What a great visit we had with Meg, Cheyenne, and Megan last week! So much fun! Baby turtles! Boogie-boarding! The fort! Surfboarding! Sunning! Yummy dinners! Dolphins! Boat ride! Cards!
And they’re all good sports, easy to have, helpful. Everything was game, and if it didn’t work out due to weather or whatever, that was good, too. Hope to see them all again, ANYTIME!
Cute video in the Videos tab of us all trying to surf. What a hoot! Meg and I both have battle scars. Cheyenne, though … she’s almost a natural.
I adopted a turtle nest last month in the hopes of being a part of the amazing journey that is the sea turtle’s. Huge Loggerhead, Leatherneck and Green turtles come ashore every year beginning in May, nearly 500 pounds of mother love, to lumber their way up the beaches and into the dunes along the Atlantic Ocean to dig a nearly three-foot deep nest into the sand, lay and bury over a hundred eggs, only to make her way back to the salt waters never to see the fruits of her labor.
Last Saturday night/early Sunday morning, her babies hatched. Out of sight of the rest of the world, 118 little
Baby Loggerhead
Loggerhead turtles dug their way out of two feet of sand, climbing on top of one another to reach the surface. I wish I could have been there to see them emerge, spread out and scurry down the beach, imprinting the area in their brains with every fin movement to the water, dodging pesky ghost crabs, their deadliest predators along with fire ants. These little guys and gals are between 2 and 3 inches long, just a feather’s touch of the massive creatures they’ll become. They follow instinct to the ocean to begin an amazing journey that will eventually lead back to this place.
We were there when they cleaned the nest. Over a hundred babies made it out. There were also seven unhatched eggs that were reburied to hopefully hatch at a later date. But no little dead ones. That’s unusual. This was a good nest, what they call a successful nest. All of momma’s hard work paid off. Hopefully she’ll meet up somewhere in the deep blue with one of her babies. She probably won’t recognize them, but I still like the idea.
UPDATE: A few days later we were present at another nest clearing where they found 8 little hatchlings trapped beneath a root. Check out the video on the video page! Wow!
It’s those in-between times that get me. In between holidays. In between visitors. In between jobs. In between paychecks.
I always seem to get a physical letdown when company leaves, especially company I really look forward to having. The anticipation is a wonderful mix of impatience and excitement preparing for visitors. When they finally arrive, the time flies by like something out of Deep Space 9. And then all of a sudden it’s over. They’re gone. And then the letdown. I often don’t get it the next day; it’s generally the day after, and then the day after that. And then before I know it, I’m in that ‘in-between time’ where I know down the road we’re having more visitors, but right now … nada.
So that’s where I am now. We have comp’ny (as my mom would say) coming the second weekend in August. I’ll have to re-arrange work a bit, make sure the house gets cleaned, but not too soon (LOL!), and then begins the anticipation and excitement of one more week…three more days…TOMORROW!
Thank goodness for those times at either end of in-between!
I knew it would happen. I even said to Meg, “The week before you get here will draaaag by, then you’ll come and the days will fly by.” And they did. We had a great time playing in the ocean, shopping, talking, kayaking, eating, sunning…well, we had a great time.
I have to say that besides the obvious, my best memory will be showing her the beach house. Thom’s sister bought a place just a block off the beach. We are able to use it occasionally, especially when going to the beach. We have all our stuff there in a beach buggy, and we just load it up and walk down. We didn’t tell her because we wanted to surprise her.
We brought her home to our place the first night, got up early, got our things together after breakfast to head to the beach. We drove along the ocean as it was really beautiful, and then turned onto the street towards the beach house. She wondered where we were going, then said, “You should rent something down here.” Then we turned onto Central Ave, and she said, “Like that house, there,” pointing to THE BEACH HOUSE! Thom said, “Like this one?” She says, “Yeah.” Thom turned into the driveway and I hit the garage door opener. The door opened and we pulled in. She says, “What? What’s this?” We laughed and said, “This one?” She says, “Are you kidding me???”
IT WAS PERFECT!!!!!
That’s just one of the wonderful memories we made. There are photos in the photo gallery, and a video of her in the ocean. What a hoot.
“Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love ya, tomorrow! You’re only a daaaaay awaaaaaay!”
And I am SOOO looking forward to having Meg here! She flies in tomorrow night (Wed) to Daytona, which really makes it nice for us. We’re planning on driving up the expressway and going to the beach house so that I can wake her up in the morning to walk across the street to see the ocean and the sunrise. We debated how best to do it, but we decided it would be the most fun this way. Then she can see the house here in the daylight. I hope it works! There’s not much at the other house as far as comfort, but it’ll be late when we get there, so hopefully we’ll just go to bed. (Not likely, but hopefully.)
Well, I had a wonderful visit to Oklahoma City to meet my new granddaughter Evie. And while there, I was happy to find that Dez decided he liked me (unlike the Disney trip). We had a great time together, even the last evening when he wanted nothing to do with me and I had to give him a bath. LOL! Course, he didn’t like anyone that day. And the next morning he was all cuddled up with me on the couch like nothing had happened. We enjoyed the splashpark, going for walks, playing with bubbles, and watching tv.
And Evie is lovely. There’s just something about a baby girl. Pretty much all she did was nurse and sleep. There were some periods of wakefulness, but for the most part she was getting used to the world. She did better with noise, naturally, and of course she loves to be held while sleeping. And while that’s nice when they’re newborn, it’s a really tough habit to break when you’re ready for them to sleep on their own. But they’re only that little once, and what a lovely feeling it is to have that warm, snuggly body against your own.
Knitted ‘jeans’ by MeeMoe!
One of the most fun things for me with Evie was coming home after Meg, Dez and I went to the store. Look at her in these little jeans I knitted! I was so tickled they used them AND they seemed to fit her, even though they did have to roll up the cuffs. But boy, oh boy are they ever cute. It’s probably the third pair I’ve knit but the first pair that actually worked for anyone!
All a parent really wants is for their kids to be happy, and they seem very happy, in spite of Dez’s extremely stubborn personality! I told Drew how proud he made me being such a wonderful husband, father and provider. And I told him I was proud of ME for my part in it! There are certainly many sleepless nights ahead, but as we know it’s all worth it in the end. If they can keep their sense of humor (and how can they not with Andrew around?), they can pretty much weather any storm.
I’m a gramma again. We have a baby girl…with a beautiful name! Evelynn Quinn Nugent was born yesterday, May 21st, at 11:08 a.m., 8# 3 oz, 21″ long, with strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes. And I cannot wait to meet her!
So there it is. The circle of life. Rick, Amy, Dennis…and now Evie. Round and round it goes. It just all takes getting used to and learning how to wrap our heads around these ‘new normals’ that occur in this thing we call LIFE.
And apparently it’s true. First Sarah’s Rick, then my Amy, and now my friend and former colleague Dennis Murphy is finally succumbing to colon cancer. This man is 57 years old, has a wife, Terry who is a friend and fellow knitter, and three lovely grown kids. He is a Circuit Court Judge, one of the best in the business, never one to take himself or his position too seriously; a fair and honest man. He loved riding his motorcycle, because in his helmet he could be incognito in our little town of Gaylord.
Again, he must have known his time here would be short. He was a daredevil on that bike. He loved speed, standing up on his bike pegs while flying down the road. And he loved our Meg. He loved to call her ‘punkin.’ “How’s punkin’?” he would ask. This was when she was a teenager and I would regale him with frustrated tales of her latest antics. He thought it was great, her spunkiness, her ‘moxy,’ just her.
He and Terry are perfect together. I remember once they came to our Irish party, and when I met them at the door, they had on the goofiest hand-made ‘hats.’ I said to her later, “I can’t believe you got him to wear that thing.” Her quiet response, with a sideways grin, was, “He’ll do anything I tell him to.” I laughed then and it makes me laugh now.
So another good and joyful person joins the heavens leaving us here on earth wondering, again: Why?
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