Monday's Moment: Thanks for the warning....but I'm already out of the channel

 

Monday's Moment: Oysters in Pluffmud

 

Monday's Moment: Happy Place

 

Monday's Moment: Fluffy Clouds

 

Monday's Moment: Cattails with Carolina Anole

 

Monday's Moment: Fungi

 

Monday's Moment: Juvenile American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis)

 

Monday's Moment: Sweet Magnolia

 

Monday's Moment: Cattails

 

Monday's Moment: Helicopter backlit by the Sunlight

 

Monday's Moment: How many deer do you see?

 

Monday's Moment: Purple Blooms

 

Monday's Moment: Dock on the River

 

Wrapping up home leave 2021.....

The majority of our home leave 2021 was spent in Charleston, South Carolina....likely our last home leave there as we now have our own place in Florida. Looking forward to landing and everyone can come to us (as oppose to running around like we have the last 3 home leaves and R&Rs). We make the big flight over the pond, so a drive down to Orlando is not too bad.

We spent a lot of time running around to doctor's appointments (more than we had planned - someone got contacts, which involved a lot practicing, trying putting them in and out, etc). Based on the past two home leaves, it would not be HL if I didn't get something removed (luckily no cancer this time, just an annoying cyst that wouldn't resolve itself). We enjoyed plenty of time at our favorite restaurants as well. I was also still working remotely all HL (super fun to plan interviews at a reasonable hour in Qatar and not insanely early on the east coast).

Here is a picture of the cousins playing in their natural habitat (aka on electronics)....at least it appeared they were all playing the same game. After a relaxing Father's day brunch (that was on the only time we could get all the teens together...lol).

Given Frankfurt will be a lot colder the majority of the year and we won't have our own yard, we used up the rest of the water balloons we had leftover from Doha.

Airborne Ninja?

Someone was double dog dared to smash a balloon on their head...lol.

We took lots of walks with our new camera (upgraded to the Nikon Z6II mirrorless camera). So we played with the new camera a bit a lot. So I will end with a couple of the wildlife photos and save the rest for Monday Moments.

A Great Egret (Ardea alba) wading at the river's edge.

Deer on Deer Walk (street name.....just a bit ironic)

Osprey (Pandion sp.) on an electric line.

Eastern king snake (Lampropeltis getula) just outside the front door!

Monday's Moment: Danglers

 

Summer Adventures 2019 Part 3 - Charleston

So Charleston was our home base over the summer. We knocked out doctor appointments, noshed at our fave restaurants, we celebrated good report cards from the previous year with a fun morning at good ole Chuck'e'Cheese,

of course, the kids smile super nicely together for a the cheap print outs.....

we caught up with friends and family, we took some nice walks,

and mainly enjoyed scenery that wasn't desert for a while!

Even happened upon this sunflower plotting some evil plan.....

Overall, we just tried to relax while in and out (and in and out) of Charleston.  After Richard had headed back to Doha and Mason was in Texas, Clarissa had her first solo adventure! A week at Girl Scout camp! She went to Sandy Ridge for a week of Top Drone camp!

This would be her first time away, without family....and to top it off - she didn't even have anyone from her troop.

Was a bit worried about tears, but it was smiles and excitement when dropping her off. She started to get sad and I took that as my cue to dash.

Luckily, with the technology of today - the camp allowed us to see photos uploaded daily and she appeared to be smiling and having a blast!!

 Lots of fun things to be done!

Super big slip and slide!! Looks like a blast and half!!!

She did in fact love camp! Loved it so much that she asked to go again next summer!! 

We had a lot of rain that week, but I was able to squeeze a little beach time in for myself!

We also saw lots of wildlife while in Charleston - deer, snakes, crabs, periwinkles...oh my!

In the end, Richard had about a month of R&R and the kids and I had two months of R&R (that was our agreement when moving to a super hot climate). We all had a blast.....I have a few more posts of our other summer adventures....coming soon....