just a bunch-o-stuff

ok, just now i had to ask my mom and dad what today is. i know the month is august, but for some reason right this minute i had no clue about the date or day of the week. must mean i'm having a great vacation. oh good, that also means i'm only a couple days behind. tuesday morning dad and the boys and i went to the beach. mom was tired so she stayed home and greg went on day 2 of a 2 round golf deal he got with nathan, jim and jane. he had a good time and did better than he did the day before, so he was happy. he did miss having the morning beach time with the rest of us though. dad took his regular walk and the boys and i hung out by the water in our chairs. it was pretty windy and the ocean was really choppy. max and i got in to play for awhile and cool off but we didn't stay long because we could hardly keep ourselves standing, the waves and current were so strong. we gave up! dinner was by betty blake and very yummy as expected. it was a total wv plate, minus tomatoes and corn for a couple of reasons...#1 obviously there was no room for tomatoes because of my addiction to my mom's fried potatoes and half-runners and #2 blakes eat their corn on the cob last. don't ask me why, that's just the way we do it. ok so we went back to the beach yesterday morning. we parked ourselves and our stuff by a ready-made sand mountain/huge sand hole that the boys couldn't live without for the morning. they didn't make any additions to it. just parked their chairs near it. or in max's case IN it. for some reason God decided to bring the wind over from the land instead of the sea, which is His prerogative, but it brings over the flies with it. and these are the flies that bite. and you can't really prepare for it either. they kind of land and bite simultaneously. i don't know if they have actual teeth or what, but those things were really making us jump. (everyone but greg!) luke and max tried to get away from them by going in the water, and i moved my chair down to sit in the water but no luck. when dad got back from his walk he didn't get to take his customary beach nap. we'd already decided we were outta there. we were home a good 2 hours early, which as it turned out was a very good thing. when we got home, my dad's maintenance friend david told him to call my aunt's house because he'd seen an ambulance over there. our first thought was that it was there for my grandmother, but it was for my aunt. she'd had chest pain and had been taken to the hospital. my uncle had stayed with my grandmother so she wouldn't be alone. he doesn't drive so my dad took him to the hospital and mom stayed with mamaw. so the boys and i were figuring that with every fly bite, God was saying "go home..get outta here". we'd never have been home to help if they hadn't been so annoying. (fyi, my aunt is doing okay and came home this afternoon!) i was in the mood to play in the kitchen so i did. i found a new recipe for grilled salmon and grilled shrimp and wanted to try them while i'm with dad because i know he'll eat that stuff and i'm never sure if my 4 males will. the grocery store had no such thing as the salmon and shrimp i needed so i convinced blake to go with me and we went to a local seafood place. blake (not a fish eater) was totally disgusted by the whole experience. i love going to places like that. everything got marinated and grilled and eaten. with a little left over that i believe my dad took care of for lunch today. makes me happy. greg and the boys and i went to play putt putt last night at one of our favorite courses here. i'm either pretty good at that game or i totally stink at it. from my performance on the first hole it was looking like a stinky one. but i ended up winning - that's a first! anyway, we all had a good time. it was SOOOOO hot and humid. i mean awful. (keep this fact in mind while viewing the pic of max and me at our hole-in-one hole) but it was good to be together. the boys LOVE to putt putt. so much that they chose it over some other options that came up this week. a little game like that seems like such a simple thing, but it makes them really happy. we skipped the icee/cold water lady at the end and headed for starbucks since we were close. well, we might have gone even if we weren't close. green tea lemonade was sounding pretty wonderful at that point. as soon as we had our drinks, blake started the "let's drive down by krispy kreme and see if the hot sign's on" chant. not sure, but i think his brothers chimed in. it wasn't far so off we went. well..the hot sign was on, which meant we parked and went in and got in a big line to get a box of freshly baked and glazed blazing hot krispy kreme doughnuts. actually we got 2 boxes - you have to have plenty because it's totally necessary to eat at least one per person while you're there or on the way home because when they're newborn doughnuts they melt in your mouth. seriously. and you have to have some like maybe for breakfast the next morning. and so on. all of us but greg ate one on the way home. after i could actually touch them without burning myself, that is. and i couldn't get anyone but max to wear the paper hat. they were afraid of "THE BLOG". this morning it was back to the beach (you were expecting something different?). today there was no breeze whatsoever. none. and some flies showed up again. i tried to get a picture of one of them in the less than nano-second between the moment it landed on my leg and when it chomped down on me but i couldn't do it. and anyway, that seems like an unnecessary sacrifice for a blog, no matter how much i love doing it.