Mom and Dad came down to visit this past weekend. We did all kinds of things while they were here. We went to church Sunday morning then we went to Mudcat Charlie's on Hwy 17 for lunch with friends. It was a nice afternoon.
That evening we took them to St. Simons Island to see the lighthouse, pier and Atlantic Ocean. It was perfect weather for that. The wind was nice enough to keep the bugs away and to keep things from getting too hot. There was a lot of great scenery.
Monday we went to Taylor Farms and picked blueberries.
The bushes were huge! 
They hadn't quite ripened enough for bulk picking yet so we got the first picking on the bushes. It was hot but passing clouds and the shade from the bushes kept us pretty cool.
It was a wonderful day.
Joey showed Dad the pecan trees while we were there.
The nuts are already growing just as little tiny buds on the trees. 
Looks like there will be a good pecan harvest this fall!
I was also able to get some cool photos of some flowers during our travels. I like getting close-ups of them.
On Tuesday we spent most of the day at Jekyll Island. It is an island with beautiful, nearly pristine beaches. Here are some photos of the beach. In the third photo, the land you can see in the background is one side of Cumberland Island, the next island down the coast.
and spend time arting with my friends. I took several photos of the beach, 
flowers 
and especially the pelicans! The pelicans were great!
They just kept flying and diving and feeding and doing it all over again and again just a few yards from the shore. 
They were out there the whole weekend. Usually I get to see a few fly overhead at the pool or some flying by out over the ocean but I've never seen such activity for so long on one of my beach trips. I loved watching them. And in some of the pictures they looked like they were watching me, too! I waded out in the surf for a distance and used my telephoto lens to get some pictures of them. Several of these turned out really well, I think.
We were invited by Janice and Earl Odom to go on their vacation with them. I'm really glad that we went. It was a WONDERFUL vacation! 
We had three and a half days at the beach. We stayed at a condo located on the Gulf of Mexico. The sand was so white and the water was so blue, unlike the Atlantic where the sand is browner/grayer and the water looks more green and you can't see through it at all. 
Since it was early in the season there weren't many people there which gave us most of the beach to ourselves. 
The water was still just a little chilly--probably in the low 70's instead of the mid-80's like we are used to in the mid-summer. I got plenty of chances to use the new camera. 
Here are some of the pictures that I took this weekend. 
The sunsets on the west coast of Florida are spectacular. 
