Summer storms

The strangest part of living in Florida is the nearly daily afternoon thunderstorms. You have to hop out of bed and really get your day going if you plan to do anything outside. This can be accounted for, but MacKenzie's terror at the storms is heartbreaking. I picked her up from Aunt Kathy's and got a full report on how much she hated the storms. Poor thing! 

Reunited! 

Aunt Kathy's contribution: a thunder shirt
Adorable, but not quite effective 

"He smells good...I'll forget about the storm for a minute"

We tried letting her take her frustrations with
the weather out on her alligator 

For some reason messing with the rugs is
like therapy for MacK

We've tried everything! We have offered food and it works for about a minute. We have offered to play and she is uninterested. The only thing that seems to settle her is to redecorate. She moves the rugs all around the condo into bunches and then lays on them as she sees fit. We are pretty close to putting her on some puppy CBD to try to chill her out.

A quick trip to the beach for a few hours before
storms rolled in

Bice is never a bad idea.

In good news, we have been able to sneak in some beach trips. We've also been hitting the pool. We even got to sit outside at Bice on Saturday evening because the storms had cooled things down. 

I've recently decided to try to take up tennis. Jackson, king of all country club sports, has graciously been giving me lessons. I'm not good yet. I did get a tennis skirt so I'd look the part (also, the condo community here is wild about dress code so I really didn't have a choice). I also got my own racket on sale at Dick's. I must say that Jackson is the most patient teacher. He's everything I could never be as an instructor. I want people to catch on quickly. He doesn't expect perfection. How does he do it? I'll never know. I get frustrated with myself, but mostly I just try to have fun, listen to his instruction and get better with each session. There is a ball machine here that shoots ball after ball at me and it takes about 15 minutes to empty it. We just hit and hit and hit until the sun goes down or burns so hot that we have to cool off in the pool. My goal is to be playing mixed double by next Independence Day.

The original ballplayer.
Do. Not. Forget. It.

I got a real kick of MacKenzie when we walked in with our rackets today because she got her own tennis ball out as if to remind me that she's been a baller for years. :)