Miami (part deux)

So I have taken a lot of pictures that I find interesting, but that when I stop to think about it, others might not find as fascinating. I know that, personally, when I look at other's blogs, I would much rather look at pictures of people that I know, see how they have changed, love the expressions on their faces, etc. So why do I take so many pictures like this?

I actually took this one because it is an ENORMOUS bird-of-paradise, which I am used to seeing at about 1/3 this size. If you look in the midst of the yellow portion, you can actually see what looks like a flower about to bloom, I can only imagine what that must look like!

One of those man-of-war jellies I mentioned in the last blog. If you can imagine one of those plastic bubble things that kids tend to love, that comes out of the tube, you blow into a straw to inflate it. That is EXACTLY what these look like, especially as they cook on the beach and they are a VIBRANT blue color.  We saw several in the water that actually had small fish swimming in an amongst their tentacles.

 

This is a "sandbox" outside one of the resort hotels. They all created their own versions, some had small boats or forts with slides in them!

 So anyway, I will try not to post too many of those types today.;-)

This is an amazing picture of someone who has been awake, in some form or another, for WAAAAAAY too long. I think I was thinking violent thoughts at this point, doesn't it look it?

 Our first day of the show was, how shall I say this....GORGEOUS!  This is the view out the window from our favorite breakfast place, David's Cafe. This is a Cuban place that, since we have been coming, has expanded from a window connected to a small mini mart from which they dispensed Cuban coffee, and small sandwiches, to a full blown restaurant, staffed by family members and people we REALLY enjoy seeing in the morning. Most of the time, since we are pretty regular in our schedule, we have the same person serving us and it was a treat to have someone know exactly what we wanted and how as soon as we sat down.

Anyway, we set up the booth the day before the show. People hate us because it literally takes us minutes to do this, while the people with all of the propellers, hardware, boat cushions, sail wenches, clothing, etc, have to take a whole day to assemble their displays. I feel for them. Especially at the end of the show...

You would not BELIEVE the number of dogs that were at the show this year. I had noticed last year that there were a few, one of the more memorable was stuffed in a front carrier on his owner's chest. Several sported less than official looking "Helper Dog" vests. This year, they obviously loosened the rules as there were several that traveled in style like the one above, and others who just plodded along looking for treats and collapsing in heaps when their owners would stop at yet ANOTHER booth. There was another one that traveled in a stroller-type contraption outfitted with a water dish and food dish and a canopy.  My favorite was a little 4 lb white mop named Tallulah. I met her in the restroom one day when I pointed out to her owner who was ahead of me in line with Tallulah in her arms, that there wasn't anywhere to set her in the stalls other than the floor, which at that time of day was less than pristine, and I offered to hold her while her owner used the toilet.  Okay, is this weird?  I think she had a little reticent at accepting my offer, but one look at the floor and I think she realized she had no choice, this wasn't a dog you set on the floor of a public bathroom! Needless to say, I fell in love with the poor pup who just laid in my arms like she had never walked a step in her life.  Afterwards I realized I probably could have walked out of there with her and kept her easily hidden in my bag the whole trip back to Washington. Damn.

This is NOT Tallulah. But I loved him anyway. He kinda personified how I felt at that particular moment.

This is where our shoes lived the entire 8 hours we spent each day at the show. Save for trips to the bathroom.

Jeff doing his job. He is so stinkin' smart. Several people talked with him, then went to visit our competition but came back to us, despite our slightly higher prices, because they liked HIM.....so proud!

This picture was taken by the booth next door. I was out getting lunch but he was totally busted anyway.

A good portion of our time was spent doing this. Thankfully the weather was so nice as to make it not such a chore.

Doing what I do best. Reading magazines and playing Solitaire.

I really enjoyed Miami this year, not that I don't usually, but this year was especially nice. Whether it was due to the two extra days we had at the beginning to just kinda vegetate on the beach and get acclimatized, or the fact that we had bus passes (no more un-needed purchases at the drug store just so that we had $1s for the bus), or perhaps it was the fact that the weather was just THAT nice and our booth was located on the outer fringe of the tent instead of in the muggy inner aisles, it was just fun this year.  We had moments of frustration when the bus wouldn't come for hours and we would be forced to hire a taxi (so much for being prepared with bus passes) or when our room wasn't ready for us to collapse in, or the shower didn't work, but the memories this year will be of long walks, sunshine, fun people and great food (fried plantains stuffed with guacamole and seared tuna, anyone?).

My parents, of course, were the saints in this story. Weathering power outages within hours of our leaving, basketball games and practices, ferrying kids to the, uh, ferry, and everywhere else in between. Without them I wouldn't be able to take this trip each year and every year, and upon my arrival in Miami, I realize just how much I really NEED this trip.  A shot of sun in the middle of February may be all that gets me to July in somewhat decent shape. The kids do their share as well, making sure that Nana and Poppy still want to come back each time. Of course, my parents had their own trip to look forward to at the end, down to Arizona for their own shot of sun. Believe me, I know how important it is and I hope they enjoy it just as much as I did.

Back from Miami

Okay, I just noticed that I misspelled "spring" in my last title. Lame.  "Sping" does have kind of cute ring to it, though. Hmm.

Well, as you most know, Jeff and I just returned from a week (+2 days) in Miami Beach, Florida. Actually, most of our free time was spent in South Beach, that being where we did all our sleeping and eating and a majority of our walking. So here is the low down.

We took the red-eye to Miami, which I absolutely hate. Hate is a strong word, but it is not strong enough to fully describe just how much I detest that flight. We even had decent seats (thanks to Jeff's MVP status on Alaska, which he is so very proud of :-) but no matter how much leg room, the fact that fully reclining your seat results in a 90 degree angle REALLY makes me cranky! That on top of the fact that I can't sleep sitting up due to the fact that my jaw won't stay closed and tend to drool all over myself tends to make me a not very nice traveling companion. Anywho....we did arrive and it was a beautiful day in Florida.

 We landed, found our luggage and a taxi and were in front of our "hotel" within an hour. I use the word "hotel", but I have come to think of our usual domain on South Beach as more of a hostel of sorts.  Having only stayed in two of the rooms, they are all very different though based on the same layout. Just an efficiency room with a small kitchenette right next to the bed, a bathroom and a closet. I believe that many of the rooms are actually owned privately, as in a condo. This is what we rent when we are there. Our room is privately owned, so we don't get hotel-type ammenities, such as towel service. Of course, upon our arrival, we didn't care, we just wanted to LAY DOWN!  Unfortunately, the new person at the desk was unfamiliar with our situation and we had to wait until the next shift started when there would be a lady who could help us. Sigh. Luckily it was only an hour or so spent on the lobby couch (uh, yeah, I guess it could be called that).  When Mel finally arrived, it was only to inform us that the room wasn't ready for us. UGH! She did allow us to go up and dump off our suitcases, at which time we changed into our bathing suits, grabbed the beach chairs and headed to the nearest Walgreens for towels and sunscreen and proceeded to spend the next few hours passed out on the beach.

I swear, we probably looked like homeless people as at that hour, we pretty much were the only ones on the beach and sleeping in our clothes at that (it was still a little coolish for bathing suits).  Quite honestly, I don't remember much more of that day. We eventually went back to the room and took a shower, only to find that the shower consisted of an anemic dribble that if you held the shower head up with one hand, and splashed the stream with the other hand onto your body, you might get wet.  Not happy.  Oh yeah, that is what we did the rest of that day, we searched up and down South Beach for a pair of pliers. Finally had to resort to asking the guy at the front desk for a pair and then carefully avoid telling him exactly what we wanted it for.

My husband is amazing.  He basically removed what we believe must have been an attempt at a water saving device and tightened the shower head and we were able to enjoy a REAL shower the rest of the week. You would have thought we were staying at the Ritz!

The next day was a dream! We woke to sunny skies and a great breakfast at our favorite breakfast place, David's Cafe.

And then we hit the boardwalk! Jeff found this promenade the last time he was here on his own and it was a wonderful start to the day. Basically, it starts out as a sidewalk along the beach, then winds its way between the beach front hotels and the shore. Eventually it turns into an honest to goodness boardwalk constructed of wood and elevated off of the beach.  The hotels are actually quite pretty at that end and the foot, bicycle traffic makes for excellent people watching!



I was actually quite facinated by the number of women completely clothed in black with either terry cloth turbans covering their heads, or some other head covering. Most wore long skirts with black tights and fancy tennis shoes as they walked, pushed strollers, or just sat and visited with others of thier kind.  Jeff said they were Jewish women and in fact I did see some of them reading from their prayer books in Hebrew. I don't know whether they lived nearby or were all on vacation, or just actually kept residences in the hotels there on the beach. The few that I heard speaking sounded straight from New York, however. This picture of the three people walking, really touched me. A man and his wife (on the left) and his daughter (on the right).

We followed them for quite a ways before we passed them. It was such a nice view.

MORE basketball (and sping)

This week represented the official end of Noah's 4th basketball season (if the picture count on the fridge is correct) and the beginning of Ben's second and Lydia's very first.  Actually, this is a big deal for Lydia as it is her first experience at any sort of organized sport, team or otherwise. I have to say, I think we may be on to something here for her.

Ben is somewhat of a pro, having played one other time in his life, which to be fair, is a whole lot more than anyone else on his team has played apparently.  As such, he has nominated himself to be assistant coach. Great.

Lydia, with her long limbs and endless energy, may just have found her niche. As soon as she can keep her hands on the ball.  She is still working through the whole "catch the ball" not "smack the ball" thing, but I have faith that she will get it.  If nothing else, she will be a dominating defensive player, jumping around and waving her arms at anything that moves.

Their first game happens to be next week, while Jeff and I are gone so please keep Poppy in your prayers, as he will most likely be the one navigating Port Orchard in the dark trying to find the hidden entryway into the school.  I don't know what it is around here, but schools in Port Orchard do NOT illuminate the entry to their parking lots. That, paired with the fact that the majority of them are located on small, two lane roads which lack street lights of any sort, makes it a real pain in the bum to try and find them when you are late to practice!

All legs.

Okay, so he LOOKs like an assistant coach...

As a sign off, this is what is coming up in my yard now...despite the 30 degree temps in the mornings around here. I pray they live to spring time!

Where I would love to be right now...

The beginning of the beginning....

Well, it was an interesting weekend. I'll tell you this, I didn't think of Ozzy Osborne ONCE all Saturday.  Part of that is because I believe I had complete faith that God was looking after Noah and I didn't need to worry about it. Part of it was because my brain was truly completely taken up with other goings on.

Earlier last week Jeff and I signed the papers to put the Canal house on the market.  Once more, God blessed us by sending us Pat McGuire as our realtor.  Not only is she a member of our church family, but she has intimate experience with our home away from home, as she and her family actually stayed there last summer. They were the winners of the Relay for Cancer raffle that we put did last year.  How perfect!  She really put our minds at ease, at the same time trying to keep us realistic.  Telling the kids, namely Lydia and Noah was infinitely harder and the reaction was worse than I had expected, don't know about Jeff, but I wasn't ready for the some of the belligerence and hyperventilation.  To be fair, this is the only home that N and L have had, consistently, that they can remember. My heart broke for them but even worse for Jeff.  He has handled it so well so far, I am so proud of him. As a result, I think I have broken down twice as much.

Actually, I did pretty well....until Saturday night.  We had spent all day trying to finish up little projects around the canal house (removing the last vestiges of Rosie's remodeling attempts etc), throwing away, giving away, organizing for the final move, and generally trying to empty out a LOT of stuff!  I think it finally hit us that we not only owned two houses, we owned to HOUSEHOLDS, and the thought of trying to combine them into one is really starting to stress me out!  Granted, there isn't a lot of the furniture that we want to keep, a dining table, a chair, a bed and a dresser, but even those have no place in our "town" home. THERE IS NO ROOM!!  I wish I had taken pictures of the car loaded up for the first trip to the thrift store. It was packed, and yet we could still barely walk across the floor of the front room.  I was able to clean out the dresser, the bookshelf and the closet in the guest room, half of the closet and bathroom storage in the master bedroom, the junk cabinet in the kitchen and most of the upstairs.  The hardest part was deciding how much to do. Did we want to still be able to use the place or did we want to get as much out and cleaned up so that the final one will not be so painful? It was hard. Hard, hard, hard.  In the end, I left a few towels and our toothbrushes, but forgot myself and got rid of all the extra pillows that the kids used. Threw out all of the flip flops and water shoes (none of which fit any of our kids anymore) and packed up everything eatable, but left all the past-date and condiments in the fridge (I can't remember why, might have been out of room in the garbage can by that time).  I think we left all of the movies but I know that we got rid of the VHS player and the TV. Sigh.

Anyway, piles were pretty much consolidated by the time my brain completely quit and I found myself carrying around a handful of dryer lint that I had dug out of somewhere and wearing two different pairs of shoes (I guess at some point I was trying to see if I still wanted either pair, I didn't). It wasn't hard to determine where we were going to eat, you couldn't get to the refrigerator, let alone find the top of the table...so off to Robinhood we went.

 Two beers and half a hamburger each and we were feeling much better, although I will admit that I was in no big hurry to go back but I couldn't convince Jeff to stay for one more drink when, as he pointed out, we had a liquor cabinet back at the house that we were going to have to empty out one way or another.

Here is where the night got interesting. As we poured our first shot of whatever, we found ourselves standing in the exact spots in the kitchen and having the exact type of conversation that we were having 5 years ago, almost to the month, the first time we actually admitted to still being in love. Well. That set me off. Tears and memories were kept flowing by another shot or two and they ended up all good as we went through Jeff's catalogue of pictures from the canal on his computer. Ugh, he has ALL the good pictures, I really need to steal all of them, but here are the few that I managed to get him to send my way...

Taken this year. This (checking the crab pots) was a SERIOUS undertaking. Next year plans include a six-pack of root beer.

I love this picture. LOVE IT! That chess set has been a big hit at the canal the past few years.

Success! Definitely root beer worthy.

I think we easily spent 3 hours just looking at pictures. And I am so glad that we have them all, along with the memories.  I have to keep reminding myself that the memories are ours to keep, they have nothing at all to do with the state of ownership of the building or our future time spent there.  We get to take the best parts with us and they don't take up space in our home (leave that to the dishes, linens and clothing) or cause me stress or cost money to upkeep.  No moles destroy them, electrical outages will never affect them, there are no monthly dues or neighbor issues to mar them (well, except maybe the memory of such issues, but they can be selectively forgotten over time).  I am really excited for what is to come. I truly am.  I know that our decision affects more than just the kids and Jeff and I, our neighbors and extended are family are sad and somewhat shocked by our decision as well, but change is good. Without it we won't grow. I won't go so far as to speculate what might be coming down the pass, but I know that it will require us to try new things, see new places, and meet new people. All of which, rather than taking the place of that which we are leaving behind, will be ADDED to them! How awesome is that! And no vacuum storage bags or Rubbermaid tubs are necessary!! LOVE IT!

To what is to come.  May it be worthy of the memories of all that which came before!