Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach and Williamsburg

Tuesday May 21, 2019

We kissed Skye, Ryan and the girls goodbye and drove over to Chesapeake, Virginia to do a little cleaning on a couple of domes. That evening we enjoyed a delicious dinner at the "Fish & Slips" restaurant at the Portsmouth Marina.

It was "Taco Tuesday" so we 1 each of their gourmet Tacos. They were huge and delicious. We had to take some home and had them for lunch the next day.

On top of the dome in Chesapeake.

I love the views from up here.

Looking over to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Established in 1767.

By noon we were done with our work so we decided a little beach time would be just the ticket.

Virginia Beach.... such a lovely place!.

Thursday morning we visited Williamsburg, Virgina to see one of the birthplaces of our Nation and it's unique form of government.

It was a lovely place with many buildings you could tour and so much to learn about the nation during the Colonial era.

The Palace Green and the Governors Palace where Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson lived when they served as the Commonwealth's Governors.

The Virginia Statehouse. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, William Henry Lee, Patrick Henry... So many great men served here.

Our selfie just to prove we were there.

I can highly recommend a visit to Williamsburg if you ever get the chance. It is a lovely place to visit. 

On The Road Again - Virginia Safari Park

On Friday the 17th of May Darryl and I climbed in our loaded vehicles and headed for Virginia. What was supposed to be a 13 1/2 hour drive to Buena Vista ended up being 17 hours because of traffic, road construction and weather. We arrived at Skye and Ryan's around midnight.

🐫🐵🐴🐮🐱🐲

The following day Darryl and I took Skye and the girls to the Virginia Safari Park in Natural Bridge.

"Hey everybody, .... Llama here. I was there when the Lowry girls and their grandparents came to see me and my friends at the park, so I'll fill you in on the days activities."

"No Llama, ....Emu here. I think I'm the one who should tell about how cute the little girls were when they tried to feed the animals..

"Their grandpa wanted to feed me, but I wasn't so sure about taking food from that hand. Hmmm??"

"Annabelle did her best to keep baby Avery safe while they were inside the car with grandma."

"Yakkity, yakkity, yakkity.... can't a yak get a nap around here?"

"I can tell you they spent a lot more time with the fallow deer than they did with me or Emu or Llama", 

"Silly deer, they just stared back at the girls".

"Hey Girls, how about I come in and ride with you?"

"Back off Bertha! Your scaring Annabelle".

"Well Emu," said Llama, "Avery decided she likes us llamas better than the big birds. She kept waving and talking to us."  

"Hey Avery, where did you go?"

"Well, since Llama, Emu and Yak couldn't come to the aviary with us, I guess I will finish telling about our day. The girls loved visiting us and feeding all my budgerigar friends." 

"And we budgies, or parakeets, loved Skye! She stepped in and we were all over her! And baby Avery wasn't afraid of us at all!

"Reagan was a parakeet magnet too. We loved sitting on her arms."

"It took a while but Annabelle finally got our prettiest blue Parakeet to come and see her and eat her food. "

"We played games with the girls called hop on your feeding stick and see if we will peck your lips."

Grandma Cindy loved my friends wings in this photo. He had been on Annabelle's stick she took the picture just as he took off. His name is Orville Wilbur and he's really good at flying."

"Reagan was quite the budgie charmer."

"Avery wanted to grab this a budgie named Amarillo, but grandpa just wanted him to get off of his head."

"Then he started  biting and pecking the freckles on their Grandpa Darryl's hands. Grandpa kept saying ouch, Avery kept trying to kiss it and Skye, Grandma and the rest of us budgies kept laughing.

"Our apartment house. A bird in the hand is worth how many in the bush?"

"Annabelle finally she made a friend who stuck by her. It's me... Big Budgie Blue".

"Way to go sweet Annabelle."

"Y'all come back anytime to see us."

"Budgie Blue out!"

Pleasant Days in Plaquemine, LA

April & May 2019
As our work wound down in Louisiana we liked to spend our Saturday and Sunday afternoons walking on the levee of the Mississippi River, enjoying the warm weather and the beautiful views.

Walking the levee' in Brusly, LA.

Walking the boardwalk in Plaquemine, LA.

Red ear slider turtles sunning themselves at the lock.

The old drawbridge in Plaquemine on the Plaquemine Bayou waterway.

The Historic Plaquemine Lock was a working lock for boats to get on and off the Mississippi River for 52 years, from 1909 to 1961.

The lock house was nicknamed The Dutch Castle by the boat captains for it's Dutch inspired architecture. 

The rains up north in the Mid-west has the river running higher than normal. 

While on our Sunday stroll on April 28th we saw boys practicing racing their Soap Box Cars for the upcoming Race next week.

They have been racing soap box cars here in Plaquemine for over 70 yrs.

Enjoying the pool after work.

May 4 and 5, Race Day in Plaquemine. We saw some very nice cars!

I can't get over the fact that the starting gate looks like a giant Pinewood Derby!

And on this 1st Sunday in May the river is even higher. This barge is taking the huge wind turbine blades up the river. We counted 27 blades on this load.

From our spot on the levee all we had to do was turn around to watch the races.

On May 7th Darryl and I drove to Pascagoula, MS with the furniture from our apartments here in Louisiana, to put in storage until the Pascagoula job starts.

On the way home we stopped by Biloxi Beach and enjoyed an ice cream and a walk on the beach.

And then we had dinner on the pier.

Our last Sunday at church in the Plaquemine branch I had to get a photo with Ms. Edna (back) and Michelle.

And I couldn't leave without a photo with my dear friend Sister Louise Harris. She is such a wonderful example to me and I love her so.

I sure am going to miss all of our Plaqueming Branch Church Family.

Mother's Day and our last Sunday on the Levee and the water at the Brusly levee keeps rising

Haha! I bought myself a Mother's Day card and sent a photo to my kids and said 

"Thank you for the card". Then they had to figure out which one sent it. 

It says "Mom, you were right about everything!"
Perfect.