Dead Car Battery, Lots of Rain & Thanksgiving

Since we went to the Navy Seal Muster earlier this month, we've had a quiet month.

One morning I got in the car to go out shopping and the battery was dead! Mike tried charging the battery with our charger, but the battery wouldn't hold the charge for very long. After charging the battery again, Mike went over to WalMart to buy a new battery. According to our paperwork on the old battery, it was out of warranty. WalMart honored the warranty and we got a good price on a new battery.

On the 21st we had a LOT of rain - 4½"! A good day to stay inside - the grass and plants liked all of the rain.

Fletcher drove up from Ft. Lauderdale the day before Thanksgiving to spend a couple of days with us. He brought Vala (his rat terrier) and Doug's 2 dogs since Doug was spending Thanksgiving with his family.

Thanksgiving Day we drove over to my brother's house in Kissimmee for dinner. My nephew David and my niece Kathy, her husband Doug and their 3 sons Joshua, Benjamin and Matthew were there, so that made 11 of us for dinner.

We had a great time visiting and eating the turkey dinner with all of the trimmings. Elaine had made her fruitcake (this fruitcake is moist and tastes great) and I had brought an apple cobbler for dessert. I had mentioned that we had a good time visiting with everyone - it was such a good time that we

2013 Navy Seal Muster at the Navy Seal Museum

We left the house this morning a little after 9:00 and drove 25 miles south to attend the 28th Annual Navy Seal Muster and Music Festival at the National Navy UDT-Seal Museum on North Hutchinson Island at Fort Pierce. We parked a few blocks away and were seated in the bleachers by 10:00.

The ceremonies started at 11:00 with the SEAL Parachute Team "dropping in"

From 28th Annual Navy Seal Muster

followed by the American Rogues Celtic Band and the Honor Guard.

From 28th Annual Navy Seal Muster

The guest speakers were Medal of Honor recipients lieutenants Tom Norris and Michael Thornton, Congressman Patrick Murphy, H. Ross Perot and the Keynote Speaker was Adm. William H. McRaven, Commander USSOCOM (US Special Operations Command).

After the speeches the St. Lucie County Sheriff's K-9 unit put on an impressive demonstration.

That was followed by a SEAL sniper demonstration

Home & Garden Show and Halloween

On Sunday October 20th we drove down to the Port St. Lucie Civic Center to go to the Treasure Coast Home and Garden Show. We stopped at several vendor booths to look at their products and pick up copies of their brochures. We saw a garage door screen that retracts up instead of sliding to one side (keep that in mind for later), cleaning products, windows, hurricane shutters and home insulation products. After the home show, we stopped at the Perkins restaurant near the civic center for lunch.

We called American Home Base to cancel our mail service with them before it was time to pay for another year. All of our mail went to them and they would send us our mail when we called and gave them an address where we were staying. We had been paying $162 a year (cheaper than paying the fee monthly) for their service. Because our mail has been going to a mail service, we can't put in a change of address form with the Post Office. We were told that they would forward our mail once a month for 6 months and the fee would be $20 to cover the cost of postage.

This last Wednesday was Fletcher's 44th birthday! It's hard to believe that