Christmas Comes Early in Gulf Shores

Monday afternoon our niece, Stephanie, showed up from the Atlanta area to spend a few days with her parents.  Pam made dinner while I provided fudge cake for dessert.  Since I used Pam's cookie sheet, she was stuck with the leftovers (which she has since frozen, and then shared with us).

Mark and Stephanie digging in.

We saw this in Walmart. 

Very disturbing for September 25.

Stephanie was once again kind enough to bring her dog grooming tools with her to give Butch (and Darla) a haircut.  She convinced us to let her cut all the hair off Butch's tail.  We love it!

I found this guy while walking on the walkway over the swamp right next to the RV park.

We finally got to the fishing pier early enough to see some fish.  There was a very large school of "blues" and also quite a few sharks.  Unfortunately, we only saw the little ones (2-3 ft.).  One fisherman told us that a 5 ft. one was playing in the water that morning, jumping out like a dolphin.  I would have liked to see that, but only on the pier; not on the beach where we swim.

Mark thought this was funny.

Thursday we saw lots of smoke coming from the State Park a couple of miles away.  It turned out they were doing a "controlled burn" but it got out of control after dark. 

There was no wind today, so Dennis and Mark decided to put the new decals on the front of the trailer.  It turned out perfect. 

To celebrate, we all headed to Tacky Jacks for lunch.  None of us had ever been there, but the food was delicious.  Now its nap time since the rain has arrived, and will most likely be here until Tuesday.