The BIG ONE for Pat and Clay was the kids taking/sending on a 7 day cruise to the Caribbean in the Princess Caribbean. In all, Donna, Randy, Bob, Kathy, Mike, Lisa, and most of their kids plus Ann and Jim Awald (Randy's parents) went. It was outstanding. The best of food (eggs benedict, lobster, beef wellington, steaks, baked alaska, triple shrimp cocktail for the girls, and more. St Martin, and St Thomas had a lot of need stuff but the Princess Cye island was omitted because one of the 3 engines died and the 917 ft ship couldn't make the speed so we puttered around for the day. No hurricanes.

This group of stills are taken with my Sony Mavica.

Below is a video taken with the new Panasonic mini DV. You might have to un-block your pop-ups and click in the go button on the frame to see it.

Here's a short video you can start by clicking on the start button on the lower left.

More stills for the remainder of the cruise. There is a low light mode but I hadn't figured it out at that time.

(This group of stills are taken with my the still part of the mini DV which can store some 1700 stills on a plug-in chip.)

The kids got to the Coke Children Museum and from the photos had a good time.

You may have noticed the proud parents having the eldest graduating from Georgia Tech like his dad. We all had a party at Donna's to celebrate: "One down 15 to go!".

Within 2 weeks he went to Lockheed Martin / Ft Worth (TX) for his first official job. This is the 3rd generation plus an uncle at Lockheed.

It sounds like he is enjoying it all. He's within an hour of Ken & Betty in Rockwall. To keep up with him, he has a blog which can be seen at http://cwhouston.blogspot.com

Mark, Lisa and Clay moved into their new home. There are still things to do but they'll have fun doing them. This will give you an idea at to their progress.

By the way, you may have noticed that Lisa is "with child". More about this on November 7.

They sold their older house in October so all is well.

And in late August, we went to Tunica (south of Memphis) and visited all ten of their casinos.We spent 5 days (and some money) there but had a real good time. We had a guided driving tour through Memphis to see Beal Street and Elvis's place.

While we were there, the last of Katrina passed through with some low winds and a little rain; but no problems. We did meet so evacuees who were staying in the casino hotel.

On the way to Tunica we stopped by Columbus to see Tina's new home. She graduated from Georgia State / Columbus in Accounting, got a great job and had an open house showing off her and Ashley's home. It was a lot of fun,

Bill and Dawn gave the "end of warm" (Labor Day) pool party which was great fun. Clay even got wet.

There was more food than one could imagine but we did it justice.