Halloween Fun

We went to a corn maze on Saturday for a little Halloween festivities.  It was a beautiful day, and the location didn't feel like Florida at all--felt more like Ohio than anything...although it was close to 80, so that's probably not Ohio-esque for late October.  Bode liked the little dune buggies, although he would have liked them more if they were not peddle-powered.

We then headed over to the corn maze, but stopped for some goofy pictures.

We entered the corn maze with hopes that Jack Torrence was not in hot pursuit.  Bode immediately attacked me with a corn stalk.

Ashley then attacked Bode with an ear of corn.

We found all five landmarks within the maze.  There were a lot of "cheat trails" in the maze, as it has been up for over a month.  Still, we enjoyed ourselves and had fun.  We then headed over to the pony ride, which was neat...if Bode was 5 instead of 10.   Bode liked it but I think he would have preferred to have actually ridden the pony vice walk around in a circle.

Last night, our neighbor's church had a trunk-or-treat activity.  This was just an excuse for Bode to give his costume a test-run.  Ashley really got creative and made a pretty cool Slenderman outfit for the boy.  In case you don't know, below is a picture of Slenderman.

Here's Bode all dressed up.  He received a lot of good comments from other people.

The neighbor boys (Alex and Jacob) had a Star Wars theme going.

Towards the end, Bode needed to be able to see better so he took off the hood.  He's looking like a young man more and more each day.

Some sad news:  We think Joey might have torn his ACL on his back-right leg.  He's not putting any weight on the leg, but isn't in any real pain.  Auburn (rottweiler #1) had a similar injury and she exhibited the same symptoms.  We'll get him to the doc and likely schedule some surgery.  Poor little guy--but he does seem to be his normal happy self albeit a little less mobile.

Pleasant week to all.

Some PRs

Bode had a swim meet this past weekend.  These are early starts--it's about a 30-minute drive to Destin, and the warmup begins at 0700.  Here's Ashley at the pool deck after we have set up our little tent.  Note she's wearing a UWF top.

Once he completed his warmup, Bode rests and stays focused by staring at his phone--he was very excited because Verizon gave unlimited data to gulf-coast users due to the hurricane.  He was thrilled that he could "watch youtube videos at the park."

He made us retake the photo because his hair wasn't done...

Here's a movie of Bode starting the 100-individual medley.  He's the third swimmer from the left.

Here's the finish of the 100-IM--he finished strong, and he had a best ever time of 1:30--coming in, his best time was 1:40.

Next is Bode doing the 50-free.  He is third from the bottom.  Note he is in third place at the turn.  If you watch to the very end, you will see that Bode caught and beat both boys that were ahead of him--he really turned it on at the end.

He had a PR of :35 seconds (coming in,his best time was 38 seconds).

He also swam on the relay team--I think he's the fastest swimmer on the B-relay team.  Bode is probably one of the faster "middle" swimmers--there are some boys that are just incredibly fast.  Bode is not with them, but I think as he ages, he'll improve.  I've noticed Bode still has some "baby fat" in his belly, while these are boys are somewhat lean.  Once he his puberty and starts growing, I think this fat will quickly turn into muscle...then again, he could simply watch youtube videos and put on a hundred pounds of chunk :-)

Today, Bode swam the 100-freestyle, the 50-back, and the 50-butterfly.   He had best times in all--1:21 in the 100-free (a 9-second improvement), :46 seconds in the back stroke (a very small improvement, but improvement nonetheless), and he swam the 50-fly in 0:45 seconds (an 11-second improvement).  Here's Bode doing the 50-fly--it's hard to believe there is a 200-yard fly race (but not until they are a little older).  Bode is the third swimmer from the left.

Bode and Ashley also took a goofy picture.

After the meet, Bode (I) was exhausted, so we came home and took a nap (well, I did).  Bode is off tomorrow from school, so I think Ashley is taking him to get his haircut.  All is back to normal after Hurricane Michael (for us--Panama City is still a mess from what we hear).  Pleasant week to all.

Hurricane Michael

We had our first hurricane scare since we came to Florida.  On Monday, the computer predictions showed Fort Walton to be in the path, so we decided to so some preparations.  Bode's school was cancelled for Tuesday and Wednesday (and today as well).  We woke up early Tuesday morning and put up the storm shutters.  After a couple of false-starts (we put them in wrong), we figured everything out and were done in about an hour.  We also took everything off the dock, because even though the storm was still more than a day away, the water was rising.

This is a shot of our neighbor's lot--she's a little lower than us.

Note the wave-runners are gone--we originally had them tied down, but with some of the predictions, we thought it best to get them out of the water.  We spent the rest of the day getting stuff into the house and doing final preparations.  It was still a very beautiful Tuesday night.

The dogs were oblivious and continued to fight in the backyard.

At the end of the day, Bode declared that we were ready.

The house was a little eerie with no windows open to the back yard.

We woke up to calm conditions on Wednesday morning.  It was only after Uncle Dave called did we realize the storm had been upgraded to a Category 4 storm.  Fortunately, all the predictions showed it hitting well east of us.  I went outside a number of times in the morning, and everything seemed fine--a little stormy, but nothing awful.

I also took a movie.

We did get some rain, and the wind picked up for a couple hours in the afternoon.  However, by the evening, things were back to normal.  Bode even ventured out on the dock.

Ashley and I took the shutters off the house, and enjoyed the sunset--the sky was an amazing color of orange and yellow.

We spent the morning cleaning up the yard--a lot of twigs and small branches.  We were very fortunate that the storm was east of us.  Bode's school is in session tomorrow, and Ashley and I will be back at work.  It's a beautiful day here--we both went for a jog, but we'll probably have to do some work for our jobs this afternoon (bah).  Pleasant day to all.

October

We have entered October--officially fiscal year 2019 if you are in government service or anything like that.  Hopefully you had a great fiscal new year's eve and made some fiscal new year's resolutions :-)

We have been in Florida for over four months, and we are into our routines.  We seem busy with our work and Bode's school and his activities, so the weeks seem to fly by.  However, it is important to stop every now and then and take in some of the nice scenery.  No, not Ashley in a bikini (we don't want to break the internet), but something almost as pretty...

It was a beautiful night tonight--temperatures are still above 90 during the day, which is just awesome.  Ashley and I even swam in the bay after work to unwind. 

The dogs are doing fantastic--Joey seems to enjoy being on the dock...

while Barkley prefers more pugilistic activities.

I did take a moving of the dogs play-fighting.  They look rather ferocious, but sometimes they need to be separated before things go too far.

Ashley and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary last week.  To celebrate, the three of us and Nana and Papa went to Japanese.

Bode is doing well--he spends his free time resting and relaxing after the rigors of 5th grade.

Ashley has her 30-year high school reunion this year.  Amazingly, she graduated high school when she was 9 years old, so she's still sub 40 (in our minds at least :-)  Funny how fast time passes...

Pleasant week to all.