Thought I'd better catch everyone up on what's happening before I forget the events. After arriving in Pensacola and being greeted by the Semples, we settled in. They have a beautiful home in the northern part of Pensacola - it's a little more than 3400 square feet with a enormous lot. They have all kinds of plants and trees surrounding their home, highlighted by a huge live oak in the front yard. In the back are various fruit trees - lemon, kumquat, lemon, banana, and some I'm not sure of. It's kind of neat to be able to go out to the back yard and pick the fruit. It's been a little cool to use the swimming pool, but it certainly looks inviting.
The reason for the title of this post is that George Semple III completed his requirements for Eagle Scout while they were finishing up their tour. The end result is that he did his project and completed all the paperwork in Okinawa, but had to wait until getting settled here in Pensacola before receiving the official paperwork. As luck would have it, the ceremony was Monday evening and we were able to attend his local Scout Troop meeting. JT (his brother) had put together a slide show showing not only the project, but also some of their activities on Okinawa. It really took me back to be at a Boy Scout troop meeting. Actually, not much has changed either in the uniforms or the ceremonies, but the outside activities have since they now have computer programming, and other modern merit badges. The old tried and true hiking, bicycling, woodworking, etc. are still the mainstays.
On Sunday evening, the family had dinner at a local Tokyo hibachi restaurant to celebrate George's achievement. It was a fun evening and the chef really made a show out of preparing the meal - lots of fun and enough food so that we all left with carry-out boxes! Made for a good meal the following day. Monday was the regular troop meeting and George was presented with not only his Eagle Scout badge, but various other awards. It's quite an achievement, especially for a fourteen-year old. Vi and I were pleased that we could be here for the occasion. George and Char provided refreshments for the boys and their parents. Nothing like giving teenagers lots of cake and then sending them home to their parents wired with sugar :-).
George was home on leave from the US Navy, so it was doubly nice that he could also be there for the ceremony. He's currently stationed up at Norfolk as the Chief Medical Officer for the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier and the associated battle group which accompanies it on deployment. Since he was leaving today, Vi and I thought we would give them some time to themselves and spend the day roaming around Pensacola. Eventually, we ended up at the Naval Air Station and found the golf course. Since the weather has gradually warmed up (it was up to 65 today), we decided to play at their Executive golf course which is a combination of par three's and par four's. It wasn't very crowded since the majority of people seemed to want to play the Championship course. Different type golf course as it had a lot of sand and live oak trees; however, it was in good shape (better than our golf games).
George left earlier today, so now it's us, Char, George III, and JT. JT broke his leg over Christmas holiday while they were up in Virginia (as Char said, it gives a whole new meaning to Christmas Break). JT's in a cast and will be for six to eight weeks. He was trying to do a back flip on a trampoline. He gets around well on crutches, but a lot of activities are curtailed - no swimming, boy scout trips, etc. Needless to say, he tries to take full advantage of being an "invalid". Char doesn't let him get away with too much.
I may try to put together some of the pictures and use either OneDrive or Dropbox to send them out so you can get a flavor of what we're going.
From the news reports, it looks like we're missing the horrendous rain storms and mountain snows which are going through Reno. We picked a good time to leave - just hope it's all still there when we return.
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