FREE Summer 2005

Ah Summer! We've had a busy summer this year. May and June saw a good bit of back and forth visitation with Angela's family. Dean's kids and family showed up in late June and come July 4th weekend we had 9 people staying under our roof at one point. It's good that everyone came when they did because late July and throughout August it's been hot, hot, hot with heat indexes between 105-110 nearly the whole time. As I write this, Hurricane Katrina made landfall this morning along the Louisiana/Mississippi coast. We've been lucky so far this year and haven't had any storms headed our way. Seemed like there was a different one each week last year. Thankfully, they all ended up turning and striking somewhere else but for the few days that the projected track was pointing right at Beaufort, life was certainly more interesting. With everyone gone their separate ways again, life slowed down a lot here during August. But in other ways, it's been full steam ahead. On the Real Estate front, we've made some extra money from referrals and from selling a house. In our "day" jobs, Angela had her yearly deadline to get orders filled and worked all sorts of crazy hours to get the job complete in time. Dean recently got a promotion to Senior Systems Administrator at the Air Station and has spent some crazy hours of his own. GOODBYES The problem with being in the military or being friends with those who are is that eventually one or the other of you will leave. We said goodbye to the Aiena's in June when Clay left the Marines and his family headed back to Texas to homestead. Not a week goes by that Jackson doesn't talk about his pal Conner.

ZOO During one of our trips to visit Ang's family, we took a day to take Jack to the Jacksonville Zoo. It was a really nice place, they've obviously spent a lot of time and money building and keeping it up. We all had fun, we even rode the train. The only disappointment was that even though they had a nice variety of animals, the actual number of animals in the zoo seemed quite low. IT'S ALL RELATIVE Family get together at Sonny's Barbecue in St. Mary's, GA. Jackson would eat muffins everyday if he got to help "E-Ma" make them. Mom and Great Mom waiting in line outside The Lady and Sons restaurant in Savannah. Angela grabbed a photo hug and almost got a smile out of Alan. Sarah sure turned a lot of heads while she was down here. Being in a photo with her makes anyone look good, even this guy. GAZETTE ARCHIVES

TYBEE ISLAND On our way to Savannah to eat at The Lady and Son's, we took a nice detour out to Tybee Island. We visited the Lighthouse and the old Ft. Screven museum. While these two were lounging at the base of the lighthouse, Dean and Alan made the climb to the top. The museum is housed inside the old fort, which is a warren of twisty passageways and underground bunkers. More photos CELEBRATE! Susan turned 31 in May. Laura turned 14 in August and Joe, Claudia and Great Mom Zenobia all added another year that month too. GOOD TIMES A lot of great stuff has happened this summer. Laura's dream came true when she made the cheerleading squad. We got to see both Alan and Sarah and Dean's Mom and Grandma. We spent a lot of time at the beach while they were here. Dean got promoted and we helped Ang's folks build a nice new walkway at their house. Another great thing about living here is the weather. I wore shorts up into November last year so we've still got a lot of Summer left.