Wednesday Hodgepodge

I'm a tad bit tardy with Hodge Podge, but I'm going ahead with it anyway. All are welcome to join the fun with Joyce's fun questions at From This Side of the Pond.

1. What summer activity most takes you back to your own childhood?

Anything to do with water! Going to a public pool was a treat for us and Mom took us to one maybe once a week! But for the other days? The water hose. We had great times in our swimsuits in the back yard taking turns splashing each other with the hose and it was our favorite way to cool off in the hot summer days.

2. What's your favorite summer smell?

Honeysuckle! I can still remember the smell as it came through the open windows at night.

3. It's beach season in the US of A...so how do you feel about sand?

I love sand on the beach!

Oh sand. It feels so good to stand on a beach and have the sand between my toes, 

as my heels are sinking in. 

But when I'm standing in the water, the sand is a little creepy to me when it shifts and

I find myself unable to touch the bottom.

4. Sun tea, SunChips, sunflower seeds, Capri Sun, Sunny Delight, Sun-Maid raisins, sun-dried tomatoes...your favorite food or beverage with sun in its name?

It would have to be the Sunchips!

5. What's your favorite way to cool off on a hot summer day?

At home, the AC is set on 73 constantly, I'm in my favorite chair with a book, the ceiling fan blowing over me, and I'm covered with a blanket! Ahhhh! So good.

6. Share a favorite song with the word sun or sunshine in it's title.

Climb, Climb up Sunshine Mountain! Mom taught me that song long ago, and I still enjoy singing it with the kids.

7. Tell us about a time you had an exceedingly good or truly awful customer service experience. If it was awful, did you report it? Ever go back there again?

One really great customer service experience was with the Tempurpedic Mattress people. My husband had just had open heart surgery and the first night he was home, he was unable to sleep and requested demanded that I go purchase one we had looked at a couple of months before, and have it delivered next day. It was delivered and, after two nights sleeping on the bed, my husband decided he didn't like that one and asked me to have the bed returned and a new one delivered immediately. Can I just say, as much as I love my husband, it's not in my nature to demand things or ruffle anybody's feathers, and I will usually make do with things. But I went over to the store, explained the situation, and the people were right on top of it (no pun intended), exchanging the bed the next day. That impressed me very much, especially in light of the fact that our bedroom is upstairs!!!

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

Speaking of water and summer, the swimming pool is one of my favorite memories from our last house. It was so refreshing to be able to take a dip any time, or just laze around on a float. We had many good times there. Our Schnauzer especially loved it and, when anybody was in the pool, she would jump in, swim to a float, crawl up on whoever was there, and then dive in to swim over to the next float! (She could be a little annoying with it sometimes!)

The lovely girl is our daughter!

Finally! Our vacation!

**Warning: There's a whole slew of photos here from our family vacation at Port Aransas.
If you skip down quickly, there is one funny little story at the end!

It has been my DH's dream to see his grandkids play at the beach and swim in the ocean.

His dream finally happened a couple of weeks ago.

Fields of sunflowers all along the way.

First stop: Round Rock! And a soccer game!

Just Noah being Noah - he's so cute!

He's excited. They won - 9-2

On the way home - a little more subdued, but still smiling!

So proud of all his trophies

Packin' it up and hitchin' it up to go!

We got "stuff!"

Patient boys while waiting to leave.

Road trips can make you sleepy ...

hungry...

silly

Amazingly enough!

Three different vehicles left from three different destinations,

and we all found ourselves arriving at the same time to ride on the same ferry!

At last! The ferry ride to the beach.

We saw dolphins ...

but they were too quick for me to catch a pic! :-(

(No. The dolphins were much bigger than that.)



Inside our beach house

Any time you want to know where Jack is,
just look for Brady!

Kate with her two favorite guys - Grandpa and Daddy.
(Or Daddy and Grandpa!)

Grandpa liked wearing my hat, too!

One positive thing you can say about the fascination with the iPads
... it keeps the kids occupied while waiting for breakfast and the beach.

Fun in the sun

And we are on our way to the water!
Some of us traveled by Jeep!

And the rest followed in the golf cart!

Ewww! Not liking all that seaweed the first day!

 



Squish! Nothing like the feeling of digging into wet sand.



So grateful to Barrett for providing us with some great shade!

Spiderman likes the beach!

 

Grandpa's dream of being king of the mountain

might be a boy's dream, too!

  

Noah was brave enough to be buried in the sand.

Now here was an all afternoon job!

The gulls always knew when the food came out.

They hovered.

Getting ready to feed the birds.

The gulls would eat right out of your hand

Hard at work digging this hole!





Back at the beach house. A pool for more cool fun!

Everybody wants a ride on Uncle Jason.

Showing off!

  Later in the week

Following a delicious meal at Virginia's Seafood House, (and I do mean yummy), Brady took off for a walk to look at the boats on the water. Well, Jack loves Brady and wants to be with him just about every minute, so when he saw him standing on the stair landing, he wanted to be with him. He and I walked over to Brady and, as we're standing at the top of the stairs, Jack tells me (urgently and more than once) he wants to go back down the stairs.

When we got to the bottom of the stairs, I turned to wave to Brady and all of a sudden, I hear Noah yelling, "Nonnie, Nonnie, look! Look! Look at Jack!" I turned around to see Jack with his pants pulled down and peeing right there in front of the restaurant! What was the idea behind this?

Jack wanted to pee on the shadow! Do you see the spot there? Oh. My. Goodness. So many people laughing!



Noah wanted to have his pic here by the spot!




And the sun goes down on another day.

After dinner at Virginia's, Uncle Barrett took us searching for crabs on the beach.

Each child had a flashlight to use when we found a crab.



(Flashlights are too much fun to wait for such things as seeing crabs!)

Waiting in line to board the ferry and go home. :-)

Gotta have the Round Rock Donuts fix before heading back home!

These donuts are the best!

It was a great Father's Day week for this Grandpa.