Random Ramblings Through the Years: October 2013

Another long cold winter upon us. Fortunately we'll be gone about 8 weeks of winter.

1-2-13

1-28-13 happy birthday!

Dad's 5th week of the year at Orange Lake Resort in Orlando. Carolyn and Chester joined Angie and me.

2-4-2013 in Downtown Disney

2-5-13 Sea World. Thanks to some of Angie's architecture friends, she and I got in free!

2-5-13 SeaWorld

2-5-13 watching the orca show

2-6-13 Animal Kingdom

2-6-13 Animal kingdom

FEb. 18 - March 6th , 2013 Ken's first trip to Maui!!!! My 3rd

2-19-13 Makena Landing

snorkeling Maui--Ahihi

2-19-13 Steve Tyler at Coconuts Fish Cafe

2-19-13 our Coconuts Fish cafe picnic at the beach

Maui snorkeling--Kapalua

Poolenalena

Maui snorkeling---snorkeling 5 graves by Makena Landing

2-19-13 fish taco time

2-23-13 Kapalua

2-28-13 snorkel Kapalua with Bailey's who arrived on the 27th

2-28-13 dinner in Lahaina

3-1-13 snorkel Ahihi

3-1-13 the end of the road

3-1-13 Dinner at Mama's Fish house courtesy of the Baileys!

2-20-13 past Honolua

2-20-13 Kapalua

South Maui sunset

3-3-13 Pacific Whale Foundation Whale watching tour

Metropolitan car like we use to have when I was a child (only ours was all green)

Back to S. Florida to get warm and visit with Angie and Josh who are now living in Coral Springs, Fl.

3-19-Roger Dean Stadium---cardinals spring training

3-22-13 Tim and Faith the farmers

3-22-13 farming their acre

3-22-13 Faith on their tractor They ended up planting about 800 peppers and 800 artichokes, plus 5 rows of parsnips and some peanuts, corn and pumpkins.

3-25-13 yuck

3-25-13 more snow

3-25-13 bridge over Cold Water Creek into St Cin park behind our house


3-25-13 time to leave town!

4-21-13 high water at my biking route

The Katy trail---another of my biking routes


5-9-13 Golden Games Co-ed champions (of about 10 teams)--- 14 games in about 5 hours.

BAck at home, I'm uploading candids to the schools now. Since then I've had no photography assignments, but that's ok! Work is going through a big change. KH territory is merging into the underclass territory of JO. Desmond is being sent away. Dave will be sport and events manager. ot sure what's happening to Steve.

5-- Ken is off to dog sit in Florida. Roxy is extremely ill. She threw up before he left, but we assumed she drank too much water. I even started making her ground beef or chicken and rice. One day I left her out for awhile and when I went to get her, she had collapsed on the ground and couldn't get up. after carrying her in the house, she laid motionless for over an hour. Vet was full, so couldn't take her there until the next morning. Finally she got up, drank a lot of water and staggered around for a long time. That night she had diarrhea with blood in it. She was dx with a liver infection and ended up with 2 antibiotic injections, fluids infused and pills.

5--my first and only 5K "run" Faith asked if I wanted to do it with her and a friend. They left me in their dust after about the 1stK!

5-23-13 Angie and Josh in town for the ManCity/Chelsea soccer game

6-1-13 Tornado damage at Angie's former house in Ferguson

6-1-13 tornado Damage at Tim and FAith's in Calverton Park

JUne 10, 2013-- Very hard day!!! Roxy seemed to be doing so well a few days last week---even running. Then on Thurs, she started regressing---trouble eatting, aimlessly pacing, not drinking, finally even had trouble getting up. So Ken called the vet to have her euthanized. She was only 9.5 years old. Petey and Pepsi were great dogs, but Roxy was a great companion. Within 2 months, Tim and FAith had to have their 11 years old pup, BArley, put to sleep, too.

Roxy about 6 months old

7--I found 3 nights available at the WM at LOTO and asked Jane if she wanted to go there with me. She always wanted to go and has never been. She was able to make it and we had a great time.

7-1-13 to LOTO with Jane

7-1 Bridal caves with Jane

7-3-13 Hannibal, Mo. with Jane

7-3-13 driving around Hannibal with Jane

Ken took off to Oregon with my brother to help him clean out their houses so they can rent them out. Took them over 3 weeks to go through everything. Then David and Jane rented one house out for $600 and the other for something like $700/month. I tried to get Ken to let us rent one for 6 months or so, but he wouldn't do it.

7-28-13 Cleveland Senior Nations

7-25-13 lunch out during the tournie

7-25-13 competing in Cleveland

After the tournament, we did some sight seeing. We went as a group on a city bus tour. Then I went to the historic Eerie canal with Janet Schneider. It was a really fun trip! I even ended up canceling my flight home and riding back with Janet Johnson and 3 or 4 of the other players.

7-27-13 Eerie canal

8-29-13 Barley died a few months ago, so it was time to get another pet. This time Faith talked Tim into getting a cat as well as a puppy. They're both really great pets---Clawdine and Jesse

8-29-13 miss Clawdine

Ken got back at the end of Sept. and I flew off for S. Florida for 2.5 weeks to dog sit while Angie and Josh went to Savannah to vacation with his folks, then to San Fran for 5 nights. ANgie and I even spent one night on the beach at Royal Vista REsort.

View from our room

Back at home, I had 2 more weddings to shoot. One for Bev's niece at a fancy country club; the other in Tim and FAith's back yard for a couple good friends. Tim was even the officiant for the last one.

9-7-2013 Mr and Mrs Fahs ($1200)

9-21-2013 Mr. and Mrs. Pfeifer ($600)

Still biking alot.

9-30-13 biking New Town. Even got Ken biking quite a bit now.

Ken and I also took a short trip to LOTO getting a great deal at the WM resort (with our Wyndham VIP discount---1/2 points of a 2 bedroom upgraded to a 4 bedroom penthouse).

12-2-13 another trip to LOTO

St. Thomas---When we told the kids we were going on a land trip to St. Thomas and leaving from Miami, we asked if they wanted to go to. They didn't hesitate to say yes. Even though we missed our first flight from Miami to St. Thomas, we were able to take the next one about 8 hours later.

It was a trying trip for me. First missing our flight and paying an extra $75@ to confirm a seat on the later flight. I also had a sore throat for 4 days before our flight and lost my voice and had a persistent cough by the time we headed to St. Thomas. THen Budget caused more aggrevation. I reserved an intermediate car and they tried to give us a Yaris. We were forced to upgrade for another $13/day, plus they added another $11/day for Ken to drive. (I fought it later with corporate and got the $13/day back, but not the $11/day). Then Ken and I got into a fight over directions (basically Ken and I fought over everything in those days). Then the resort office was closed when we got there, but found a security guy and he had our keys. Even the weather wasn't cooperative. ANd I drowned another camera. But the kids fell in love with St. Thomas.

10-29-13 killing time at the beach while we waited for our flight (after missing the first one)

11-3-13 St. Johns, USVI We took a car ferry there and drove to the beach to snorkel

11-3-13 Trunk Bay, St. Johns Great snorkeling

11 - secret beach

11-2-13 Secret Beach

11-2-13 Cowpet Bay

11-BlueBeard's beach

10-31-13 Bolongo beach

snorkeling Cowpet

resident octopus at Cowpet

spotted drum at Cowpet

Cowpet beach from the pool

more of Cowpet bay

stingray at Cowpet

Queen angelfish at Cowpet

Cowpet

around the tip at Cowpet

Leaving St. Thomas.

11-22-13 fixing the middle bathroom floor

11-20-2013 Melanoma! Supposedly it's stage 0, but needed to be excised by a plastic surgeon even though it's on my back.

NOv.---Angie drove up with the dogs for a cousin's wedding. Josh flew up and joined us for the wedding and Thanksgiving at Tim and Faith's.

11-28-13 Thanksgiving at Tim and Faith's

11-28-13 Angie and JOsh in town for Thanksgiving

11-28-13 Thanksgiving

11-28-13

11-28-13 thanksgiving

time to get to MOBOT again!

11-29-13 Garden Glow

11-29-13 MOBOT

Then I rode back to Florida with Angie and the dogs. We even decided to go on a mother/daughter 4 night cruise while I was there. So nice that they live so close to the cruise port.

Dec. 5-8, 2013 Mother/daughter Carnival cruise from Ft. Lauderdale