Tuesday at the Froeschkes

 7-6-2021 - Tuesday

We expected it to be raining when we got up at 8:00, but that forecast changed to rain starting at noon. Then 4:00 p.m.   You certainly cannot base your plans on the weather forecast here -- it changes every hour.  Andrew brought out his stack of Garbage Pail Kids cards and we sorted through them, looking for matches.  Catalina had a few cards too so we added them to the pack, then Andrew dug some more out from his room.  Joe and I went to Target and I looked for more of those cards, but they didn't have any.

Today was really all about getting ready for the storm, and then waiting for it to get here.  Joe and I ran some errands, did a little shopping under the threat of rain, but it apparently slowed down and it took all day to get here.  (We even carried our umbrellas in a couple stores.)   John and Bridgette picked up anything loose in the yard.  They got in a little football practice in the evening, still waiting for the storm.

This is one of John and Catalina's sneaky football plays.  He swings her around and over Andrew, but then she's too dizzy to run.

It had begun to drizzle, but that didn't bother them.

Bridgette and I stayed on the patio, and Joe joined us.  (We really don't like to be rained on.)

When we came in, we got out the dominoes and played our first game of Mexican Train here.  Andrew really liked it, probably because he won three hands.  But Joe beat him by 7 points.  Catalina picked this game up quickly and could pretty well play it on her own.  John joined in to help her, but she was doing fine without him.  We only got through the 8's, so we will continue that game tomorrow.

Having been through storms here in the past, John and Bridgette took the storm warnings seriously.  He moved Bridgette's new truck closer to the garage (we had the Jeep in the garage, since her new truck doesn't fit), set the basketball goal down, and picked up anything loose.  He filled up the water tank on their camper.   All I did was bring in a flashlight from the Jeep.  They told us to charge our phones in case we lost electricity, and we had stocked up on water.   But it was really almost a non-event, it went west out in the Gulf and passed us without any significant damage.  I saw on the internet that there was some street flooding, but we got lucky this time.  John said, now we wait for the next one!  Oh yeah.

We did see 2 sandhill cranes yesterday when we were running errands.  We always see lots of birds and ducks, and we have been watching for the peacocks again, but still haven't seen them.  John saw a dolphin when we were at the beach but I didn't even see that.  

Wednesday morning is a little cloudy, and the high is only supposed to be 82.  It's drizzling a little, and rain is forecast for the afternoon, but what else is new.  I'm pretty sure we will play some more dominoes.

Monday at the Froeschkes

 7-5-2021 - Monday

John has the day off today for the holiday, but Bridgette had to go in for a little bit because her grad students did some water sampling over the weekend. After a late breakfast, we all went to Bass Pro to pick up a few items for our upcoming fishing trip.  We discovered Joe's fix-it yesterday on the Jeep didn't work -- I had a wet floor on my side again this morning.  After a little more research, he has decided it has to be the air conditioner condensation dripping off the floor, so he bought a piece of hose to make the drip line a little longer.  We will see on our next trip out if that takes care of it.  There is so much humidity here that water pours out of it every time we stop.

After lunch (at Hooters) John and Bridgette took the kids back home -- they were still tired for last night's late night.  I got Joe to stop at one shop for me, then we joined them and got our nap in.  The predicted rain held off until about 6:00, but it did get here.

They had friends over in the evening -- Andrew's football coach Jeremy and his family.  Bridgette got in another tutoring lesson with their son Jace.

And the girls played War.

Jeremy was working with Andrew in the rain.  He said, "well, we play football in the rain."  

Andrew was doing a pretty good job catching Jeremy's throws.  We tried to get an action shot, but between the movement and the low light, the pictures all came out blurry.  But Andrew takes the coach serious, which is why Jeremy enjoys working with him.

Joe and I watched from the dryness of the garage.  We heard a noise, and saw that another spring on the RV had broken.  John said he always knew those things just sit out there and break, but he had never actually seen it happen.  

Before the football players came in, another spring broke.  I don't think they like the rainy weather here. Joe had just bought 2 boxes at Lazy Daze on Saturday, so he will have to use one box up before we even get back on the road.  We will obviously be making another trip over there to stock up on them again.

The company left and we watched the hockey game then.  Unfortunately, the Lightning lost, so there will be another game.  John always gets in a little time with his lap dogs every night.

We never got our shopping done, so that will be on tomorrow's agenda, although John did hook up the boat to the new truck to see how it towed, and made a stop at Walmart on that trip.  It looks like Elsa is going to go west of Tampa, so we should miss the brunt of that storm, although we will probably get some rain out of it (hopefully no tornadoes).  

Sunday at the Florida Froeschkes

 7-4-2021 - Sunday

Bridgette got up early to meet a friend for a hour-long walk this morning.  When I got up, John was wrestling with Andrew, dogs were barking.  But Bridgette got home and put a stop to all that nonsense, then everyone was mad at her.  John went out and started mowing (today is the only day this week that rain isn't predicted).  She made us a great breakfast, and everyone got back in good spirits.  This place is finally living up to the "bed and breakfast" part!

 Catalina wanted to go snake hunting again, so after John (with Catalina's help) finished mowing the front yard, John sprayed them with bug spray, and off they went on their bikes.  Fortunately, they were unsuccessful again.  (They even drove over to their old neighborhood to check out a pond over there.)

Meanwhile, Joe took the motorhome over to fuel it before Florida runs out of gas.  With even the threat of a hurricane here, gas becomes a problem, so John had advised him to fill it up before the storm got any closer.  He said there was another guy at the gas station filling up his gas cans.

Bridgette has a little flower garden in front of their front patio.  She won't need to worry about watering it for a few days.  I really like the green/purple plant, but it probably won't grow in Arizona. There's more of the these purple plants beside the house, too.  And pineapple plants out front, and a blueberry patch on the other side of the house.

Joe and John worked on the Jeep, trying to track down the water source for the puddle in the floorboard.  They put some caulking on something, so we will see what happens during the next rain (probably tomorrow).  Actually, the Elsa storm track now shows it coming in as a tropical storm just north of Tampa, so we will probably get a few inches of rain out of it, starting Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.  But rain is predicted Monday afternoon anyway, so I'm sure we won't have to wait long.

Doug and Barbara came over about 3:00, and we watched the Nascar race.  Tonight was Taco Night, Bridgette's specialty.  Bridgette said this might be the last dinner we get, so I took a picture.

We were going to the beach right after dinner, to watch the fireworks, so clean-up was in a hurry-up mode.  John even took away Joe's table while he was still eating.

I think Joe was still shocked that they took his table away.

We left for the beach about 6:00, going through Bradenton to Longboat Key, and Anna Maria Island, their favorite beach.  We have been here many times before.  It wasn't crowded, and the water was very nice (much warmer than Lake Michigan's 45 degrees).

The kids brought their boogie boards, and they headed out into the water, ready to catch some waves.

Catalina caught a good one and got a nice ride.

John and Andrew waited for a big wave.  Caught it!

The waves got a little strong for Catalina, so she played in her private pool for a while.

With Grandpa supervising.

Me, too (nice hair).

John and Andrew came in for a little rest (I think John was the one that needed the rest).

The sun is starting to go down, but the temperature here is great.  Very refreshing.

John and Andrew went back out for some more boogie boarding.

Meanwhile, Biology Bridgette is investigating the seaweed.  You know, you can take the girl out of the biology department, but you can't take the biology out of the girl.  She and Catalina found a live clam too.

We also had a heron stop by.

A little family time in the pool.

Here's a good ride for Catalina.  The waves seemed to have calmed down just a little.

Finally, everyone got out of the water, and we settled down (sort of) to wait for the fireworks.  But there were still things to be explored.

Finally, it got dark enough and the fireworks started.  They were pretty far away, but we could see the high ones going off in several places.  

They set off several at a time, and Joe kept thinking it was the Grand Finale.  I think we were at Grand Finale Number 10 by the time we left about 10:00.  And all the way home, we could see different towns setting them off -- every direction we looked.

We were at the beach for 5 hours, and it was 11:00 by the time we got home.  When we left the house, Joe  ad said we should have enough gas in the Jeep to make the trip, but by the time we got off the freeway, the gauge was right at the red line.  Another "Joe-ism" when I suggested we stop for gas - "The low fuel light hasn't even come on yet.  We don't know if it has a low fuel light, but if it does, it hasn't come on yet."  Like that was supposed to be reassuring.  But at the very first stoplight after we got off I-75, the low fuel light did come on, so he pulled into the first gas station.  We don't really know how much fuel that gas tank holds, but I'm afraid we are going to find out the hard way (when we run out).

Tomorrow we will start getting ready for our trip to Indian River next weekend.  I think shopping is on the agenda, after Bridgette gets back from her work.  The rain isn't supposed to start until the afternoon 
(a balmy 77 with 83% humidy at 9:30 a.m. -- the humidy was higher an hour ago).  Another day in the sunshine state.