Pensacola NAS Power Plant

Pensacola NAS is a large base and being the horrible navigator that I am I got extremely lost the afternoon we finished our camping trip and headed for home.

I was trying to find the front gate, rounded a curve and ran into a large dock. The Oldest Island Boy tells me that he's positive that this can't be the way out and I had to agree because we'd run out of land and there wasn't a bridge in sight.

I pulled into a parking lot to turn around and we saw this.


Our curiosity outweighed the fact that we were exhausted and we had to stop and check it out.



The plaque told us that this chimney is all that remains of a power plant built in 1907. The building was destroyed during Hurricane Ivan but the chimney remained.

The chimney rises 150 feet and functions as an important navigational feature on the base.

Navigating to where I'm not sure but I do know finding it does not mean finding the way out.

It was a short pitstop but an interesting one. And it confirmed that I want to come back soon and explore the parts of the base that are open to the public. The architecture and history here are fascinating.

Sights of Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving at my parent's house and the weather was perfect.

Cousins on the beach.



The Youngest Island Boy talking on his banana phone. The bamboo is his antenna.

He told me he was calling alien monkeys.

My sister found a baby Horseshoe Crab shell.


Seawall jumping - even though that's not allowed.



My niece loves the beach but doesn't like sand on her feet so she has to go sit down every few minutes to brush it off. She gets the sand off and then runs right back down to the beach to play again.


Sisters in the hammock.


My Dad in his "tacky people" apron.

He told everyone that he wears that apron every year and that some years it's true but this year only half the people there were tacky. Then he said "I'll let you figure out which half you're in" LOL

A birthday cake with a turkey candle for a cousin who turned 8 the day after Thanksgiving.


After dinner the shovels, which I'm pretty sure my Dad had hidden, were found and the digging began.



Give these kids shovels and they could dig a tunnel to China.

My Dad will get to spend all day Friday covering the holes up.

A spectacular sunset ended the day.


I'm thankful for so many things and living in paradise is very near the top of the list.

The Difference Between Boys and Girls

My nephews had a rubber snake at my parent's house on Thanksgiving, which the Youngest Island Boy had to play with immediately.

He proclaimed himself a snake wrangler and proceeded to wrestle with it.

For a minute it looked like it might get the best of him

But he recovered

And managed to show the snake who was boss


A little while later I heard the boys complaining and a very indignant nephew came up and demanded I get the girls to put his snake down.

I looked for the girls in question and saw this.




The Oldest Island Boy said "Mom, they're humiliating that poor snake! He's made to be wrestled and used as a tool to scare girls - NOT AS A JUMP ROPE!"

The differences between boys and girls will never cease to amaze me.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all have a wonderful day.

Thanksgiving Eve

It's the day before Thanksgiving - which is hands down one of my most favorite holidays.

I know most people don't celebrate Thanksgiving Eve but we do.

Each year on Thanksgiving Day we take turns going to either his mom's house or mine and we always have a good time but at the end of the day we don't have any leftovers.

Leftovers are mandatory eating for the weekend after.

So years ago I started making a complete Thanksgiving meal the day before just like I would if I were hosting. Then I put it all in the fridge and we start eating on it Thursday night or Friday.

And since I'm not hosting, I don't have to worry about the house being clean or where everyone will sit or table settings. No pressure, just cooking.

Which is where the fun comes in.

All 5 of us show up Wednesday afternoon and we put on good music and spend the afternoon and evening in the kitchen.

We laugh and talk and it really gives us time to realize all we have to be thankful for.

It's become a tradition and I LOVE it!

The Catapult Champion

A few weeks ago the Oldest Island Boy had a Webelos meeting. Normally, his Dad takes him but the Island King was out fishing so I went instead.


They were going to work on earning their Engineering badge, which they broke down into 2 parts, mechanical and chemical. For the mechanical part each boy was to build a marshmellow catapult and when they finished there would be a contest and the boy who's catapult worked the best would win a prize.

The man leading them showed them a model he'd built, explained how it worked and then gave each boy the parts to make his own. The key was to figure out exactly how to put it together to make it shoot the marshmellow a long way.

The Oldest paid close attention, got his parts and then came over to where I was sitting. He kept asking where I thought he should put the holes for the vault and did I think this was better or that was better.


I realized that he wasn't having a hard time with the concept but that he was trying to get me to help him so it would be a really good one. Which is not the point of what we're doing here so I asked him if Dad would help him if he were there instead of me.

"No, he would say that I should do it"

Well ok then.

So I told him to study the prototype, think about it and then he had to decide how to put his together.

Which he did.


Once the design was set there were some dads who helped drill the holes and tie the rubber bands but the boys did all of the "engineering" themselves.


When the catapults were finished they all lined up and took practise shots.


And then it was time for the real deal. The den leader held the platforms steady and one by one the boys lobbed their marshmellows.

A few went pretty far.

The Oldest's turn came around, he loaded his marshmellow and off it went. Literally half way across the room.

I love the looks of surprise on the faces of the boys next to him while he looks like he doesn't believe that just happened.

Needless to say my boy won the catapult contest and will get a prize at their next meeting.

The second half of their meeting was about chemical engineering and they made green slime. Which they LOVED.





The meeting came to an end and the first thing the Oldest said was "Let's go home and catapult green slime onto the Island Girl!"


On our way home I told him how proud I was of him for making the catapult by himself and that he won because of his work, not mine. He thought about it for a minute and told me that I was right, if I'd have helped him he would have won but it would have been our win, not his.

Yes! He got it.

And I couldn't resist letting him catapult slime onto his sister - just once.

Haunted Lighthouse?

When we planned our Blue Angels trip I was delighted to find that the campground is within a half mile of the lighthouse.

Before we left I told the boys about the lighthouse and that we were going to see it while we were camping. "Can we climb to the top?" became the question of the day.

I didn't know so we Googled the lighthouse and the first thing we found was an article about the lighthouse being haunted.

A haunted lighthouse? The boys (and their mom) thought that was very cool and we read on.

The story we read said that the first lighthouse keeper fell to his death. His wife said it was an accident but there were suspicions that she pushed him. Since the issue could never be settled, the wife was sentenced to spend the rest of her life as the new lighthouse keeper. Which made her very unhappy.

And now you can sometimes see the light from the Keeper's cigar glowing in the windows at night and the wife's reflection in the mirrors inside the house.

Another site told stories of an abusive light keeper who's wife murdered him in a bedroom in the keeper's house. There is a blood stain on the floor that can still be seen, voices are heard and doors close by themselves.

I didn't know if any of the stories were true and didn't have time to do any real research but they sounded good so we went with them.

I told the boys that while we were camping we would go down to the lighthouse at night and see if we saw any ghosts moving around.

I know that sounds crazy coming from a parent but they're boys. They love to be scared and tell scary stories to each other all of the time. The idea of ghost hunting was right up their alley.

And I love a good ghost story too, which might be where they get it.

When we got to the campground the boys didn't notice the lighthouse standing just on the other side of the trees but after it got dark the Youngest saw the light and with eyes as big as saucers he said "Mom, the lighthouse is right there!"

They were really excited, told their cousins all about the ghosts, and invited them to go to the lighthouse with us. Which sounds exactly like something cousins would discuss on a camping trip.

Unless the cousins are 3, 4 and 5.

The story of ghosts did NOT go over well with the little people. The Little Redheaded Girl came running up to me crying and begging me not to make her go see the ghosts. Zag demanded I make my boys stop telling him about that stuff while Zig and Monkey's Boy huddled together repeating over and over that they weren't going anywhere.

It took quite a while to restore order and of course my sister and Monkey are like "Lady. Why are your kids scaring the little guys? You've got to make that stop immediately."

I heard my sister tell the Youngest that he was creeping her out too and that she wished he'd stop that.

I pulled my boys aside and explained that you can't tell little people scary stuff like that and that they wouldn't be coming to visit the lighthouse with us.

Because of the hullabaloo we decided to go to the lighthouse the next night instead.
I wasn't sure how the little people would react when my family went off in the dark to look for ghosts and I didn't want to stress them out any more than we'd already done.

The next day we spent ALL day at the Blue Angels show and then went back for the night show. After which there was dinner and so it got late fast. We were all really tired and it was after 10pm but this was our last night and we decided that we were going to see the lighthouse anyway.

Having walked about 100 miles during the air show that day we decided to drive to the lighthouse. Our original plan was to hike to it through the woods and now, looking back on the whole thing, I'm now really glad we didn't do that.

The boys were chattering about seeing a ghost for the 3 minute car ride but as soon as we pulled into the parking lot they got very quiet.

I parked and turned to them saying that they should look for a faint glow like from a cigar through the windows and to keep their eyes open because there was just no telling what they might see.

We very quietly got out of the van and started walking towards the house. The night was bright and from directly under the lighthouse you could see the beams pointing out in every direction against the sky. The white house glowed in the moonlight and the light from the channel marker cast a green glow across the front of the house.

It was beautiful and for a moment the Island King and I forgot all about ghost hunting and just stood absorbing everything.

This photo doesn't even begin to show how pretty it was. The Island King didn't have his tripod and having hit the Margarita pitcher pretty hard after dinner his hands weren't as steady as they needed to be.

After looking around for a minute I realized the boys were standing behind me, perfectly still, absolutely silent, staring at the lighthouse.

"Ok guys, lets go up to the fence and see if we can see in any of the windows. Maybe if the gate isn't locked we can go up on the porch."

And those boys freaked out, turned around and ran as fast as they could back to the van. Screaming like Banshee Indians the whole way.

I wasn't going to torture them so I went back to the van and once I convinced them to unlock the doors, got in.

The Island King had wandered off taking pictures so it took a few minutes for him to get back to the van and in those few minutes the boys turned on him like rabid dogs.

"Let's just go. It's not too far so he can walk. He could probably fight off the ghost but we're just little kids!"

So much for No Man Left Behind.

Luckily he showed up very soon after and we drove back to the campsite.

Sitting by our fire I asked them what scared them and they both said that talking about being there was one thing but actually being there was completely different.

We sat around the campfire and it wasn't long before they were telling scary stories again and talking big about how next time they wouldn't be so scared - but they didn't want next time to be for quite a while.

UPDATE:
The day after we got home my sister sent me an email telling me that the show Ghost Busters would be having an episode about the Pensacola Lighthouse on Wednesday.

We watched it and through the whole show the boys kept nodding their heads and saying "I knew it was haunted!"

The Oldest told his sister that they'd really checked the place out good the night we were there and he knew it was haunted then.

After I picked my jaw up off the floor I said "You did not check the place out - you ran screaming like a girl to the van and wouldn't come out"

The Youngest piped up and said "That's true but we were checking it out while we ran" LOL

I'm glad I didn't traumatize them and I know this is something they will always remember. But I think it will be a while before they want to go wandering around there in the dark again.

The Pensacola Lighthouse

For the past 150 years the lighthouse in Pensacola has served as a beacon for those coming in by sea and a compass for anyone near the beach.

It's a beautiful lighthouse and I knew I wanted to see it while we were camping at Pensacola NAS.





We went Sunday afternoon and unfortunately it was closed so we weren't able to go inside. I'm going to plan a trip back on a day when it is open so we can go inside and explore the house and light.

My kids really want to climb to the top.

But on this day, we wandered the grounds



Played a little


Enjoyed the view


And spent some time on the porch, catching up with an old friend.


It was a great visit and I'm definitely looking forward to coming back and exploring inside.

Don't Mess With Giddy

The morning we left for our Blue Angels camping trip I was in a great mood. The sun was shining, the weather was perfect for both a weekend of camping and an air show, we were going to be spending time with my sister and her family and I was just downright giddy as we drove across Okaloosa Island on our way out that morning.

The Island King would be coming later in the day so it was just the Island Boys and myself in the van.

And they were both cranky as hornets. Arguing, fighting, and just generally being mean little snots to each other.

Which really started bringing me down. It's hard to maintain giddy when that's going on behind your head.

I knew if I started getting on to them things would escalate and by the time we got to the other side of the Island giddy would be long gone.

So I rolled down my window and turned the CD player up to full volume.

And then because I just couldn't help myself I decided to torture them a little bit for messing with giddy and started singing. At the top of my lungs.

The plan was to completely drown out any sound coming from the backseat and let giddy continue to reign.

Which worked. It was too hard for them to fight over the music so they both slumped back in their seats and glared out the window.

Just as we were coming up to the bridge into Fort Walton, Aretha Franklin came on.

I don't know what it is about that woman but she sends my musical caterwauling to new heights every time I hear her. And this day was no exception.

So as we crossed the bridge I was demanding RESPECT at the top of my lungs and enjoying every minute of it.

Which is why when I stopped for the red light at the foot of the bridge I didn't notice the man in the truck next to me.

The song ended and I glanced to my left and there, not 5 feet from me, was a man in the passenger seat of a pickup with his window rolled down.

Staring at me.

Which was a little on the embarrassing side so I leaned out the window and told him I was torturing my kids.

He nodded his head and said "That ought to do it"

I was laughing so hard I could barely move ahead when the light changed.

About half an hour into the trip the kids had forgotten they were cranky and were signing along with me.

I'm going to be letting giddy reign a lot more often.

Blue Angels Night Show

After spending all day at the Blues show we walked back to the campground, rested our feet, changed into warm clothes and then walked right back to the flight line for the night show.

The sunset was beautiful and the colors over the air field were amazing.


Since we'd spent the day seeing everything on the tarmac we went right to the bleachers and found a seat for the show.

The kids were all exhausted but they'd heard about the Wall of Fire and nothing was going to keep them from seeing that.

Several planes took to the skies and it was interesting to watch them at dusk when all you could see were their lights.

The Jet Truck was up next and it was pretty impressive. Earlier in the day we saw it race a plane and it left that plane FAR behind in a matter of seconds.

For the night show they set off a big ball of fire and smoke

And then the truck came roaring out of the flames.

It drove up and down the flight line and then took off at jet speed for parts unknown.

Otto the helicopter came next and let me tell you this helicopter is fascinating to watch. It flies backwards and straight up and down and does all kinds of things that you wouldn't think a helicopter could do.

For the night show it shot fireworks out of the bottom and then lowered the American flag.



There was a long fireworks show




And finally it was time for the Wall of Fire.

It started with 2 small explosions in the center of the runway

Then a larger explosion in the center

Followed by 2 larger explosions in the center

Which triggered a lot of mini explosions up and down the line

And as they died out there was a countdown and then POOF

A wave of heat blasted us and there was fire. A big fire.




The kids were blown away and I think most of the adults were too. It really is something to see.

The kids were tired but kept themselves busy on the walk back talking about how cool the jet truck and the fire had been.

Their mom thought it was pretty cool too.

If you ever have a chance to see the Wall of Fire, go for it.
It's pretty spectacular.