The Fords Arrive!

  September 23, 2013 – The Ford family hit the road this morning to begin their drive down to come and visit with us for a couple of days!  At this point in our trip we’ve been getting pretty lonely.  I never realized how much I would miss the sweet fellowship of our church family.

   Well, with the arrival of "company” it was time for Lydia to get a bath – finally! 

(It had probably been 4 or 5 days since she’d had a bath!)

Check out tonight’s sunset!

   After a long drive, the Fords arrived at our home-away-from-home and we ate dinner after taking in the view from the deck.

  Wow, what a blessing to have such good friends sitting around our dinner table and to have some fantastic conversations!  It was great to hear how everyone was doing back at home…they even brought back the remaining pieces of communion bread our church family had torn pieces from the day before.

  After dinner we took a relaxing walk on the beach in the dark and used flashlights to find crabs and shells.

Guests & Crabs

  September 12, 2013-This morning we prepared to receive our new house guests!  Kate’s father and two of her sisters drove down from St. Louis to come visit with us for a long weekend.

Eating lunch

    Incidentally, this is a view of Front Beach Parkway, the main road that runs along the coast of Panama City Beach, FL.

  Finally, a shot of the front of the townhouse; our unit is the 2nd from the right

Kate’s family arrived in the early evening and after taking a quick peek at the ocean, we unloaded the car.

We ate our first dinner together on the deck…

…before the ladies took a walk along the ocean while the sun set.

During the evening Benjamin and Noah walked along the beach with flashlights to find white crabs. (known as crabbing?)

There are a lot of crabs on the beach at night, but most of them are smaller than a quarter.  However, tonight Ben and Noah tried to catch only the big ones.

Crabs, Paragliding, Sun Rays, Bourne

  September 9, 2013-This morning started out with some crabs.  No, I don't mean the kind that are the result of a bad night's sleep.

   This picture makes me picture the crab as a baseball catcher intentionally walking a left handed batter.  Might have been watching a little too much baseball.  (Cardinals have now secured a berth in postseason.)

   This afternoon we heard a sound of an engineering and looked up to find this little guy buzing around.

   He is paragliding.  He has a large gas-powered pan strapped to his back and is able to "take off" from the ground.  He exhibited the good amount of control he had over the chute by his very close passes near high rises, and dips that brought him within twenty feet of the water.

   I have more footage of this guy that I can't wait to share, so watch for a video in the following posts.

   So far, everyone who commented on a previous post would go parasailing, but how about paragliding?  You may want to wait for the video to answer that question.

All three could be good photos in and of themselves

Tropical flare

  The ocean is so still it almost looks like a large lake

Instead of another sunset, why not mix it up with a shot of the moon?

Benjamin and Noah have gone swimming at night with the GoPro and waterproof flashlights. These videos of the ocean at night from underwater remind me of this song: (Plays with Spotify)

Bourne opening and closing scenes in Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy