unveiling and tall ships

So. Here is our finished screened-in porch! Completely built by Ryan. By himself. All alone and he'd never built anything like this before. He has no construction training either. He was an English major for flip's sake. The porch blends with the outside of the house beautifully. The roof matches our existing one and well, I'm just impressed. Not that I was expecting a shacky lean-to made up of old metal signs and a sheet of corrugated tin for the roof, but still…this room looks really nice hon. Well done.  I can barely figure out how to sew an article of clothing and he can build a whole outdoor room from scratch. The only thing in this space before was some very over grown azaleas. Impressive my love. 
I still have to find some kind of thick foam to make cushions for the giant outdoor couch in the back there. It is driving me crazy being unfinished. I found the seagrass rug at a thrift store a couple weeks ago and we are so pleased with it because we were looking all over for some outdoor rug that was cheap and not ugly. I wanted some kind of natural fiber rug but they are so pricey new. Anyway. This is our new room.
 
Now, here's one of my little projects. 
This wood shutter (and another 5 of them) were on a neighbor's house for years. The lady took them off and put them out for trash. In step Ryan and I to rescue them.  It's taken me awhile to come up with something to do with at least one of them-paint it white and hang it over the bed. Ta-dah.
The heat has hit us, so there really isn't much hope of crafting over here, just like last summer. No air conditioning and 90 degrees with 90 percent humidity just doesn't make me feel very creative or like playing in layers of fabric.  
                 
One evening last week we went to the bay to see a rendezvous of tall ships that were meeting further down the water for a festival.  
 
There were about 20-30 beautiful ships resting (a very nautical term I'm sure) in the sunset. It was a neat scene to see so many of them. I could NOT get any good shots though because of all the people in the way. Yeesh.
There was also a helicopter there carrying photographers out over the water. I tried to flash my camera and a smile to them for a free ride, but I got nothin'. Then I showed them my official badge written in crayon on a crumbled receipt and still got nothin'. Ah well.  I DID capture Keely's face as she watched said helicopter take off a few feet from us. 
 
It was a pretty evening and we said how nice it is to live near the water. We sometimes forget.