Your Beach Hoteliers

The spaces between guests have been spent preparing for the arrival of the next set. (This phenomenon has been duplicated in every owner-occupied house in the neighborhood during the spring break season.) After Jess, Tom, Harold & Petra left, we set up for Al, Gretchen, Anna & Robert. Al arrived 24 hours before the rest, so on Friday, he and S tooled over to Pensacola to the Naval Aviation Museum to see the plane their dad served in as radioman and navigator during WWII. They didn't need a tour bc Al knew the name and history of just about everything. S was surprised how much she enjoyed the whole show, not just for the cunning models of aircraft carriers with entire crews bustling about under glass, but bc she learned a whole lot about her father's military service he'd never shared with her. It was a perfect day to tour a museum too: raining like cats & dogs.

Which rain delayed the Minnesota contingent's flight by several hours, so we ate a very late supper once Gretchen et al. finally arrived: hooray: reunion! The week was full of beach, Robert demo-ing extraordinary Wii prowess when it rained, playing Texas Hold'em almost every night, learning SET, Rummy-O! and Skip-Bo (which is Spite & Malice with a slew of Jokers). S&E cooked (spaghetti, shrimp & grits, hotdogs & hamburgers, pizza, mac & cheese), E made homemade ice cream and popsicles, S & Al and Gretchen & Anna & Robert made several successful geo-caching expeditions, the MN crew hit the Outlet Mall a couple of times, and some of us did the Southern Star Dolphin Cruise, setting out from Destin Harbor on a very windy day. Natch the pool heater pooped out on the day it was supposed to start warming up the pool, but it eventually got fixed, so one afternoon the smaller fry got took a dip and whooped it up.

The Seaside "Farmers' Market" reopened yesterday for the season--very festive! Still not many stalls doing business when we got there around 8:30, but we purchased green beans, peach preserves, free-range eggs, worm juice, cherry tomatoes, strawberries--and a hula hoop. Poor E was put in the awkward position of having to sample a gluten/sugar/fat/free muffin: there was not water enough in the world to wash the taste away.

Our garden survived the 11 inches of rain we received in the last week. Here's hoping that the worm juice gives it strength to continue growing. Tomorrow, when Rick & Sally arrive, we'll feed them a big salad--and at every opportunity during their visit, they'll discover radishes on their plates.