Winter Months In Gulf Shores, AL

                                       January and February 2015

During the winter, our neighbor Mindy, who has the summer home next to ours, drove up from her southern MI home. She took some pictures of our place in Boyne City, MI., so we could see our place in snow.

View out our front deck toward Lake Charlevoix.

View from Mindy's home toward the side of our house.

My 3 little Nana kids have continued their classes at the "Wheeles Yoshukai lil dragon" 3 times a week. Here Lennox is testing for a new belt, but first, his teacher Sensa (which means teacher in Japanese) tells him to hit hard on his chest to practice. Click on the link to see Lennox and than Maddie breaking board to pass to the next belt.  https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=QeqPC53MzE4  Maddie has to break two boards because she has been in karate longer and is getting her blue belt.

Joe, Mallery and I have enjoyed riding our bikes on the Gulf Shores State Park Bike Paths when the weather has been nice.

Mallery seems to be enjoying the bike riding much more then when we were in Northern Michigan last summer. She has got use to it now and it is not so scary for her. Mallery is doing better. She is taking her predinsone every 72 hours with no breathing problems. Our biggest problem to date is still her digestive issues. She has been on a canned dog food that the Veterinarian put her on, but she has been refusing to eat it. She has always tired of food after a few weeks. I tried to introduce a new wet dog food, and she would eat it, but not her old dog food. The only way I can get her to eat her supplements is to wrap them in her wet dog food. She ends up having loose stools , which then I have to give her medicine to clear that up. A few days ago, she had gone 1 1/2 days without food or supplements because she wouldn't eat her old dog food. That's when I gave in and gave her a new brand of food and of course it messed her system up again. She is so boney, it is hard not feeding her something, so I end up giving in which starts the cycle all over again.

The bike paths is wonderful and connected to our campground so we never have to ride along with traffic. There are 7 connecting trails with 14 miles to bike or walk.

Blakes parents came from Iowa for a few weeks and his step dad built them a new shed in the back yard with a cement walk to the back patio.

He also built a nice fire pit for them to enjoy on cool evening. Daryl is a contractor so is pretty good at this stuff. He builds Pizza's Hut all over the Midwest.

The little guy is our Noah sparing at karate class.

One day when I was out by myself, I went exploring in an area in Orange Beach. This is a view of the overpass that crosses the Bayou St. John going out to the Gulf. Here is a link to show you a map of the area https://maps.yahoo.com/place/?lat=30.302649936333264&lon=-87.57442474365234&q=Gulf%20Shores%2C%20AL%20United%20States&bb=30.37879906%2C-87.74110794%2C30.22673826%2C-87.40774155&addr=Gulf%20Shores%2C%20AL%20United%20States

In the Terry Cove and Bayou St. John waters, there are marina's and homes along the canals.

Down from this marina there are 3 to 4 streets that have homes and condo's that sit on canals.

All the homes on the canal have private docks. We originally planned on leaving Gulf Shores, AL., the first of April, but our home up north still has snow on the ground, so we are going to stay another week hoping the last of the snow will melt.