Vacation

Our Vacation has been...

Swimming, swimming and swimming.







Reading. How does Nicholas Sparks do it?



Collecting pieces of sea shells and clam huntin'. Fort Walton is beautiful, but we are hard pressed to find a single whole shell.





But, Emma did find that little sand dollar. It was whole when she found it, but it was so delicate, the edge broke in the bucket. We could buy seashells, but I refuse. I can buy shells at Wal Mart in the craft section. I'd rather bring back broken ones we found on our own than buy shells someone else collected. I think there might be a spiritual application here. I'm going to think on that.



Oh my word...this one room school house. It is original to Ft. Walton, has been restored, and is over 100 years old. It is the most authentic one room school house I've ever been in. The desks are graduated, with the smallest up front, then mid sized in the middle, and larger desks in the back. The people who take care of this school house thought of every little thing. There are class pictures on the wall from the 1920's. And a copy of a teacher's contract from 1915. Allison, Emma and I were in Heaven. What a joy this little place was. The lady who volunteers and talks to visitors about this one room school house was an absolute delight.



They had an extensive antique textbook collection, many of which had been donated by students who attended the one room school house. And look: A college "Methods" textbook, from 1893. I took "Methods" in 1993.



A new local joint we tried out. Local joints are one of my favorite parts of vacation. The food here was awesome. And the employees could not have been more friendly. I like when people go out of their way to visit with out of towners. It's just nice. This restaurant also had interesting pictures on the walls of the area from the past 50-plus years. Aerials shots showing how the area has changed and grown. Oh, and this place will cook your catch. Neat, huh!



Tomorrow is our anniversary! 14 years so far. So, we'll go to the beach in the morning. We'll play and watch our girls and hunt clams one last time. We'll come back to the pool and enjoy our lazy river one last time. And then we'll all get cleaned up and go out for a nice anniversary dinner! The girls love doing that with us. We'll celebrate with a dinner alone after we get home. But, I like celebrating with our girls. I hope they see something worth celebrating. We're certainly not perfect, but I sure do love Mark Wiggins, and he sure does love me.