Sunday, September 28, 2014

Disney Cruise 2014

This past week Tammy and I went on our first cruise.  We accompanied Tammy's sister Connie and her family on a 4-night Bahamian cruise on Disney Cruise Lines (DCLs) ship Disney Dream. I had my reservations about cruising but after this trip I certainly would not rule out another cruise. I suspect however that I have set the standard fairly high between travelling with Connie's family, a Disney cruise and a stateroom with a veranda.
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Disney Cruise Lines Terminal, Port Canaveral, Fl.
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I was very surprised by the size of the Disney Dream, the third ship in Disney's fleet. While we did have a couple days where the motion of the sea was noticeable neither Tammy nor I experienced any motion sickness. And now for a few quick stats about the ship; 
1,115 ft in length
125 ft wide
130,000 tons
1,250 staterooms
accommodations for 4,000 guests and 1,458 crew
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Disney Dream, Grand Lobby
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Disney Dream at Castaway Cay, Bahamas
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Our cruise took us to Nassau in the Bahamas where we enjoyed an excursion to the resort Atlantis. Tammy and her sister swam with the Dolphins while Jimmy and I took the kids to the water park. All in all a relaxing day though we did have a couple communications/coordination problems resulting in our group getting separated  without a good fallback plan. File that away with a couple other lessons learned from this trip.
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Dolphin Cay, Atlantis Resort, Nassau, Bahamas
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All in all Tammy and I had a very good time and I certainly see another cruise in our future. 
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Grace & Peace

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Happy 50th Tammy!

Fifty years ago on September 12, 1964 at 3:02pm Tamara Paige McReynolds was brought into this world and little did anyone know the impact she would have on the life of a 14 month old little boy living in Wilmington, NC.
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Stan, Gayle & Tammy
October 10, 1964
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Tammy
circa 1965
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Tammy and I finally crossed paths in September 1982 at L.S.U. in Baton Rouge, La thanks to her cousin and one of my high school friends Kenny McReynolds. We went on our first date to see E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the rest as they say is history. The picture below is the only picture I have of the two of us from the year we met. Tammy looks beautiful and I have know idea whatsoever why I look like a goof. She just does that to me.
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Happy Birthday Tammy
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West Laville Hall
December 1982
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Shalom

Monday, September 08, 2014

Gulf Fritillary Time

The next round of the 2014 butterfly season has found dozens of Gulf Fritillary caterpillars munching away on the passion vine we have planted on a structure in the backyard. Tammy has started gathering up the caterpillars and placing them into a butterfly house. It will be interesting to watch since Tammy has not placed these types of caterpillars into her butterfly house before.
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2014 Release Count
Monarchs: 246
Swallowtails: 29
Gulf Fritillary's: 0

Passion Vine (May 2012)
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Gulf Fritillary Caterpillar (Sep 2014)
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Gulf Fritillary Butterfly (May 2012)
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Grace & Peace