Getting Ready for 2008/09 Hunting Season

We officially began getting ready for hunting season this weekend. Randall and I went to Bladon and began work on two of the four new shooting houses we are making this year. Randall did most of the work as usual and I assisted. These pictures are the beginnings of the first house. The picture of Randall on the tractor is him bushhogging one of the fields. Things have really grown up since we were there last. It's going to look completely different this year compared to last year

Dayspring Lights the Village-July 19, 2008

This past Saturday, we had a church wide mission project of holding a Summer Festival for the people who live in Alabama Village. We held this in conjuction with Light of the Village. I was thrilled with the amount of people from Dayspring who participated in this wonderful event. We served hamburgers, hotdogs, chips, cookies, cakes, and snow cones. We had 2 inflatables for the children to jump in as well as other games for them to play. Demaskus closed our festival with a concert. It was probably the most unusual concert they have ever done, but they did an absolutely fantastic job with working with the situation. I know they were truly following the leadership of the Holy Spirit as they dealt with unforeseen situations. It is my prayer that this will be just the beginning of our people jumping into serving those around us, especially those in need. This is what God commands that we do. While we serve them, we spread the love of Christ!

Sweet Ryleigh's 2nd Birthday

I have the two most precious grandchildren in the whole world. Monday, July 14 was Ryleigh's actual birthday, but we celebrated in a big way on Saturday, July 12 at Blu Rabbit. Ryleigh was SO excited about her birthday. A great crowd of friends and family joined in the celebration. My girl is getting so big. HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYLEIGH!

Camping Vacation Continued-Sunday, July 6, 2008

I couldn't believe my time was up:(. It was the morning that we were to leave to come back to the real world. The Peaks and us got up and went to Hazel's for breakfast. Then we rode all over Gulf Shores and Orange Beach. We then went back to the camp and sat outside and enjoyed yet another wonderful constant breeze off the bay. We left around 12:30. I had a close call as we left the campground. Randall was pulling the trailer with the truck in front of me. He pulled out of the campground onto the main road. I knew that I wanted to stay right behind him if at all possible. So I looked to my right and saw a car pulling a boat and thought if I put the pedal to the medal, I could make it out in plenty of time not to even make the car pulling the boat to even have to slow down. As I pulled out and crossed one lane of traffic and was crossing over into the one I was getting into, a car which seemed to come out of no where zoomed past me. Evidently, when I glanced to my right, this car was in my blind spot. I did not see him at all. I pulled out right behind him, only missing him by what must have been inches. I still don't know how I missed hitting him. It was one of those times when you know that God intervened. I know everytime we had prayed on the vacation, we prayed for safety and I just know that God answered that prayer in that very moment. It would have been a terrible accident because the car was traveling at a high rate of speed. Thank you Lord for taking care of my mistake! We had a great vacation and I am so thankful for the rest and relaxation we had. We are so blessed!

Camping Vacation Continued-Saturday, July 5, 2008

Tom, Linda & Maxwell Peak came over to join us for the day and night. They arrived around lunch time and we grilled sausage dogs and hamburgers. Later in the afternoon, we drove around the end of Fort Morgan and just looked around. Sat around and took it easy at the camp in the afternoon and Randall boiled shrimp, new potatoes, onions, and corn on the cob all together in crabboil for dinner. It was delicious! Sat around camp in the evening.

Camping Vacation Continued-Friday, July 4, 2008

Fourth of July!!!! We stayed around the campground in the morning. Ate sandwiches for lunch. In the afternoon, we took another nap and then got ready to go to the big fireworks display in Gulf Shores. Before we ate, we ran by to see Richard and Valerie Jackson at their campground and to see their 5th Wheel. It is very nice! I could get used to that! Afterwards, the plan was to eat in Gulf Shores at DeSoto's and then hand around in Gulf Shores until the fireworks started. When we got to DeSoto's, there were about 75 to 100 people in the parking lot waiting to go in. We made a plan B and headed for Foley where we ate our patriotic meal at the all American "Los Fuentas" Mexican Restaurant. If you ever want to go somewhere that is not crowded on the 4th of July, I recommend Mexican. This is a huge restaurant which is usually packed with people and only two other tables were being used when we got in there. Our food was great! We knew with the amount of people that were already in Gulf Shores and seeing the traffic bumper to bumper headed into Gulf Shores, that we didn't want to get in those crowds to see the fireworks. So we headed toward our campgrounds down Fort Morgan road and found a great place to view the fireworks in a new neighborhood that did not have any houses in it yet, only streets had been put in. We had an outstanding view of the fireworks from this spot and the best thing was we were out of all the traffic.

Camping Vacation Continued-Thurs., July 3, 2008

Randall went back to work this morning. I relaxed outside most of the morning. Randall went to Academy Sports while in Mobile and picked us up Guy Harvey T-shirts. We ate at Tacky Jacks 2 later in the evening. Nice restaurant...not far from our campground. Stayed outside for a while, then went inside and watched T.V.

Camping Vacation Continued-Wed., July 2, 2008

Randall took off today and we left to play golf just as soon as we woke up. We finished playing around 11:00. After that, we went to look at more travel trailers. Found a couple that were interesting. We're just not ready to do anything at this point. We will get something bigger in the future. We ate lunch at Lambert's and then went back to the camp and took a nap for a couple of hours. Richard and Valerie Jackson are staying at Gulf States Campground and they came over and surprised us with a visit. We had a great day!

Camping Vacation Continued-Tues., July 1, 2008

Randall left for work again this morning at 6:30. I got up, made coffee and went outside to enjoy the scenery. It was a beautiful morning! After the bad weather yesterday, a cold front came through, which is a real treat for this area for this time of year. We have really had low humidity as a result which makes things great.

Camping Vacation Continued-Mon., June 30, 2008

Randall got up and left at 6:30 A.M. so that he could be back at the house to start work at 8:00 on Monday morning. I got up right after he left and went outside. I found that the wind was blowing around 40 mph. There were no storms visible on the horizon. Just a constant wind blowing out of the north towards our camper which was making our awning really move around. I began to worry that it was going to come lose. So I decided to go ahead and try to put it down. Randall had showed me how to do it the day before. But it seemed a little complicated. I just took my time and was finally able to get it down. After that, I sat in my chair and enjoyed the great breeze. I spent the morning relaxing by walking around the camp with Camp and walking down the pier and sitting there for a while. Around 2:00, storms began to form all around me. I decided I better listen to the weather channel and see if anything severe was forming. The last place I wanted to be in severe weather was in that little camper with direct winds coming off the bay towards it. Sure enough, there was not only severe thunderstorm warnings, but also a tornado warning in Baldwin County. I secured everything at the camp as much as possible, gathered up Camp and got in the truck and headed to the nearest sturdy building I could find. We went to a convenience store down the road. I stayed sitting in the truck in the parking lot with the plan to go inside if the weather began to look like I needed to. I stayed there until after the time of the tornado warning expired. I then went back to the camp where everything was fine. But not 5 minutes after I got in the trailer, another huge storm with great winds came up. I was really scared. The camper, Camp, and I were all shaking. When I looked outside the rain was blowing completely horizontally. My cell phone was dead and we forgot the charger, so I had no way to call anyone. The storm lasted for about 10 minutes. Randall came about an hour later. We ate left over potato sald, baked beans and ribs. Later in the evening we had a gorgeous sunset. We also went down the road and got ice cream. We watched T.V. and then went to sleep.

Camping Vacation Continued-Sun., June 29, 2008

Randall, Ryan, Elizabeth, Carter and I got up and went to breakfast at Hazel's Restaurant. Ryan and Elizabeth then took the boat to wash it to get as much of the salt water out of it as possible. After they got back to camp, Eli, Carter and I went to the beach for a couple of hours. Man, was it hot...no breeze. But Carter had a good time and that was the purpose! He and Elizabeth played in the water. I forgot to bring my camera, so I don't have any pictures of him:(. Ryan, Elizabeth, and Carter left in the afternoon. Randall and I went to dinner at Bubba's Restaurant. We ate outside because the temperature was so pleasant. That horrible storm the night before had been an unusual cold front coming through at the end of June and really made the late afternoon breeze nice and comfortable.

Camping Vacation Continued

Sat., June 28, 2008

We just hung around the camp on Saturday morning. Ryan and Carter came over to join us in the early afternoon. Elizabeth had a shower to attend in Fairhope and she joined us later in the evening. Randall, Ryan and Carter went fishing in Ryan's boat. That evening, Randall grilled out ribs and we had potato salad and baked beans along with it. That evening, a terrible thunderstorm came up after dark. It came up very suddenly without any warning. Ryan had left his boat tied up to the dock right in front of our camping spot. The wind was furious along with drenching rain and it sank all but the engine of the boat. As you can imagine, we were all sick about that happening. After the storm subsided somewhat, Ryan, Elizabeth and Randall took our garbage can out and started bailing the water out of the boat. They were able to get it out and drive it down to the launch and get it out of the water. Carter was asleep inside the camper. So Nana stayed with him.

Our Camping Vacation-Fort Morgan RV Park

Friday, June 27, 2008

We arrived at Fort Morgan RV Park around 11:00. Set up was easy. We went to Walmart to get groceries right after set up. We then came back to camp and grilled out sausage dogs...yummy! Took it easy around the camp and relaxed for the rest of the night.