Today, September 16, is Mayflower Day. This is the day, in 1620, that the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England to the New World.

A few years ago my husband and I spent the July 4th weekend searching Ancestry.com for our family history.  His was decidedly more interesting than mine during that search. We found that he, through his mother, was a descendant of the Mayflower. That means our two boys are descendants of the Mayflower. Actually they are all descendants of the Hopkins family who set sail with the others to find a new life in a new world.

Creative Commons

Oh, what it was like I do not want to know first hand. But it is quite exciting from a family history point of view that my guys bloodline follows back to the first settlers.  The Hopkins family was the one to have a baby before arriving on land: Oceanus was his name.  He lived to be 6 years old.

So what would the voyagers on the Mayflower find in the new world? We know what we are taught in history classes about the wilderness and the native people the pilgrims encountered. We know that they foraged for clams and periwinkles. We know they fished and spent a whole lot more time outdoors than we do now.

But, what I really want to know was if these people enjoyed beach combing? Did they play in the sand and build castles? Did they sit on any beaches at any time and watch the waves, enjoy the shorebirds?  They they swim in the ocean? Did they get up early to watch the sun rise over the Atlantic? And before he died, did Oceanus play on any beaches or swim in the ocean? We may never know.

Happy Mayflower Day!

Turtle Beach…well, not exactly. It’s Siesta Key FL but we found these cute turtle sand sculptures one day.  The artist wanted them protected so there is a wall of sand surrounding them.  So, does this wall keep the turtles in or keep non-turtles out?

Happy Sand Castle Friday.

Another family photo: my oldest son back in 2008 with his sand masterpiece. The sand on Siesta Key FL is so fine that is stays together and packs well for shaping sand castle walls. Check out the doorway to the castle.

Happy Sand Castle Friday.

My husband added to our rather large LP collection this weekend with a thrift shopping trip to a small town. While there were several amazing records in that foot-high stack he brought home, the best was a “learn to hula” LP with an instruction booklet.

Guess what I’ll be doing this week.

I went to a sea turtle release at Henderson Beach State Park this morning with the family. The walk from our beach house rental was long, the sun was hot and the breeze was slight.
By the time we got there,  my husband, Gary,  positioned himself in the Gulf of Mexico with my camera.  I went with my guys to the tent to watch from that angle. Travis got close enoughto get photos.
I felt a rush of heat from sun and lack if breeze and needed to sit down so Austin went with me to the Pavillion where I cooled down. Shortly we headed back to the crowd but decided that standing at the top of the boardwalk steps gave us an awesome vantage to watch the turtle swim off so that’s where we stayed.. outside the crowd.
Moments later, a friend who I haven’t seen in at least three years stood right in front of me.  Georgeen Hess from Fairhope,

and her family.  It was so sweet to see her in an unexpected place.
Moral of the story. ..move outside the crowd for delightful blessings may find you.

I sat on the beach in Destin and watched 2 brothers try to learn the art of skim boarding. They tried and tried. Family laughed each time one fell or one failed.  Finally a teen in the group told them to go to the sandbar and try there, so they did.
They tried and they tried.
A group of guys were sitting nearby where the brothers were doing their best to succeed. One of the guys got out of his chair, ran over and gave them each a quick lesson before packing up his cooler and leaving the beach.
The brothers got it! Their family, sitting near me suddenly stopped laughing. Cheers.

Tonight is the live performance of The Passion on Fox Network. The Passion is a musical about the last hours of Jesus Christ’s life on Earth, and is taking place through the streets of New Orleans; the French Quarter to be exact.  Streets will be blocked off for the processional, which starts at City Hall, as the actors wind through the Quarter and end up at the riverfront stage set up in Woldenberg Park.

Tyler Perry narrates The Passion. The small cast includes Jencarlos Canela as Jesus, Chris Daughtry as Judas, Seal as Pontius Pilate and Trisha Yearwood as Mary.

If you have a ticket you can get to the stage. If not, you can catch the show on your local Fox channel at 7pm Central.

I was in New Orleans from March 13 to March 18, watching from my hotel room window as the stage along the Mississippi River was being built. The photos below chronicled the building activity for just those days.

March 13

March 14

March 15

March 16

March 17

March 18

Enjoy the show!