The Beginning of the List

I was recently inspired by a web page created by a mom/dad for their little girl who happens to be fighting a brain tumor. On their web page they listed things that their daughter woud like to do and are ticking the items off one at a time.

It got me thinking about how little we do as a family of 6 because we are all running in different directions and have two children who are teenagers and two who are in grade school.

Inspired by the little girl, I started asking my family about ideas of things we can do together. We are still devising the list as everyone hasn't had input quite yet. One of my things on the list was miniature golf. I haven't played since Jordan and Jason were in grade school and thought it would be fun.

Roger had to work, so I took the kids by myself and we ended up at Polynesian Putter in St. Petersburg. This mini golf place was not very sophisticated but was located under many trees and provided plenty of shade. Jordan cannot stay in the sun, so this was an important factor in picking the location.

We had a lot of fun and decided to grab some lunch at a nearby restaurant called Ricky T's. We picked this place because it had dining outside on the patio. Jordan cannot enter crowded places, so eating outside was a must. The weather was perfect and we sat under the umbrellas enjoying our meal.

We had already decided we would go to the beach today too, so we stopped at Walmart prior to our journey for some needed supplies: beach umbrella, sunscreen and sand toys.












We stayed on the beach for about two hours, packed up and headed home.









It was a very nice day with the kids and I look forward to many more spent as a family all in the same place, participating in the same activity.

Florida wildlife at your front door

Only in Florida can you walk out the front door and be greeted by an array of wildlife. Besides the typcial lizard, snake, bird and bugs, we have other inhabitants in our midst....literally right outside the door. Here is a picture of some Sandhill Cranes that were on my front lawn. They weren't bothered at all by me taking their picture. They just kept coming closer and closer. I've actually seen these birds walking across Route 60 which is a major road near our home. Traffic was completely stopped as the birds casually made their way across 6 lanes of highway. We also had a 6ft aligator living in the pond directly behind our house. It has since been captured and removed. At least now I don't have to worry about Noah getting eaten by it. (not joking)

Fondue anyone?

Roger bought me a fondue pot for Christmas, so we decided to try it out tonight. We melted lots of chocolate, cut up bananas and strawberries and added marhmellows and pineapple chuncks. We had high hopes for this and looked forward to dipping our topping into the chocolate. We didn't eat as much of it as we thought, but I did manage to snap a few pictures of the evening.