A Quiet, Overcast Morning After (Heavy Thunderstorms and Rain)

Granny With, Sadly, Only Two Of Her Granddaughters

Halle Girl

6:55

It's 7:30 and I have been up for a half hour though Beth has been up since 5:30 and Drew just got up. Beth and I have been looking at houses in Top Sail, NC, where we hope to rent a large beach house next 4th of July, to celebrate Evie and my 50th wedding anniversary.  Jill and Drew spent a week there in July, loved the quiet vibe, with houses right on the beach.  It could be a great getaway weekend for all of us.

Yesterday was a day to recover from Friday's Evie extravaganza, and we all did little other than enjoy our leisure.  No trips to the store, just a SUV loaded with trash for the transfer station, then a stop at Hogan's for ice.  That's it for shopping.  Tom and Mary left for home around 9:15, a sad parting as we had great fun with their family, Nick loving the wake boarding, Marlena hanging out with the girls.  It's amazing how well the cousins get along, no fighting, always busy, happy, ready to do something, either jump in the lake, tube, paint, or just relax in their bedroom, which they all did yesterday afternoon for at hour, reading.  Love it.

Tubing Madness

Evie did get the lawn cut, and I got rid of the trash, so we had a few chores done.  But for the most part, we hung out on the dock, enjoyed the sun, the blue skies, swimming and relaxing all late morning and early afternoon.  In between, the girls and Drew did some tubing, and the girls and Beth painted rocks for awhile.  But we all enjoyed the dock the most yesterday, just being in the sun.  Around 4:00, heavy clouds started to move in, so we cleaned off the dock, the yard, belted up the house and garage, as the torrential rains came, about as heavy and hard as I can remember.

The Bissell Girls

Marisa Goes Hollywood

Jill And A Happy Halle

Granny And Halle Hanging In The Water

Huge puddles filled our yards, and next store, at Pine Hill, it looked like a small stream of muddy water coming down their road, from the yards to the north of the road.  It went on for a good hour or more, and today's paper said the water was waste deep in the Chautauqua Mall parking lot.

Heavy Thunderstorms

It let up a bit around 6:30, so we decided to stick to our plans, avoid making dinner, and go to the Seezurh House for dinner.  It was a good choice as the rain did let up, we had a table for eleven reserved, so we were able to sit down immediately.  And though we did have to wait for at least a half hour for our food, the kids were fine and we did have some appetizers, of mozzarella sticks and a load of french fries, filling up, unfortunately, Mitch and Hayden.  Our meals were quite good, fish fry's, burgers, the usual fare, but the piece de restance was the chocolate peanut butter ice cream pie, a slice about ten inches high, devoured by Mitch and Tyler, with help from Rami, Beth, Evie and Jill.

Baba And Jill

Humongous Fish Fry

We were home by 9:00, and everyone was surprisingly tired, so that the girls were ready to go upstairs to bed, read and relax, and listen to Evie Joy stories.  Marlena called, however, from Kansas City so the four of them talked on Face Time for about twenty minutes.  It was 'almost' like she was still there but not quite.  We all went up to bed around 10:30, the boys staying up to watch FARGO, the great Coen brothers film.

It's now 7:50, Evie just came down for coffee, the sky and lake are still gray though it is not raining. It's a cool 63º, 98% humidity, with rain expected on and off during the day. We better get our swimming and boating in while we can.