Labor Day Weekend Recap

Kind of like I expected, the long weekend was both fun and interesting. Warren (Kathy's dad) made it up Thursday night to escape Hurricane Frances. Liz (Kiel's girlfriend) made it in from Lousiana on Thursday night as well. We all went to Mexico Beach on Friday and met up with Butch and Rose Mary (Ron's Parents). Mexico Beach was awesome, the weather was simply beautiful on Friday, Saturday and Sunday until about 5:00PM. There was no one at the hotel we stayed at and at the beach because of the oncoming hurricane. In terms of the weather it couldn't have been any nicer. We are all sun burned pretty good. We all had a great time relaxing, playing in the water, throwing the football and of course eating. Butch fixed his famous buttermilk pancakes for breakfast and then he did a shrimp boil as well. It was a great time.

Saturday morning we were in the pool messing around and I (Ron) decided to try walking on my hands in the pool. I did pretty good and went a long way but I didn't go straight. I ended up walking into the side of the pool head first. No one in my family was kind enough to stop me and I about knocked myself out. When I surfaced I was a hurting unit. Kathy came over and all she was concerned about was "all this hair on the side of my face". Come to find out, I scapled myself and took off a patch of hair about the size of a quarter on the top of my head. No kidding, it looks like someone just took an electric razor and cut a patch out. Time for the old comb over.

About 5:30PM on Sunday the weather got bad, I mean real bad. It got really dark, the wind was gusting near 50mph and the rain was coming down side ways. We found out that the bridge we crossed to get to Mexico Beach closed when the wind was over 50mph. So we made a decision and decided to not to spend Sunday night at the hotel and come home. We packed in about 15 minutes, checked out and were fully refunded our last night. We came home, unpacked, ate dinner and settled in to ride the storm out. At about 1:00AM this morning the weather started getting bad. The power was flickering on and off and then stayed off for about 1 1/2. We woke up at about 8:00AM and started checking things out. Kathy went outside and said "Hey, our tree is down!". The storm had knocked over an oak tree in our front yard. Fortunately it fell towards the road and away from the house. It also didn't hit any of the cars parked in the yard. If it was going to fall, it fell in a good place. We notice about 3 different wires tangled up in the tree. So we called the power company and cable company so they could remove them. Both of them came out within in 2 hours. I also called Butch and he came by with his chain saw, trailer and a friend. We had the tree cut up and out of our yard by noon. Like I said, we were fortunate. Other than that the impact of the storm has been limited. It made landfall about 2 hours east of us - we got lucky again.

Warren and Jean have talked to folks at thier park in Avon Park and the damage they received has been minimal to non-existent. We were all glad to hear that. I believe that they are thinking about heading home on Wednesday. However, they may be back depending on what Hurricane Ivan does. Liz heads home Tuesday afternoon. It has been great having her here. She has fit in well, we have been teasing and having fun with her. She is a sweet girl and we have enjoyed getting to know her better.

All in all we had great weekend. Like I said Mexico Beach was great and everyone enjoyed it. So much so that we decided to move Thanksgiving dinner from our house to Mexico Beach this year. The El Governor Hotel is running an incredible 3 day special over the Thanksgiving holiday and we decided to take advantage of it. We booked three rooms and each room has a full kitchen. So we'll try something a bit different this year for Thanksgiving. If you're interested in joining us let me know and I'll tell you about the special they are running. The more the merrier. I really believe that Mexico Beach is one of Florida's best kept secrets. It's beautiful, inexpensive and not crowded. Enough for now, it's been a great weekend but I need to start getting around for the work week. Hope everyone is well and had as much fun as we did.

Here are some pictures from the past weekend.