More Snow Days

Jack and the neighbor boys worked  hard at creating a picnic table and chairs so that the moms could enjoy a snack together.  We were a little hesitant to sit on the ice chairs that the boys sat on, so they covered ours with the buckets.  What sweet boys!

Brittany's Wedding

On Saturday night we headed out to the wedding.  It was at an amazingly beautiful Country Club. Look how green that grass is... and remember, February!

They timed the wedding just perfectly at sunset and it was on the patio overlooking a lake. The ceremony was beautifully done.  I couldn't help but think that the seat I was in should really have been filled by my dad and I knew that he would have loved to be there. I got a little teary in his honor for his old friend Doug and his daughter.

After the ceremony there was mingling, hor d'oeuvres and a pianist, followed by a lovely dinner, beautiful toasts and dancing to a live band.  We met lots of friendly people with fun stories to tell.  It was a fantastic evening, but we still snuck out a little early to get back and be with family again.  Mom and I were offered our first cigars on the way out! We had already turned down champagne and all different kinds of wines, mom isn't even doing gluten or sugar for heaven's sake - so we decided to pass on the cigars too.  :)

Hiking in Kissimmee

It didn't take two seconds of daylight to remind me how different Florida is from Oklahoma!  Even though I've been there several times before I had forgotten how green and beautiful everything is - even in February.  I knew that they kept everything so beautiful at the parks and things, but was surprised to see roses and all kinds of flowers blooming wherever we went.

This is the only alligator I saw - a tiny one in a museum aquarium.  

Laura taught us about air plants that don't need soil to grow. You can set them anywhere and they'll thrive if they have moisture and sunlight. The guy in one of the shops said that they would even do ok in Oklahoma, so I brought a few home with me.  On our hike we spotted lots of them growing on the trees.

I saw all kinds of things that I'm not used to seeing, including these strange orange and purple mushrooms.

The museum about the hisory of Kissimmee had a tiny tunnel with aquariums in it for the kids to see.  We teased Steven about being the smallest and he crawled through to investigate it for us.  Good sport!

Game Night with more family

After Tarpin Springs we went back to the house for a barbecue and some games with Nancy's kids and grandkids.  We missed seeing Nichole, but she had to get some rest for her night shift job (yuck!)

Croix has gotten so big since I've seen him last and I loved seeing so much of Nichole in him.

It was a treat to meet Lyla - it took her most of the night to warm up to me, but it was really fun to watch her participate happily in the games.

Levi was a good sport and up for trying anything.  What sweet kids they are.

Michael came over and joined us later in the evening. Here he's trying to throw a red ball from one hand to another with his arms stretched out. He kept hitting the ceiling... so funny.

These are uncle Craig and Croix trying to stare straight forward for thirty seconds without blinking.  Craig was blinking the whole time, but didn't know it.  We had a lot of good laughs!

Florida with Mom

Mom was invited to a wedding in Florida and we had been talking about planning a little trip to visit family there anyway, so we decided to go for a long weekend.

We stayed with Craig and Laura and had a wonderful time.  The first day aunt Nancy drove us down to Tarpin Springs, famous for it's Sponge Docks.  I didn't know there was so much to learn about sponges!

On the way there we stopped by an amazing Farmer's Market where you could drive by and see booth after booth after booth of any kind of produce you can imagine.  There were great bargains and we came away with lots of strawberries, grapefruit, corn, etc.  That reminds me I never got to try the Mexican vegetable that Kate was so excited to find there.

 

Once we got there we had a delicious Greek lunch and then went out on one of the sponging boats. It was warm enough to be comfortable outside, but a bit chilly on the water, so they had blankets for everyone to wrap up in. 

Here you can see some of the sponges hung out to dry.

They have old fashioned diving suits and our diver posed with us for pictures.

Then he hopped in the water in that crazy contraption and wandered around the bottom until he found a sponge.

There were a lot of vendors selling sponges and everyone went home with something.  These are the finger sponges, which aren't really useful for anything except decoration.

I got some fun close ups.