so much to see and do, not enough time

The days are full, and they go by so quickly.  By the time night time rolls around, it's hard to believe all that we've managed to cram in our waking hours yet again.  The fact that I snapped another 51 pics today just goes to show y'all. I'll sort through and try to hit the highlights of the day. I'm going to need a vacation to the Bahamas after this vacation- No joke! 

Elle left with Kevin, Justin, Kelly and Loren for a day
of sailing on the Gulf of Mexico.  It was only blowing
10-15 today, perfect for sailing :)

Willis T was wanting to come onto the boat to sleep the day away, but
I kept shooing him out while I was doing some deep cleaning.

I was cleaning the salon floor, when I heard him above me, as if he was
saying, "Mom, can I PLEASE come in now, I promise, my feet are clean!"

Within minutes, he was splayed out on our Vberth.  My goodness, he's a big cat.

This afternoon, Ness, Andrew, and the grandkids finally arrived. No, this is
not a pic of our grandkids!  We took them to see Aunt Diane, and to meet
all the neighbors, and looked who showed up in the canal!  Momma & baby.

Never have I seen four manatees at once; one for each of us to pet!

Manatee huggin', kissin', and squeezin'  :)

Ain't love grand?

Eli and Ava were lovin' on the manatees, too :)
They were so docile, and not at all skittish when they got back scratches.

We took the kids to Sombrero Beach, where Ness and Andrew got in a
quick walk on the beach sans kids, while we played on the playground.

After that, I turned the kids on to geocaching, and they found their first treasure.
If you've never done it, it's free entertainment, and you can go treasure
hunting all over the world. Go to geocaching.com and check it out.
It's fun and it's free!  I'm all about free.  I can't wait to geocache in Germany :)

After an hour at the beach, playground, and geocaching, it was time for a
6:30pm spaghetti dinner with Mamaw and Papaw. From there, it was time
for a 7:30pm suprise birthday party for Big Ron, who is leaving tomorrow.
See how our days go?!  Sometimes they are scheduled by the hour.
To think I purposely left my day planner back in Indiana!

The men sang Happy Birthday in their hillbilly teeth!  Ness warned
the kids that's what will happen if they don't brush their teeth before bed!

The ladies wore their party hats and gave Big Ron a leg up!
Ava's hat immediately became a unicorn, as she attempted to head butt her brother.

The oreo cookie cake was amazing...Happy Birthday, Big Ron!

Papasan chairs are good for sisters to get caught up with each other :)

Pope Ron got lei'd, and looks happy about it!

There's so much that could be said about this photo...I'm simply going to
open it up to the blog viewing audience...what's your caption for this pic?!
Post your ideas in the comments!!!  Let's just say he was King Rooster for the night.

We got back to the boat, and were quickly offended by a growing FUNK yet again!  OMG, I thoroughly scrubbed and cleaned the boat today.  It is so disheartening, because heat and humidity only multiplies funky smells exponentially.  For some reason, if I so much as utter a "phew, what is that?" Cap'n instantly gets defensive and angry.  I dunno, maybe he's been conditioned to 'the smeller is the feller', lol.  Trust me, this was not that case, whatsover.  Something seemed to have crawled into the belly of the boat and died.  I have searched high and low, thinking maybe Willis killed a gecko and brought it aboard as a prezzie.  I seriously have no idea what it is or where it has come from.  Elle came back from the hot tub, and quickly retreated as we were deep into funk finding.  She did not take kindly to us appointing her the Chief Funk Finder. In the end, Cap'n pulled through again tonight, in a big way.  There seemed to be a couple of sources that were quickly pitched and bleached.  Something called 'lindstrom', which I called 'dirty butt smell', was quickly pitched onto the dock.  A rusty leaky small propane can for our grill (which could have been disasterous if ignited) I called 'rotten bait and city dump smell' was very carefully carried off the boat rather than pitched to the dock.  Lastly, some drain hoses on the galley sink were of the same inappropriate material as our holding tank hoses had been.  They were sprayed down with bleach waterthis evening, only to be replaced with the right material on another day.  They look like radiator hoses and smell like an overflowing radiator coupled with...well, I really cannot post here what they smelled like.  Suffice it to say, most of Marquesa's fans are all on, and the boat pleasantly smells of lemon bleach for the time being.

Cap'n spent the morning running errands with Danny, tracking down various parts and things for some upcoming boat projects.  He needs to manufacture some way to mount the new GPS touch screen chartplotter to the binnacle.  The oil needs changed on Bessie before the Bahamas. His Vberth fan needs attended to, the epirb needs mounted, a new mainsheet needs threaded, more silicone is needed on the port side window, paperwork needs copied and filed, among other things.  Frannie appropriately got Donnie and I keychains that say Mr. and Mrs. Fix It today, for all of the fix it jobs that have been completed on the boat this year.  Getting outfitted for the cruising lifestyle is a whole new level of fixing, spending, and installing.  For now, the projects will have to wait for another day, after company leaves.  Tomorrow it's a trip to the Dolphin Research Center :)  More pics to come!  G'nite y'all :)