DAY ONE AT HOLDEN BEACH NC

Well this is my waking up view for the next week !!! 

It is a little foggy this morning early. As I got down to the kitchen to eat everyone else was already up and all the kids were already playing.

We all had breakfast of our liking today, some eggs, some French toast, some bagels and cream cheese, some cereal !!!!   I had a half of bagel with some black cherry cream cheese spread I found yesterday at the Food Lion.
The kids were all itching to get to the beach so off we went.

Aa stayed with BB while he got his morning nap in.
The water was really calm and warm this morning and the kids had a ball.

We came inside at noon to have lunch. We always have a lot of sandwich stuff for our lunches. All the water play made everyone really hungry.
After we ate we all sat around while the kids took naps. I snapped these pics of the house we are renting this year. It is a really nice house but it is a really long walk to the beach.

 We all love this private gated community we are in as the houses are spread apart and the views are great.

About 3:30 #2 son, Tif and daughter arrived . Thanking God for the safe traveling mercies he extended to them today. They left about 9:15 this morning .
After we got them unloaded we all went back out to the beach but the winds had really kicked up due to a storm just up the coast and it wasn't the calm ocean it was earlier today at all.
The kids still got to play in the waves just not as far out as this morning.

Tonight was spaghetti night so while we fixed dinner #2 son, Tif and Aa went back to Food Lion to get more groceries . We eat a lot !!!!
We all had a delicious dinner of salad, spaghetti and toast.
After dinner it was really great to sit around and laugh and talk.
And I almost forgot I did get a year older today as this is my 62nd birthday. Happy Birthday to me !!!
More gifts !!!

Thanks daughter and Josh for the digital picture frame loaded with all their wedding photos and thanks #2 son and Tif for the infuser water bottle. I love to fix water like this , flavored with fruit in the middle .
Grateful to God for the wonderful blessing of today and so thankful for all the people He has chosen to surround me with.
God Bless and Good Night.

ARRIVAL ON HOLDEN BEACH NC

An early 7am Saturday wake up call today. We did chores and loaded hubbie's truck with cakes to go set up my friend Georgia who is working for me today at market. It is a nice cooler morning so maybe business will be good today.
Georgia got to market right on time and started selling as soon as we got her all set up. This makes it easier for hubbie and me to travel in the daylight hours rather than me go to market then leave mid afternoon to make the almost 6 hour drive.
We are going to Holden Beach, NC this year. We have stayed here before a couple times and liked it pretty well. I found a nice 5 bedroom, 5 bathroom house in a gated community for all of us to enjoy this year. Aa's family are going as well as #1 son's family, #2 son and Tif, and daughter. Poor Josh can't take anymore time off work so he is staying home this trip.
After we left market hubbie and I came home to pick up Bernie and take him to our vet's office to be boarded for the week. Poor Bernie has such a bad heart we don't think he can make the trip and the vet offered to board him for us. He was pretty sad to see us leave him , but I know he will be well taken care of there.
Back home we topped off all the animal feed and water and finished loading all our things and were just getting ready to get in the car when the at&t repairman called and said he was headed our way. I
had called yesterday and told them to cancel the repair call until August 8 but I guess the message never got delivered.
We waited for him to get here while having an early lunch. He found the problem but couldn't fix it without a bucket truck. The problem is in the same spot we had trouble with a couple years ago.
After he left we got in the car and headed out over an hour and 1/2 later then we could have been !!!
It was almost 1:00 when we pulled out of our drive.
It is a clear day but is really heating up quickly. Traffic was pretty light as we headed down the mountain.

Hubbie drove today as my knees are still bothering me and I didn't want to be cramped behind the wheel without being able to move them for hours.
Dolly was going with us and she loves to ride in my lap anyway so it works better this way.
I got to watch the cloud formations all along the road . All we saw was these white fluffy clouds in a clear blue sky.

We stopped once for gas and once for some iced coffee from McDonalds . This is a sign in Whiteville,NC about an hour from the beach !!!! Whew it is hot !!!

#1 son is already there as they left at 6:30 this morning to drive while the kids slept.
Here they are having lunch on the island while they wait for the house to be cleaned.

G-daughter looks like she is enjoying her first beach trip.

Aa's family left at noon today but went a different way and made several stops with the kids.

We all met at Food Lion to pick up groceries and then brought supper home from Subway. We got here at 6:15 and met #1 son's family who had already been to the house and unloaded their car and shopped for groceries. Just as we finished shopping Aa's family joined us at Subway.
Thankful for safe traveling mercies for us today. Hubbie and I were right behind 2 wrecks and another one was just getting cleaned up when we passed so the day was not good for several folks along our route.
It was a very crowded time in the stores as everyone is arriving at this time on Saturday afternoon.
It is always a rush to go over these bridges onto the islands that are going to be our home for the next week.

We all made our way to the beach house and had our Subway supper before we unloaded the cars.
I was getting shaky I was so hungry , probably from the early lunch and from the caffeine of my iced coffee !!!
Anyway it felt good to get something in my stomach.
The view from the porch outside my bedroom.

We got things unloaded and put away and then walked out on the beach in the darkness. G-son couldn't stay out of the ocean and had a good time in the gentle waves of the receding tide. I hope the ocean waves stay this gentle during the days this week.
Back inside I decided to call it a day as I am very tired from the early wake up and the long ride.
Again I am prayerfully grateful for the safe travel for all of us today and praying for safe traveling mercies for #2 son and the girls tomorrow.
God Bless and Good Night

BEACH VACATION PREP DAY

Another busy Friday starts early today and has a lot of different work to do to get ready for our annual beach vacation trip.
Hubbie took today off to get his end of the work done also. After chores and breakfast Hubbie got started mowing the lawn and I stayed in the kitchen to bake cakes for the morning. I baked 12 caramel, 1 coconut, 1 chocolate, 2 pound and 2 blackberry wine cakes before having a late lunch.
Hubbie called from down at the #1 son's house to say he was trying to keep 4 Holstein calves from getting in the road. We don't know anybody who has these calves. Aa called around and found the owner who showed up to help round them up but they were already headed back down the creek toward home by the time he got there.
Hubbie finished the mowing and we had supper then we both went outside to get all the animals ready for a week on their own. I have no one staying here this year and my brother is going to do a walk thru each day to check things out.
We put extra waterers in the chicken lots and filled all the feeders with feed. I have tried this out over the past couple weeks and they will be fine.
The weather forecast is for some cooler mid 80's temps so that will be much better on all the animals.
Hubbie and I packed the Honda with a weeks worth of beach supplies and then #2 son who had to go to the doctor this morning with tendonitis in his knee and is out of work brought his truck over and we loaded the bikes and wagons and chairs in it.
Him, Tif and daughter are driving down Sunday.
It sprinkled rain for just a few minutes this evening then cleared off.
Aa and Re brought the kids by to give me an early birthday present. EL picked this antique chicken out for me and it will be the perfect decoration for an outside wall.  Thanks so much it is a perfect gift.

Bible school commencement was tonight and the kids looked like they had fun.

Hubbie and I worked to finish some last minute packing until 9:00 then I started icing cakes finishing a little after midnight,whew !!!!
Each year on the days before vacation I always ask myself if it is really worth all the trouble it is to get ready to go????  But after I get there I always decide to do it again !!!!
Thankful for the blessings of this day and praying for traveling mercies for the whole family tomorrow and Sunday.
God Bless and Good Night.

ANOTHER HOT MARKET DAY

Another market day morning hurrying through chores and getting ready for market trying not to get too sweaty before I get there !!!
I took a large 5 cake order for Saturday on the drive to market so that is a good start to the day. Market was okay with the heat in here even early but about noon the clouds rolled in and gave us a little reprieve from the heat.
As I look around my market tables I desperately need to find some sewing time during these busy days.
On days like these when I have time to look around and check out all the neighbors it is always surprising to find things out that I do. Today I discovered the lady across the isle from me, Ruby , who does not like me at all for some reason is in the hospital with heart trouble.

The lady down the isle , Pat , had a near heat stroke and has been staying inside her house to keep out of the heat.

Another market and country neighbor who lives up the road from me , Lavonne, is fighting cancer with continued radiation and chemo treatments with no end in sight , but she said she is thankful for everyday they buy her with her incurable cancer.

While hearing all this bad news I felt a renewed thankfulness to God for my health. Even with my aches and pains I am so blessed to have the health I have.
I sat for alot of the day with my knees up resting them all I could. I am very thankful for all the things I did sell today.
After market I ran errands and then stopped at Aldi and Walmart for baking supplies and groceries.
I got home at the same time as hubbie got in from work. We unloaded and put everything away then I talked to daughter. She got the wedding photos back today from the photographer. They are very good pictures but she was disapointed that there were no pics of anyone walking down the isle, especially the kids with the signs and no pic of her and her father coming down the isle. The photographer wasn't in position to get these pics sadly.
Here are a couple very good pics.

God is good all the time ,all the time God is good !!!!
G-son in the light blue shirt on the far right in this picture is still enjoying VBS.

After chores tonight I called in my phone repair and also me internet is having a problem going off and on ,probably from the same problem. It's funny how some reps you talk to say one has nothing to do with the other but some say they are connected and when one has trouble the other one does also.
Thankful for the blessings of this day and for the everlasting love of Jesus Christ.
God Bless and Good Night
God Bless and Good Night

ANOTHER POWER OUTAGE

Wow , another hot muggy morning in a string of  above normal temperature summer days.  After I let the chickens out of their nice shady houses in just a little while they have their wings fluffed and their beaks open . Everything suffers in these 90 + temps each day.

Back inside I had breakfast and then started baking . I baked 12 caramel, 2 chocolate, 5 pound and 1 blackberry wine cake. G-daughter came to stay with me about 11:00 while d-in-love took g-son to see a movie, Finding Dory, a Disney movie that has been wildly popular this summer.
G-daughter is a "beans and taters" girl when it comes to lunchtime.

About 1:30 with both ovens full of my last cakes the electric went off suddenly. With no wind or storm I sighed figuring another squirrel  had hopped onto the transformer for the second time this month. I walked up to look at the transformer and there was a huge dead Oak tree limb lying in pieces all around the bottom of the pole and the electric line was moving.
I came inside to call the electric from the one house phone that is not electric and it wasn't working so I called from my cell phone which seemed to take forever to get my cell number set up with my address.
I left the ovens shut hoping the cakes wouldn't completely ruin.
D-in-love came after g-daughter and I patiently waited for the repairman to show up . The message for estimated time of repair says by 5:00.
Thankfully I heard the truck coming up the drive just before 3:00. He fixed it quickly by just pushing the fuse back into the holder. It didn't even blow the fuse ,just jerked it out . He said this was the easiest fix he had had all day.
Ahhhhh  !!! back to work.  Luckily the layers in the bottom oven were perfectly cooked by staying in the closed oven and the cakes in the top oven finished cooking when the oven came back on. The only problem I had with these was one of them stuck to the pan and hubbie got 1/2 of a blackberry wine cake to eat for breakfast in the morning.
I worked around the house slowly all afternoon resting my knees all I could between jobs.
The sky clouded over this evening but we got no rain.
Hubbie came in from work and we watched the news then did chores in case a pop up rain storm hit our area.
No rain for us today.
Bible school continues without me this week and in these pics g-son looks like he is still having a fun week.

I spent the evening doing paperwork, payng bills and icing cakes finishing about midnight to fall into bed a very tired lady !!
God is so good and I love that He helps me everyday with all I do and blesses me undeservedly .
God Bless and Good Night.