Presenting Mr & Mrs Michael & Jamie Lehmann

Our son Michael and his beautiful girlfriend Jamie were wed 26 Nov 2011

But of course all the festivities leading up to the blissful marriage began a couple of days prior. First there was everyones favorite the Rehearsal (held the day before, so us old folks can remember what to do)

Followed by the ever popular Rehearsal Dinner, a favorite of the grooms parents, since we have to pay for it. Michael and Jamie found a nice setting at the Yardhouse here in North Miami. The weather was perfect for outdoor dining.

The next day, all the ladies were off to become more beautiful than they already are, hair, make-up and of course nails.

The Newlywed couple.

 The Bridal Party

 Sheryl, Myself, Michael and his mother Mary.

 Parents of the Bride, Joe and Wendy.

The wedding went off beautifully, a nice chapel ceremony with the reverend being a friend of Jamie's family, made it very personal and unique.

Ahhhhh the reception...............wow what can be said, it was a great time. Held at a Florida Nature Conservatory it was of course a beautiful setting and the inside was decorated in pinks and white. I must give Micheal and the wedding party a at-a-boy for some of the unique ways they did the speeches and the Guarder Removal. Even the DJ/MC said they had never seen anything like it before, and that it was great!!!

We had a great time here in the Miami area. meeting new family and just gerenaly having a good time. We'll be off again and headed north along the west coast, so stay tuned for more.

I'll leave you with one last parting shot of Michael and myself, GQing it. So until next time, keep Lovin Your Life as we do ours!!!

Happy Thanksgiving from Sunny South Florida!!!

 Happy Thanksgiving everyone from sunny Ft Lauderdale Florida!!! As you may or may not know, we are here for our sons wedding this coming Saturday. However the days leading up to the grand event have been busy, busy, busy with running around, food and fun.

 The RV park we found is nice, just a little tight, but we did get ne of the larger spaces, couldn't imagine getting in some of the other ones. The park is a Passport America park, so we did pretty good for Nov in south Florida, 1/2 price for 8 days, gotta love it!

 Food Food and more Food!!! Thats my son Michael caring up a great pot roast.

 We did get to relax alitle though, threw some bags during a game of Cornhole.

Enjoyed a litle water fun with our Grand Daughter.

She was having toooooo much fun.

I even hit the water from the roof of our son in laws parents house. Thank goodness for good health insurance!!! Thankfully the old man didn't break anything!!!

And for those of you suffering through the colder temps around the country, well this is why all the snowbirds flock to the south. It's was a beautiful day and a busy week so far and it's not over yet. Of course more to come on all the festivities. Happy Thanksgiving again everyone and we'll see you back here in a day or two for the round-up.

Patrick AFB, Florida

After our time in St Augustine was up, we headed south for a few hours stopping at Patrick AFB and the campground here. The campground has full and partial hook ups as well as a dry docking area. All the full hook up sites were taken, but we did score a nice pull through partial site (elec and water)

We did have a nice wide open space to our left.

 The campground is located on the banks of the Banana River, with several waterfront sites, alas, we missed out on one of those.

 The base is also located right on the Atlantic Ocean. The weather has been cloudy and very windy, making for some pretty angry looking seas. The temps have been in the 70s, but still not very good beach going weather. You can also see, we wer'nt the only one having bad luck with the weather. This poor guy had his boat washed ashore.

I also celebrated my XX something or so birthday while we have been here. My darling picked me up a couple of traditional birthday gifts (underwear and jeans, can't have enough of both) as well as a tripod for the new camera.
Sunday we leave for Ft Lauderdale and our sons wedding. It's not till next week, but we wanted to arrive early for the Thanksgiving holidays and of course to help out where we can.
Ok, that's it for now, see you in a couple of days from (hopefully) sunny Ft Lauderdale, Florida.

St Augustine, FL.

 We left Crestview and made a leisurely trek across northern FL. to the Country's Oldest City, St Augustine. We found a nice RV Park just outside of town so were here for a couple of days.

 Of course the first order of business was to check out the beach and get the infamous "US" picture. The beaches here, sure are different from the panhandle gulf coast beaches. Crushed shell type sand versus the snow white sand of the gulf coast.

 Next it was on to the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument.  Construction started in 1672 making it the fortress one of the oldest standing structures in North America. The fortress was built by the Spanish to protect the bay at St Augustine.

 It's a very well preserved structure and as always, the National Park Service has done a great job.

 Once we finished up touring the fort, we took a quick driving tour around town and then over the bay bridge to check out the St Augustine Lighthouse.

We checked out the Lighthouses Welcome Center and Gift Shop, but decided not to do the tour. It's pretty pricey and Sheryl wasn't sure she'd make it to the top. We were able to walk around the grounds though and get some nice pictures.
Only having the day to check out the town, we just hit the high points. The Old Town part is really interesting to see if you can look past the thousands of tourist shops and eatery's inhabiting all the old buildings. We'll come back again one day when we have more time to explore. We've had a good time here, but tomorrow it's off again and headed south.

Last Days in Crestview

 Our time here in Crestview is coming to a end and we've had a great time. The past couple of days has been busy with parades and sight seeing. Yesterday was small town USA Veterans Day Parade (Crestview, FL) of course it always helps to have a military base nearby (Eglin AFB). The town put on quite the show and we were pleasantly surprised at both the size of the parade and the turn out of it's citizens. Made me proud to be an American and a retired veteran as well. Here's a few shots from the day.

Today (Sunday was church and road trip day. After church, Glen and Linda took us out on a sight seeing tour around the local North Florida countryside. Of course it had to start with lunch and we found another great little local place, serving up fantastic food at the right price.

 After lunch and with full bellies to walk off, we stopped by the Baker City Museum. The inside of the museum was closed but we did get to walk around the large display of old building from around the area that had been moved there and preserved in there original state.

 My Darling having a good time, can you tell!!!

From the museum, it was off to enjoy a Sunday drive around the area. We did drive in and around the Blackwater River State Park, which is highlighted by the...........can you guess..........Right, the Blackwater River. We enjoyed our drive around the rolling hills of the North Florida countryside.
Tomorrow we are off and will be heading towards Jacksonville, FL. I think we'll stop for the night in Lake City and head into the city on Tuesday. Of course that plan may change depending on availability at the Mayport NAS RV Park. We are always prepared to change plans on a dime, so we'll see what happens. So until next time.......................well, you know the drill.

Eglin AFB Off Road

Now that I'm caught up on posting, I can get to a little adventure I had exploring the vast Eglin AFB reservation in North West FL. The Eglin reservation is 720,000 acres of north Florida woods and coastline. I only had the day to get out so my destination was the northern area along the Shoal River, just south of Crestview. This is what my GPS looked like for most of the day! Luckily, Linda husband Glenn had a map of the reservation, so I had at least some Idea where I was.

The main road leading from Hwy 85 to Hwy 87 for some 25 or so miles. This is the road I based most of my side trips off of, it's a nicely graded wide dirt road, which is more than I can say for most of the side roads. That's Ok because if all the roads were like this, they wouldn't be worth exploring.

Most of the side roads were just narrow sandy two tracks.

I did manage to find a unnamed road back to a beautiful spot along the Shoal River. I was thinking what a great canoe trip this would be, we may have to give it a try next time we make it by this way.

The roads varied from the wide open main one, to open sandy ones to travelling through some pretty dense vegetation. Sheryl is always pleased when she sees the Jeep with dirt, mud and one more scratch after my outings. I think she's beginning not to buy the phrase "but honey, they'll buff right out".....lol. Then again, if I actually buffed them out that would help..lol.

And now a shot for our northern friends, 73 and blue Sky's, what a great day.

Being north Florida, there are several creeks running through the area. Thought we'd test the water by just dipping a toe in, ohoooo cool crisp spring water, nice.

That was pretty much the adventure, not alot of mud slinging and rock crawling, more just exploring the North West Florida backroads. It was a great day and nice just to get out into nature's beauty.