Trip to Long Beach

Chris & I (and of course the dogs) made our way to the Long Beach peninsula for a couple of days. Weather was typical beach mist and clouds but at least no rain. We had a good time, visited some old shops, had pizza @ Chico's, thoroughly scoured Jacks Country Store, hit the taffy shop, etc. Thursday evening we were invited over to Annie's for dinner, had a good time and it was nice to catch-up, see her new place and especially see my nephew Shad. It was great to see him in such good spirits after all the troubles of his past.

Riley and Carter enjoyed our treks to the beach where they went nuts running in and out of the surf and filling my truck up with that "wet dog smell" and sand.

Back home now and fall has officially started, the leaves are turning, days are shorter and evenings are cooler. I have started my next (and last) big project of the year, building a stairway from our back yard up to the pump house. Nothing fancy, using 16" masonry stones and masonry sand to build the risers. Chris had carved a rough outline earlier this year when he put in the road behind the shop. I'll include a photo tonight.

Should be a fun Monday night, first it's the last couples night at the golf course as the locals are starting to head south and later it's Monday Night Football from the Clink, Packers vs the Seahawks. Seahawks have the best winning percentage of any NFL team on Monday night (probably because they rarely get that invite). I need the  hawks to win but A. Rodgers to do good because he's my fantasy QB and I'm playing my grandson Dillon this week!

Labor Day Weekend

Headlines in the Times ... 40 days without measurable rainfall! August has really been nice. I picked a good month to take a hiatus from all the yard work. Have now shot a couple of rounds in the 70's and my handicap was lowered to 15.6 from 16.9 a pretty significant decline. Riley came back from a romp with Carter a little lame. I hope he has just sprained a muscle in his right front leg, it does seem to be getting slightly better - hard to keep him quiet!

Wilbur and Carolynn from the old neighborhood stopped by on Saturday for a visit, it was nice to see them. I hope I can visit them in their new place in Sun City, AZ this coming Feb - March when I go south. Ben and Matt also came over on Saturday and spent the night. They made dessert for all of us after we returned from Alderbrook (wedding crashing).

Definitely feel fall in the air but this first week of September has projected temps in the 80's. Just came back from a periodontal appointment, I have surgery scheduled for next Tuesday that I'm absolutely not looking forward to.

I'll be attaching a photo of our dogwood - it decided to bloom out this fall and is beautiful. Football season is just starting and I'm excited to see what the Hawks and Huskies can do this year. I thatched, aerated and fertilized the yards this holiday weekend. I plan to seed the new area on top and some of the back yard after the weather returns to "normal". My big fall project is to build a stairway up to our pump house. that should be good for a couple of pounds of weight-loss. I'm please to have kept slowly losing weight this summer, be nice to drop another 10 lbs before my trip down south.

We are reviving our South Carolina golf vacation this November, should be fun and wouldn't be surprised if it's the last time for that.