Twas the night before school...

Twas the night before school
When all through the town
The parents were cheering.
It was a riotous sound.
By eight, the kids were washed
And tucked into bed
When memories of homework
Filled them with dread.
New pencils, new folders,
New notebooks, too.
New teachers, new friends-
Their anxiety grew.
The parents just giggled
When they learned of this fright
And shouted, "Be quiet!"
"Go to Bed!!! IT'S A SCHOOL NIGHT!"



Tomorrow I will be sending my little cherubs back to school. And this mom thinks it's time.

Florida part 2

Well only a week later, and I'm finally getting to part 2. Ugh. Every week I think things are going to get less hectic, but every week I'm wrong!

When we were in Hawaii, I got a smoothie every chance I could. I think that's where I "discovered" them. Since then, I've had many smoothies. I believe I definitely prefer the banana/pineapple versions. Those are my favorite flavors! The beachside grill offered smoothies, so of course, I sampled several flavors! This one is banana/blueberry/orange, I think. It was good, but my favorite was the mango pineapple. Yum....

I'm learning to make a pretty decent low calorie smoothie here at home too! I had a great blender for about 2 weeks until it broke, so now I'm back to my Magic Bullet until I can get a new one. The Magic Bullet just doesn't crush ice like a good blender, but it'll do in a pinch. I've got Bradley onto smoothies now too. His favorite is chocolate banana.

These pictures are definitely not great of me. I almost didn't post them out of embarrassment, but I guess it's as good as it gets.

I so enjoy reading. I just don't get to do it enough. I love a good auto/biography. I bought Valerie Bertinelli's book and Melissa Gilbert's book for the trip and here I am reading Valerie Bertinelli's. I was interested in her weight loss as her weight journey seems to resemble mine (except she seemed to obsess about it since she was young- I've only begun to obsess about mine over the last few years!). Reading on my beach chair was one of my favorite parts of the day.

I captured this picture at about 6:30 in the morning. Quite strange for me to be up at that time, especially on a relaxing vacation. But I really wanted a sunrise/sunset picture. And a sunrise over the ocean was the only option!! I didn't set my alarm, but I think I mentally prepared myself to try to wake up early. The shades were so dark in the room there was no way of any light waking me up. I think God woke me up on this morning and I enjoyed a beautiful 1/2 hour out on our balcony capturing some shots with my camera. Then at 7 AM I went back to bed for a few hours!

I just love the palm trees in this one.

Once again, not thrilled with how I look in the photo, but we wanted to capture a balcony shot with the two of us just like we had in Hawaii.

It was a great trip- I still think about it every day.

Florida part 1

Once again, it's almost midnight as I begin writing this. Maybe one of these days, I'll update during daylight hours!

Just a few pics to share tonight. This is our hotel "Sun Tower on the Beach." It's an older hotel, but very clean. Our room was nice sized, and you can't beat the beach location! We were on the 3rd floor (4th row down from the top) second room from the left- there's a salmon colored towel hanging on the balcony.


This was taken from our balcony.

Ahh... relaxation!

Of course, Gary had to test it out as well.

The hotel pool- we enjoyed this on our last day. Since we had to check out of our room by noon, but didn't head to the airport until 2:30 or so, we didn't want to be all sandy. So I just laid on the floaty in the pool catching my last Florida rays until I had to say goodbye : (

More pics coming later.

Back home...

but wishin' I wasn't. I had a FABULOUS time in Florida. Now it's back to the rat race. If it weren't 12:15 AM with a busy day ahead tomorrow, I'd tell you all about it. But I'll just leave this post with my favorite picture from the trip for tonight (or this morning I guess!) and when things slow down, I'll post more.
Thanks for those of you who've been hanging in there with me. I've been pretty terrible about posting lately. Sometimes I wonder who really reads this- post a comment if you do so I know who's out there! If you're not sure what to use, when it asks for your ID, you can just post as "Anonymous" and then sign your name.