April 24 Time with Kaity

Saturday Afternoon:  I can hardly believe it, but I did not take a single picture the entire time Kaity was here Saturday afternoon. I was glad to spend four and a half hours with her. We played quite a few games of "Counting Queens." We played some more with Sweetie the shark, as well as our other puppets, we ate a nice meal together, we chased Matey around the house (!) and we also watched "The Secret Life of Pets", which we haven't seen in more than a year. Kaity got all of our "Pet" stuffed animals out of the bin and acted out parts of the story using them--it was a lot of fun. Kaity's birthday is at the end of June, and we have something on order for her birthday but needed one more item to complete her budget. Kaity decided we should order her a SNOWBALL bunny stuffed animal from the movie, so we went to Amazon and ordered one for her. She has been counting the days until her birthday since ... Christmas. As of today, we are down to 66 more days!

April 24 Golden Anniversary Day!

Saturday:  Fifty years ago this very day, these two joined hearts in marriage. It was snowing that day--just flurries, but ... really?!?! We bridesmaids were dressed in beautiful peach and mint green dresses, all decked out for spring and then .... SNOW!?! They were married at Gratiot Avenue Baptist Church and the reception was held there too, with a full dinner served to all invited. 

The wedding was wonderful and I congratulate them on 50 years--not many people reach that mark and do it as well! Praise be to the God they both love and serve. Love you both so much.

April 22 Kaity meets "Sweetie" ...

Thursday:  I drove home from Detroit this morning and into the early afternoon. I unloaded the car, unpacked suitcase, backpack and laundry basket--brought Matey back into his own house first--inspected my new/used refrigerator (thank you, Jesse and Larry!) ... all in time to pick Kaity up from Jesse at 3:50! Here are some pictures of our time together: 

I introduced (first thing) Kaity to my new hand puppet, "Sweetie" the shark. !! Sharks get a bum rap, don't you think? Ha! They are ONE of the many reasons I have never ever ever been swimming in the ocean! BUT ... I've decided MY baby shark is a sweetie-pie! Kaity thought this was hilarious.

Kaity loves puppets ... here is Sweetie eating his own face (which is what he does when he is tempted to bite anyone else!).

Then we drove out to GoldFish Swim School for Kaity to have another PRO1 lesson! She had a new teacher tonight--he kept High-Fiving his students but purposely missing their hands ... 

Kaity does a very impressive back stroke ...

Next week, she is going to be in an ACTUAL PRO 1 class -- we've been waiting for an opening for weeks now on Thursday evenings--so next week, our lesson is at 5:30 with an official PRO 1 class.

Below is my terrible attempt to photograph Kaity jumping off the side to do a huge splash ... rats! I completely flubbed the shot.

So proud of all your hard work and your impressive LISTENING skills with each instructor, Kaity! You go, girl!

April 22 Going Home

Wednesday:  My flight took off on time at 7:30 AM from Tampa to Nashville where I changed planes and flew to Detroit. My flights were uneventful--I had window seats both times (I love window seats)--no turbulence, no bothersome passengers,  no lost baggage ... no complaints! Ruthanne and Terry were there to meet me in Detroit where I spent the night. I had a nice visit with them and told them all about my trip. They had gone to Cincinnati to visit Mark and Shari, so I got to hear all about their trip as well.

While Ruthanne and Terry were away, Matey "vacationed" over at Shelley's house. There are already THREE birds at Shelley's and Matey made friends with Max and Gus (the two budgies). Evidently, Alex (the cockatiel) stayed to himself--he doesn't make a habit of associating with budgies! Look how cute the three budgies all look together! I was a little bit worried that Matey would be lonely coming back to a birdless house, but he is doing just fine--he was very well taken care of while I was gone, and it is nice to know that I actually have TWO options now if I ever leave him again.

April 20 Evening at Pinellas County Park

Tuesday Evening:  Sigh. Our last few hours to hang out together ... Carol suggested that we go to Pinellas County Park which is on the very north end of Tampa Bay. It didn't take long to drive there, and it is a beautiful spot.

David's family came here for family pictures not too long ago, and I can see why! Doesn't Florida have the most unusual looking trees? 

I think these are super cute pictures of David and Carol ...

 

These pictures are super nice of them too ... 

And look at this gnarly tree!

Sigh. My brief time in Florida has come to an end. I had as wonderful time as ever I could have imagined. At one point while I was here, I was asked (I think by Alison) how I was doing and I replied: "I'm as happy as is possibly possible!" And that was the truth. My only very tiny disappointment was the no alligator thing ... but maybe next year will be the year for me to take a picture of a real live alligator out in the wild ...

April 20 Morning on Daytona Beach

Tuesday:  We had a weather forecast for today that warned of a 90% chance of rain--in fact, I quite expected to wake up to rain this morning ... but when we woke up and opened the curtains of the hotel room, the sky was still a faint pink from the sunrise and there was not a drop of rain falling! I announced that I was throwing on some clothes and going for a walk on the beach! David had taken a late night walk (after dark) last night (solo), but he was still "up" for walking this morning.

I know what you are thinking ... MORE pictures of ... WATER rolling in? Yes. Lots more! I haven't posted hardly any of what I took Tuesday morning, so you are just going to have to bear with this ...

... after all, this is the famous Daytona Beach! I have no idea when the next time will be that I will stand here and look at all of this!

When I was in my early teens, my family would come down to Daytona to visit my great-grandparents who lived in a little city not far from here. I remember driving along this beach (because you CAN drive on it) and looking at all the beautiful hotels ...

Below is a picture of the hotel where David and I stayed the night ... right on the ocean ... so super nice!

I'm not sure how far we walked Tuesday morning. We watched these little birds for awhile. One poor birdy only had one leg, but he did pretty good keeping up with his friends as they ran along the edge of the ocean.

This was the view from our room on the fourth floor. When we finished our walk, we cleaned up and went down for our free breakfast in the lobby. We were awarded this free breakfast because it had taken so long the night before to get checked in, due to a complication with credit cards, etc. The woman at the desk was very apologetic and gave us tokens for full breakfasts! We had NO idea that it would take an hour to be served that breakfast, however. But that's okay. My french toast was delicious--even though the sweet tea that I requested was definitely NOT sweet tea (no matter what our waiter said).

It DID begin to rain a little bit before we had gone inside from our walk (prior to breakfast), but I still changed into my swim suit and jumped into the deep end of the pool (10.5) feet and spent about 15 minutes swimming--mainly so that I could brag to Kaity that I floated and swam in the deep end!

After breakfast, we headed back to the Tampa area and were "home" by early afternoon. It was a little bitter-sweet to me ... last days on vacation are always like that, aren't they? But ... David and Carol always milk everything to the max, so we weren't finished quite yet!