August in WaterColor, Florida

Fortunately, Mother returned from her travels in Wales and Ireland in time for us to surprise her with our plans to take her to Florida where we met up with the Stevens family at WaterColor. Those eighty-year old ladies are tough to pin down -- at least in Mom's case -- and we had a bit of anxiety thinking that she might just not arrive in time for our planned trip. BUT, all turned out well.
We spent hours just bobbing in the Gulf of Mexico where the water was apparently 90°. Schools of small fish swam around us and over our bellies as we floated on our backs. It was divine! Every morning we swam out to a sand bar and literally hung out there for hours, often repeating it in the afternoon. Despite our best efforts to protect ourselves, we did pink up a bit:

Each night, we took turns cooking lovely meals then afterwards, we played games. Our favorite seemed to be Balderdash.

Evenings, we had cocktails on the deck overlooking the ocean. Bill and Stan shared a somewhat different concept of vacationing ;~) :

Which is not to say that Mom didn't spend a fair amount of time with her communications:

...OR just relaxing:

Here's the group. We sure had a wonderful time: