Sammy Gets Engaged

This weekend while Tom, Candy, and I were catching fish in the Gulf of Mexico, Ben was catching the Sammy fish in Tennessee. Ben asked for my permission a couple of weeks ago when we were together in Gattlinburg, TN.

This weekend, Sam and Ben went to pick pumpkins. Ben asked a passerby to take a photo of them. To everyone’s surprise while the stranger was taking pictures, Ben proposed. They plan to wait a couple of years to get married until they both finish school.

The innocent picture pretext…
It begins…
It is beginning to dawn on her…
The lightbulb comes on…
The ring comes out of hiding…
Apparently, she said “yes.”
The ring.

Fishing in the Gulf of Mexico

Tom is not allowed to travel more than 150 miles from Ft. Rucker, AL, so we met him at Panama City Beach, FL, this weekend for some deep sea fishing. The day started very early, when he met Captain Alicia. We came back with a pretty good haul. There was a processing facility at the marina that cleaned our fish. Across the street was a restaurant that offered “hook and cook,” where they cook fresh fish that you bring them. You couldn’t get any fresher than mackerel that we just pulled from the ocean.

Candy made the second catch of the day.
Tom made the first catch of the day.
Pulling in a fish.
I caught the biggest fish of the day.
This is what we caught after three hours on the boat. The mackerel were good eating, but the bonita are apparently not good, so the charter folks retained them to use as bait.
Panama City Beach at sunset.
Candy and Tom on the beach.
Candy and Tom being eaten by a shark.

It was a nice weekend, but a little too short. Despite rain in the morning that put a little damper on the fishing, we had a successful trip.