beach party!

Today we had a beach party for 16 planned at Sombrero Beach here in Marathon.  It was a beautiful day, sunshine, in the low 80's and a strong southern wind.  The beach is on the south side of the island.  After about 30 minutes of shellin' with my Momma and Emily, it became clear that unless we wanted to be chewing on sand with our burger, we had to move the picnic part of the party back to Banana Bay, on the north side of the island.

Cap'n Donnie assumed his usual position as grill master, with Matt and Kenny supervising :)  His apron was a gift from Polly at our first beach party here three years ago.  It says, "Sailing is a Breeze".  Perfect.

The gang was all gathered, waiting patiently for lunch.  We feasted on burgers and dogs, macaroni salad, strawberry poppy seed salad, sweet kale salad, baked beans, salsa and chips, deviled eggs, homemade banana pudding, and chocolate cream cake! Wow!!

After we ate ourselves silly, some went to the pool for a swim, some played hillbilly golf, some played music, and some played chickenfoot.  Donnie was the only rooster in the henhouse- until he accused his sister, Diane, of cheating, to which she replied, "I don't cheat, Mom cheats!"  The very next round, Mamaw tried to slip Fran a chickenfoot to keep Lucille from going out again! Lucille was killing us all.  Paps took over as King Rooster, and Donnie joined Bryan and Larry to play music. 

Emily has a new auntie, and Fran has a new niece...six degrees of separation, don't ya' know.

Emily scored Mamaw's deviled eggs an A+, so Kenny opted for a burger topped with one.  After traveling with him in Germany this summer, I think the man would eat shoe leather if it had a 'loose egg' on it, lol.

Somebody was up to no good....

A duckie puppet, just what Polly always wanted!  It's true, she collect all duckies, rubber or not :)

Emily and I opted to go back to the beach to catch the last of the afternoon sun.  She flies back tomorrow, and wanted to stick her toes in the sand one last time.  As we laid and listened to the waves, and found more perfect, tiny shells, we decided that God does make the most beautiful things.

The kindness of a stranger captured our last moment together in the sun perfectly :)

I couldn't love this girl anymore...it's going to be a rough goodbye tomorrow for this momma.

As I finish this up, it is after midnight and Donnie has laughed and told stories with his buddies all day, and all night long.  I've got to hand it to him, the guy loves to laugh and have a good time.  Willis has just returned home, so I am closing him in for the night, though his Dad may decide to put him out.  Last night, Willis walked on dad's chest and woke him up no less than five times.  The last time was at about 7am.  I opened one eye to see him standing on Donnie's chest, and Donnie was ready to swat him off the bed once and for all.  I knew immediately what his problem was- his bowl of food was empty.  Apparently, every time his belly growled, he stomped on Dad to do something about it.  Unfortunately, Dad doesn't speak cat.  Donnie said he didn't want to wake me and deal with the wrath of Karyn.  That could also be true. Nevertheless, our friend, Ken, said it best, "people can train a dog, but a cat trains people."  No doubt about it. His bowl is now full to the brim, and I am turning in for the night. Cap'n, however, is still going strong. G'nite, y'all!