The enclosed photo is our daughter, Chris and son-in-law Kirk, as we were celebrating their birthdays at the Lazy Days restuarant during their visit to the Keys in late July. We thoroughly enjoyed their visit. We went snorkeling at Sombrero Reef Lighthouse, toured Marathon, went paddle boarding, relaxed at the marina pool and spent a short day touring Key West. We have enjoyed sharing our cruising lifestyle with family and friends when they visit us in the Keys.

After their visit we were challenged with tropical stom Issac. We hauled our boat after securing our belongings, removed our bimini, jib and boat gear and left for the nearest La Quinta Hotel in the South Miami area. We do not take storms lightly as our boat was damaged by Hurricane Ike in Galveston and survivied a brushing by Hurricane Irene last year in NC. Our boat is back in the water, our personal items are aboard and have we have reinstalled most of our boat gear and bimini. I damaged part of our jib roller furler when attempting to reinstall our sail and we are waiting on a part to repair the furler before reinstalling the jib (hopefully next week). Another costly learning curve lesson. Hopefully we will not have to dodge any more storms this year.

Cathy and I are currently tackling boat maintenace and cleaning projects. I have some major projects to work on........teak work, hull waxing and oil changes. Need some slightly cooler weather to get a little bit more energized for several of those projects.

Cathy has been involved in her weekly Bible study group and we have both signed up for some student mentoring with the local school district at the middle school and high school level.

We have talked to some of our snow bird cruising friends and they should start arriving for the season in October and November. The marina is very quiet and slow in the summer and has even slowed down a little further since Labor Day weekend. Brian and Elisa are coming to visit us in the Keys next month and Cathy is traveling to Annapolis to attend a wedding for a friend's daughter later this month. These are friends she knew from her days in Sugar Land, TX.

We are planning to drive to Biloxi and League City/Houston for the Thanksgiving holiday. Cathy will help Elisa and Becky make a Thanksgiving feast in Brian and Elisa's new home that has a really big.......galley (kitchen). We are looking forward to seeing family & friends along with doing some needed shopping and medical checkups. We miss having some of our favorite stores in the Keys.

As you can see we have very active lives. We are trying to keep our exercise program worked into our weekly schedules. Bike riding, paddle boarding, weight lifting & swimming activites are trying to stay up with our drinking and eating programs. Some days we win and some days we lose.

Our hope is that each of you has a great Fall season and enjoy each day as another gift from God.