She Did It!

Look, Ansley finally did it! Nan brought over her trusty numbing cream and Ansley brought along a large dose of courage and now she has pierced ears. Needless to say, we are very proud.

Yippee!!!!

I hate to be too optimistic, but Adam (not Tommy, not Marvin) from Comcast was just here and everything is working! He put some amplifier thingy on the cable and all of the signals are strong. He promises me there will be no need to contact him in 10 minutes. We'll see.

Thanks to Deborah for taking all four kids to the pool - bless her heart. I'm going to owe her big time although she had "the talk" with the kids beforehand saying that the boys and girls were to have no contact with each other whatsoever!

Back from Orange Beach

Well, we're back from our third trip of July and had a great time with the exception of an ocean full of jellyfish. We flew out Thursday morning to Pensacola and Gary rented a Chrysler 300 we affectionately named Pa Paw. I was like "Gary, how old are we? Must we really drive a car meant for men in their later years?" (no offense to any men in their later life.) Anyway, Pa Paw smelled like stale cigarettes and looked ridiculous, but it got us safely to Alabama. We met up with our friend's, the Dery's, and we went out on their boat for an early evening cruise then back to their condo for steamed shrimp and crab legs. They have two children of their own, Cole - 13 and Lilly Grace - 6. Naturally, Zack thought Cole was too cool and spent the weekend following Cole around. Ansley had fun playing big friend to Lilly.

Friday we took their boat to Pensicola Bay and docked on an island where there was an old abandoned fort from the civil war. It was great - except for the above mentioned jelly fish. We explored the island, collected hundreds of hermit crabs, had lunch and poured lots of vinegar on the many jelly fish stings that the boys all got. Later that night we all went to dinner.

They left Saturday so the Gray's cruised the beach, played in the pool, shopped and bought cheesy air brushed t-shirts for the kids.

Home today to NO CABLE on either tv that has a cable box. The great pain in the a$$ begins again. Day eight of the great cable wait begins Tuesday. What does one do to have working cable?

Cable Sucks

There is just no other way to put it. Cable - all cable -sucks. The tech showed up this morning to "fix" the cable and it should be no surprise that it is not fixed. I'll spare the details, but I have another appointment next Tuesday so I can waste another day of Ansley and Zack's summer to wait on someone. Whoopee.

More photos from Discovery Cove

All of us with Clipper

Ansley riding.
Zachary riding.
And, Gary riding.

Swimming with the Dolphins

This past Sunday we went to Sea World's Discovery Cove where we got to swim with the dolphins. It was an incredible experience and well worth going. Besides getting to spend about 30 minutes with the dolphins giving them hand signals to show lots of tricks and how smart they are, we got to pet, kiss then ride them. Amazing! Also, they had an aviary where we got to hold and feed birds as well as a pool of sting rays and another pool of beautiful tropical fish and reefs. They provided the snorkle equipment to see all the beautiful things. Also, they had a wonderful lazy river that we all enjoyed floating down several times. Included in the day was breakfast and lunch. We all highly recommend going!

Uh oh

80 percent chance of thunderstorms in Orlando today. This should be interesting. We'll be back late next Tuesday.