Rainy day

Today is a thundery (really no such word), rainy day.  That's ok though, the flowers and grass like the rain.  Yesterday, when the weather was much more pleasant, I took some flower pictures from around the yard so I will post them to perk up my day.  We keep experimenting with different perennials to see how they will do.......plants grow so different here than in the summers in Indiana.

All the plants in our front and back yard have been basically put there by us.   This is one of my favorite areas.  The lilies bloom all summer and the green leave stay during the winter months.  

The next three blooms are from the lilies - above.   So pretty!

The rose bush is next to our mailbox and is my pride and joy.  It is full of delicate pink roses throughout summer and fall.

Mom's mother's day gift was a magnolia tree.  I never dreamed that it would have so many flowers so quickly.

The cannas in the back grow too tall for their own good.   We need to tie them up otherwise the flowers just pull the stems to the ground.

Love Geraniums!

Simple petunias add so much to the pool boarder.

Mom is floating in the pool as I take pictures.

One of my pool hats.  Dave got me this for Christmas.

Kacey is not much into selfies.  Such an attitude!

It's Been Too, too long!

Oh my!   It has been so long since I have been on my blog.  My only excuse is that I have been living life!

Many of you had heard about the rain we received less than a month ago.  27 inches in 24 hours!   But that was not even the shocking part of the storm - it was the lightning that flashed every second for 8 hours.  I never saw anything like that in my life.  We were lucky.  No flooding or damage but we could not leave the subdivision for 24 hours because the water was too deep.  No school for two days, also.  Some lost their homes, their cars, their furniture and personal belongings.  A few people lost their life.  It was  a very sad time.

 

The extreme rain brought out critters from the woods.  The first guy is a chaser snake and yes, if he is frightened he will chase you.  He is very fast but not poisonous.  The second is a corn snake about 5 feet long trying to get into our garage.  OH, NO YOU DON'T!  He is also not poisonous.  But the news has been letting us know that the rattle snakes also have had to move out of the flooded areas and be on your look out of them.....especially if you have a dog.

We love having company and Kathy and Terry Cox spent a day visiting.  We did so much.....

Ate at the beach

Visited Fort Pickens

Drove part of the Island

Visited Joe Patties

Drove down Palafox downtown Pensacola

Drove through historic Pensacola

Kathy loves retirement and lives in Clearwater.  Pretty cool, huh?

Terry also loves retirement and golfs at least once a week.

Looking down the tunnels at Fort Pickens.

Shrimp boats at Joe Patties.

The Jubicks moved in 4 houses down from us just two weeks before us.  They have been a blessing to our family from day one!   We were honored to be invited to the change of command when Lamont was assigned the duty of commander of a squad.  (Air Force) 

Such an honor for him!   But since we moved here, he has had several honors bestowed upon him.  We are so fortunate to have people like Lamont keeping our country safe.  The picture below shows Nicole pinning the medal (or is a ribbon) on him.  It was an incredible ceremony and we are so thankful that we have them in our lives.    

Five or six weeks ago Mom fell in the bathroom.  Once we got her to the couch, I noticed that something was wrong with her memory.  I called 911 immediately worrying about a stroke.  Well, she lost the last three years of her memory.   Had NO memory of living in Florida.   As the day went on, the tests came back ok and her memory slowly returned.   Now all is fine.  She did take four weeks of therapy for strength and balance control.  It was scary when I thought she would not remember anything of our new life in Florida.  But as I have said, all is good now.  What actually happened?   Mom says she did not hit her head but the doctor thinks she must of hit it on the tile floor.  We had some quick lessons on how the brain works!

It is beautiful here with temps in the 80's - maybe 90 degrees tomorrow.  That means the pool is warm and comfy for swimming which I do every day.

The pictures below are the pool, the pine trees with sunset, and the mall at Spanish Fort,AL.  

Well, you know how sunny it has been.  My hair is almost blond from the sun.  Dave should be coming down in about a month for a month and Ron will be here for a week this summer.

I hope everyone is ready for a great summer.......all of you up north deserve it!!!!

The Power of Water

The pictures above show the weather today on Pensacola Beach. 80°, beautiful blue skies, fluffy white clouds, and hundreds of people out at the beach enjoying the weather.  Several days ago things were quite different though. We went through the worst rain, thunder, and lightning storm I have ever seen.  We received approximately 27 inches of rain in 24 hours. Oh my gosh,  it was unbelievable.  For us it wasn't the rain that was so bizarre but the amount of lightning and thunder that went on for about 8 to 10 hours 2 nights in a row nonstop. The rooms were lit up as if the lights were on  because there was so much lightning.

The picture below reminds me more of those days and nights. Even though we were very lucky and had no damage and no water standing in our yard, many people were not as lucky.  Highway 98 is the only main road through Gulf Breeze.    About 5 to 8 miles down 98 to the west several subdivisions got hit so bad with the rain that the water collected in the street and then rose up into the yards to the house and many of the houses had one to 3 feet of water standing throughout the house.  With the heat here flooding of the house is serious.  Mold grows almost instantly and the carpeting and often the walls have to be removed. This is what's happened to many of these people. Matter fact many of them still have the water standing in their yard and street.  Now what makes this worse for these people,  they did not live in a flood plane area and did not have flood insurance. Of course, the regular house insurance does not cover flood.  They have lost almost everything and have no help. Some people have totally lost their house because the damage was so extreme.

The city, county, and state have a lot of work to do to repair damaged roads.  Some of the roads caved in because of sinkholes.  A few lives have been lost because of this happening in Pensacola.

 Never underestimate the damage mother nature can do when she unleashes her power!



Kathy and Terry Cox are coming in on Thursday and we have lots to do. We plan on going to Fort Pickens, Pensacola Beach, historic Pensacola, and Joe Patties.   And Friday we have a very special ceremony to attend honoring a friend of ours. I will write more about that later. It looks like we are going to have good weather this week and no matter where you are I hope you have good weather also. Take care all!

Lots to do!

My gosh, it has been a long time since I've written. Lots has been happening.  We are expecting lots of rain in the next two days and further north of us there are tornadoes. Thank goodness they don't think any of the severe weather will be in Gulf Breeze.  So if I start with the present it go backwards a couple weeks I can let you in on a little bit of what has been happening with the Kaiser.   Mom fell last Thursday and must've hit her head because we needed to call an ambulance once we recognize she was having memory problems. Matter of fact, the memory problems caused her not to remember the last three years of her life. It only lasted for about five hours and then slowly started returning to normal. Thank goodness.

The pool has been warming up and is up to 80°. So I have been swimming for the last five days. It does take a little bravery on my part to first walk into the water but very quickly I get used to it and enjoy it.

We can pretty much determine which plants in our yard are dead from the ice storm and the ones that are going to come back to life. So we have been removing the dead ones and spending money at Lowe's to replace them. I love walking around the flowers at Lowes.  I always have enjoyed going in Johnson's in Portage to look at flowers during the spring time but here it's fun because so many of  the flowers are very different than Indiana flowers.    When ICU plant I might like to get, I can Google it on my iPhone on the spot and see if it looks like it would grow well in this climate. So many flowers die once it gets 40 to 30° and this winter we did have two days that went down to 19°.  Yes, I know that's nothing compared to 10 below zero for over a month at a time. And yes, I know I am getting spoiled.   After all, isn't that why I moved here?

Ron sent us a 3 foot hibiscus tree.  I love their big, bright flowers!

Sunset here are worth driving down to the sound to see!

My shopping buddy

Oh, and guess who is back?   THE BLUE ANGELS!!  They practice every Tuesday and Wednesday morning at 8:30. The other day I was in the pool and they had just flown back from Texas and they went directly over our house in formation.  And I mean directly over. I could not believe how low they were. The next day in the paper it said they had gone all away down the beaches of Pensacola Beach Santa Rosa Island to say to their home crowd "WE'RE HOME!"  The Pensacola Naval base is their home base and where their families are located. Pensacola takes a great deal of pride in the Blue Angels.

Some final thought before I head to bed.

1.  We had to break down and turn on the air conditioning. 80° isn't that warm but the humidity is beginning to be bothersome.

2.  I got the iPhone 5c and love it. It was free through one of their programs. I do like the pictures from its camera.

3.  Kathy and Terry Cox are coming next week for a day to visit and I can't wait. Will be going down to Fort Pickens, to historic Pensacola, one of the beach restaurants, and more. Oh yes and Joe Patties.

4.  Nothing look sadder than a pug getting a bath.

That's it for now!

April wind and showers

I haven't been here for awhile and I really don't have lots of pictures but here is the latest.

We were walking on the Pensacola Beach Pier on a windy, cloudy day and the waves were coming in fast and furious.  Pictures just never seem to do the power of the gulf justice.

Surfers love this weather.

We lost some plants in the ice storm so we will be slowly replacing them.   I bought these at Lowes.  One of my favorite past times is perusing all the flowers and plants in the Lowes garden section.

I bought two of these for in the back yard.

NEW BIG PURCHASE:
Our house was build in 2006 lived in for a few years and then the owner lost the house to the bank.   It sat empty for 3 years (maybe?) and then we purchased it.   The carpeting was the original put in by the contractor - low grade in other words.  There were stains on it before we moved in and the dirt tracks have become more noticeable with my busy family in and out.  So, it was time.  I prices several stores for carpeting and actually thought I would be using Lowes but Mom and I had purchased a rattan chair from Gene's Carpet and Flooring in Gulf Breeze so I stopped there to check.  I found the carpet that I wanted and upgraded the padding, free installation, free moving furniture, and free pulling out and throwing away old carpet.   Once I was down to two pieces to choose from I brought them home and studied them in the dark hallway and by the sunny windows.   Decision made!
          So new carpeting is being put in next Friday!

I actually wanted the ceramic tile but Mom has fallen a few times and I prefer her to fall on soft carpeting rather than on hard tile.

That's it for now - I need to pay some bills and get some coupons ready for the grocery store later.  It is a bit gloomy today so it is a good day to do these jobs.   Happy Spring to all!