrap presents.

Legos will be around forever!

Don't know what Beth could be thinking.......

 So, while Ollie's birthday party was the party of the week, it was also Easter Sunday the next day. Mo and I wanted to celebrate the day a bit defferent so we met Kim along with Mo's mom, and Debbie and Chuck at St Joseph's in downtown Mobile. It was a quiet and reverant Mass that made Easter, and our visit to Daphne extra special.

Monday morning I washed the coach, Mo got the inside ready for travel and we packed up and pulled out, heading west.

Been A While !

Yep. I got real lazy about posting to the blog, taking pictures and calling freinds. Guilty as charged! Working at FDR ST PK was really a great time. We ended up building and installing about 100 signs, Various other jobs as they came up and the last two weeks Mo and I built a set of steps going down to the lake with 6X8 timbers. The steps really turned out well, the park staff was impressed that we did it by ourselves, other then some excavation by the backhoe. I wish I had taken a picture, we were pretty proud of them, they'll be there for many, many years.
Moving along here. Each year since my Mom passed away, the sibs have gotten together to visit, introduce new children, grandchildren and just catch up and socialize. We have missed the last couple since we were on the road. We knew that this year we would be in the area so we volunteered to host the 2012 reunion. What better place, we thought, then FDR Park. We set the date for March 31st, our last day there, (just in case we trashed the place!) and sent out the invites. The reunion weekend weather forecast was iffy for hard rains but we had a plan 'B' for inside fun and games. As it turned out, the weather cleared off Saturday morning and by noon it was a beautiful day. We cooked burgers and dogs on the open grill, hiked a trail close by, roasted 'smores' over a fire that we had going all day and celebrated Michael's birthday with cake. We wrapped it up about 9:30 or so. I think everybody had a good time. We missed Carol and Rose Mary, "The Girls", and also Tim, but we toasted them with a beer or two! Here's a couple of pictures that got  snapped -

Her's Ben and Samantha playing checkers, Ben;s pretty smart so I'd guess he let Samantha win!

Mo and Celia in the kitchen area chatting and toasting a good time.

I think the camera got forgotten from then on, we were having a lot of fun!

Our time came to an end at FDR, kind of with mixed emotions. We were ready to go but we enjoyed being there so much that we were a bit sad too. All the Park staff became new friends and asked us to return, the other volunteers also became new friends we hope to see and keep in touch with on the road.

We packed up and hit the road for Daphne, AL to spend time with BFsF and celebrate Ollie and Sams' birthdays.

Check back soon, I'm working on more........