What a beautiful sight

We are in awe lately because we have had a beautiful hawk move into the neighborhood. We notice him several weeks ago and wake up each morning to see him in our backyard up on a telephone pole. He spreads his feathers out and is getting ready to find his morning breakfast. It is wonderful to hear his calls, so unique, there is no mistaken that it is him.

This morning, while doing school, Devin noticed something out on my truck. I ran to the window to see what it was and there was that beautiful hawk sitting in all his glory right on the hood of my truck. So close, it was so cool. Usually he is way up high on the pole and now he was eye level from the window. I snapped a few shots before he flew away.

Traveling down memory lane...

I was born in W.P.B. and lived there till I was 10 years old when we moved down to Coconut Creek, Ft. Lauderdale. I loved my childhood neighborhood; I have so many awesome memories. We lived on a tiny street with about 10 houses but loads of kids. We played constantly in the streets; kickball, baseball, tag, superheros, hot wheels cars, etc. This is something my kids don't get because there are no kids in our neighborhood at the present time, and I wish they had it my way. We have the perfect cul-de-sac to do all those games.

Well anyways, on Monday, Devin had a check up at his Neurologist for the E-coli episode. We decided to make a day of it. My mom, sister and me with the kids drove down for lunch and the doctors visit. While there we took a trip down memory lane. We drove by my Grandfathers house in Palm Beach, and drove by the bike trail paths that my parents took us on, "Oh so many times". We went to the end of the road to see the inter coastal of Palm Beach and told the kids about the witches cave and drove by honking our horn to hear her scream. (just a little thing our parents would do to us, of course it is not true...)

Finally we went over into West Palm Beach to see the house that I grew up in. We lived in Belvedere Homes, which is not far from the Dog Track. Our road was called Pine Rd. and I was so excited to be able to visit the area. Well, it is not the same. It is not a great area to be in, very run down.

It is so funny how when you are little you think the things around you are so big. That is what I thought about our house on Pine Rd. but boy was it tiny. Everything was tiny, even the road that we use to play ball in and walk around the block thousands of times.

Even though it is so different now and not the same as it was when I was little, I still have all my precious memories of a glamorous childhood. I would not change one bit of it. Here are some photos from our day.


Mom, Ashley, and Monica at Duffy's in West Palm Beach


Devin, Me, and Dalton at lunch


Dalton, Ashley, and Devin by one of the beautiful Banyan trees in Palm Beach by the water near the bike trails. This is just a couple of blocks from where my grandparents lived.


This was the witches cave, in the wall on the right, about halfway through there is a drainage pipe that is behind bars and that is where my parents would tease us that a witch lived in there and we believed them. Well, my kids did not fall for it.


My house that I grew up in. Now keep in mind, it was not yellow and there were no trees in the front yard and no fence around the front yard. It was a nice clean beautiful house and yard. Our driveway,as my child mind remembered, was huge and all the neighborhood kids use to meet in our driveway to do roller skating. I have photos, I think I will search for them and post.

Our Halloween, I know, I know, it is way past that.

Devin is a pirate teaming up with his pirate friend Ryan.

Ashley is an over happy Disco Diva.

Dalton is our Mighty Ninja on the attack.

O.K. it has taken me a while to get the time to post a few pictures of the kids on Halloween.

For the weekend of Halloween we were pretending to be away camping in order to surprise my mom for her 60th Birthday party (which worked). I tell you it was so hard to sneak around.

First off, it is hard enough not to pick up the phone just to call her. I had to remind myself Friday and Saturday "DO NOT CALL HER!"

Well, it was even harder to go out and do shopping or just even drive on the road. I had no idea where she would be and because I couldn't call her; I couldn't even check where she was.

Any ways, the kids were invited to a Halloween party which was just a whole lot of fun. We had a blast, but boy was I exhausted. I felt so sad driving home from the party because the kids could not show grandma and grandpa their costumes. Every year we swing by their house and ring the doorbell like tricker-treaters and see if they recognize their grand kids.

60th Surprise Party

Today is my mom's 60th birthday. Happy Birthday MOM!!! We celebrated this past Saturday with a big surprise party at my friend's,Julie, house. It was going to be tough to surprise her, but we did it. I pretended I was out of town on a camping trip with my family, so that would keep her from ever suspecting a party was being planned. Julie invited her and Jack over for dinner.

It was awesome. When we yelled surprise, I thought she was going to pass out. She actually started to back out of the door, like she was really going to get away. I appreciate so much all of our friends who came and celebrated this very special day with my mom. It was such a blessing for her. She is still on cloud nine. To cap off the evening, Jack, gave my mom the best present ever. He is going to take her to Israel in Feb. She balled.


My mom is opening the card that tells her that she gets to go to Israel in Feb.



Mom is crying and hugging Jack.



Mom is trying to read all of us what the card said. She reacted and half of us did not even know what was in the card.

An addition to our family

We are the proud parents of Godzilla...

Isn't he a beauty!!!


This is Godzilla's own private home. Mike is building it in a beautiful corner spot of our yard. Lots of sun light.


Dalton loves looking at him all the time.

Our friend Rich gave us the iguana the other day. Just in time for the cold front. We had Godzilla out on the back porch the first night it was cold. Dalton woke up and right away wanted to check on him. We open the door and pulled the covering off the cage and there he was sitting in his water pan frozen stiff. Poor thing was so cold he had no energy to move. It was fun petting him, because he just sat still.
Last night we brought him inside; since it was going to be even colder. He was nice and cozy and still energized in the morning.

Busy as can be

I know it has been kind of quiet on the blog for a while. It has been a little crazy for us. I have recently started working for the church on two nights a week and it is amazing how everything just seems to pile up quickly. I have not had the time to check on other blogs, let alone mine. I do miss keeping in touch with others and seeing what is new in some of my friends lives.

There is always the hope that next week my load will get lighter, but it never ends up that way when the week begins. I am hoping that November will slow down some for me, and boy do I love getting close to Thanksgiving. One more busy October week and than we can all breathe. Maybe I will have some great photos to share of our great camping adventures we are going on for Halloween.

We are starting up our new garden and have begun with herbs this time. They are sprouting great and we hope to see some veggies soon. We will keep you posted.
Talk with you all real soon!!!

Congratulations!!!

Mike and I were so excited when we received a call from his niece, Terri, last weekend. Terri and her boyfriend, Todd, had traveled down to the Keys to get married. They decided to stop by and stay the night with us on their way back home. It was great having them come stay with us.

They shared their whole two week experience with us, and let me say, I would have given up on the trip after the first disaster. Yet, they persevered through a lot and they enjoyed every bit of their honeymoon trip. It opened my eyes to just how impatient I am in things, when they don't work out my way.

I can't name everything that went wrong but I will name the major ones that stood out the most.

1. They broke down on their way to the Keys, on the Seven Mile Bridge, at the top of the part that allows the boats to pass under. (If you have been there, you know how horrifying that is!!!)YIKES...
2. The breakdown caused them to be late to their own wedding ceremony on the beach at sunset, so all their pictures are in the dark.
3. They got evacuated because of Hurricane Ike.
4. They were camping in a tent for two weeks, with a lot of rainy days.
5. Their boat broke down while out on the water.

Need I list anymore!
They were awesome;they had a blast and looked at it as more memories to share. It was great having them, but we wish is was longer than just one night. We are so proud of Terri and excited for her new life with her husband, Todd. We pray the very best for them.

By the way, they called us when they got home to North Carolina the next night and Terri told me that they got a flat tire on their truck pulling their boat that day. I am glad they made it home.

Happy Birthday Devin & Ashley!!!

September is a busy month for us because we have two of our kids birthdays right in the beginning of the month. Devin turned 14 on the 6th and Ashley will be 12 on the 10th. With school starting the day after Labor Day and planning for two birthdays, I feel like tearing my hair out. But, we breezed through the first week of school and the birthday celebration with the family was a blast.

Now I can relax and not feel so stressed. Devin and Ashley were of course spoiled by their Aunts, Uncles, Great Grandparents, and Grandparents. They all came to our house to have lunch and cake. The kids each made their own cake and daddy lit the candles for us all to sing "the song".

Nothing like a family gathering to celebrate your birthday. The only thing we were missing was Mike's side of the family. We wish they could have all been here too. Ashley shares the same birthday as Mike's mom. Happy Birthday Pat!!! Wish we could be there in N.C. with you.

Hope you enjoy our birthday video, we were fearing that the first cake would catch fire before we got the second cake lit.

My Crops are up and running again!

It has been since April when our church home got flooded that I have been able to have a crop. I enjoyed having a break, but it was a very long one. I missed it, a lot. I was fearing that Hannah or Ike was going to ruin my first day back, but we were saved. The only scrapbooking I did over the summer was working on the home school yearbook with Ashley. I did not get to work on any of my personal pictures.

It is so much fun when you can gather with a bunch of ladies and scrapbook together. Here are some photos of Saturdays crop. There were 12 of us and we all had a great time. I can not wait for next month. Next month is our big all day crop for the special croptoberfest event. I will be able to get a lot done.

Okra

This year has been the first attempt at doing a Florida garden for us and we have learned a lot. My husband being from North Carolina has dealt with farming and he thought it would be a peace of cake. Well, we found out that gardening in Florida is very hard. We started back in February with Lima beans, corn, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, cantaloupe, watermelon, and cucumbers. We had a nice variety of fruits and vegetables and big plans for rotating crops and having year round veggies.

Our garden had different plans in mind. We were so excited when the Lima beans came in and we picked a few. When I say "a few" it means just "a few". Not nearly enough to make a side dish for a family of five. But, still it was exciting to see our plants flower and grow. Our plants were growing great, we got a few cucumbers and a little bit of corn that seemed to not grow to its full potential ,yet, we ate it and it was good. Then the Florida heat hit, and it hit our garden hard.

We soon realized we were not giving it enough water and everything was dying. It was dying fast. We tried everything to save it but we ended up starting another round of planting. What a mistake!!! It was not long, before our garden was invested with beetles and little black tiny bugs. Our garden even was gathering a fungus from us watering it to close to dark. So we learned. After the defeat of our second round, we also learned not to try and grow anything in Florida during May, June, & July because the bugs will get you every time.

There is one battle we did win. Our Aunt Elaine and Uncle Fred bought us two earth boxes as gifts when we started our new endeavors of gardening. They are the coolest things. We vow to only use earth boxes from now on. Our last planting was Okra and we were very worried about loosing it because it was right next to the corn that the beetles just ravaged completely. I guess the beetles are picky about what they eat, because they did not touch the okra. We have had four batches of okra so far and it is still producing so strong. We feared we would loose it in Fay because of the winds. It did lean some after the storm was gone, but it was not long before it perked up again.

After studying some Florida gardening books and learning a little from our own failures; we are getting ready to rise to a new challenge. We plan on starting another round of planting in late September and hope that it gives us a lot of produce for the winter. We have already agreed to plant even more okra, if our other plants don't survive, we know we will be bountiful in okra. Be on the lookout for our garden shots in a few months. Well, I have to go and cook dinner. We are grilling out London broil and making some fried okra. YUMMY!!!

Our Weekend Project

This weekend we had a major project to do. We ended up with some water damage in our front office because of that darn Fay. It was nothing to major, just soaked carpets and a little water hit our bookshelves that were closest to the window. We think the wind was so strong it just caused the rain to get through the tracks on the window.

Have I told you all that I am married to the most amazing man in the whole world. Well, I am. My husband moved all the office furniture out, including two whole walls of bookshelves, ripped up soaking wet carpet, and tiled the office in just two days. By Monday evening he had the office back together. I don't think I mentioned that he had never laid tile before. It looks amazing and now I never have to worry about wet carpet again.

I am so proud of Mike, he is the type of man that knows a little about a lot of things and can usually figure things out on his own. He is my handyman in many ways.

Everything is going good so far this week. We are a little on the busy side, Mike getting caught up with his pool customers after Fay's fiasco last week and I am getting ready to start schooling the day after Labor Day. Hopefully things will start slowing down for us to breathe a little easier. Our two older kids birthdays are coming up in two weeks so we are getting ready to celebrate two very special dates.

Oh, and our house guest have not moved out yet, and have not visited our special welcome mats left out for them. We still have no clue what they are but we are guessing they are probably rats. YUK!!! Our friend Rich came over and gave a sweep of the attic and to our surprise there was no evidence of any animal activity up there. We had two mornings where there were no parties and we thought we had them but traps were empty and the next morning they were celebrating something. They are probably up there laughing at us. It reminds me of the kids movie "Mousehunt". Can they possibly be that smart? I will keep you posted.

Surviving the Storm

Well, we made it through this minor Tropical Storm named Fay. She ended up being a little tougher than expected and lingered for a very long time. No pictures to share of this event, but I am sure everyone has seen enough on the news. Even though Fay is still just North of us; today is the actual first day of a little sun peeking through the clouds. We are being promised more rain to come and I am not sure how some parts of the county can take any more of it. I am venturing out East today with Monica, to go to the mall to get tires on her car and I am sure we will see all that flooding. Hopefully we will not float away. I hope the mall is still there! I will see if I can't get some cool shots to share.

Even though we got minimal water damage in our office on the front of our house from the wind and rain we do have a major catastrophe in our life right now. I need lots of prayer from all who read this...It has been about a week now and I don't know if I can take it much longer. Every morning around 5:00 a.m. I am awoken and am unable to go back to sleep. We have guest staying in our attic and they seem to be partying it up till day break. Don't know who they are yet, but we left some welcoming mats out last night and we are hoping to meet them soon. I AM SO TIRED!!!

Ashley needs a sister

Well, I have to say I was a little surprised when my 6 year old boy came in the office the other night looking as pretty as he can be. Yes, PRETTY!!! My 11 year old daughter decided to play dress up with my youngest. Now, I am very surprised she was able to get him to participate and I really do fear that he may have enjoyed it to much.

Make up, dress, and purse in hand he was quite proud to display himself to me. I could not pass up the moment to ask him to pose for a picture, which he did with glee. I guess we should have kept the dog that Ashley use to dress up all the time (Minus the make-up) praise the Lord. Now that there is no more dog to dress I guess the next choice is naturally the younger brother.

Just thought I would share.

A Relaxing Day of Fishing

You know one of my favorite things to do is fishing. I grew up fishing. I can remember the times my dad would take me out on the dock down in Jupiter and show me how to bait the hook and cast a net. Being a tom boy growing up, I loved it. Fish guts, dead bait, getting down and dirty never bothered me. I love gutting a fish. If I could have it my way I would fish all day and every day. My husband shares a love for fishing but he prefers fresh water while I prefer salt water. Since we live so close to the beach I usually get my choice way to fish and that is heading out to the ocean and finding an empty beach doing the surf fishing thing.

This past weekend we went out to Hutchinson Island right past the FPL plant and found a nice quiet beach for a relaxing day. Spending 4 1/2 hours on the beach fishing was not enough time for me but my husband was very happy when it was time to leave. Of course he was happy because he was the only one who caught anything. It does not bother me much, at least I got to sit out there with pole in hand and feel the tugs. I had two near catches, but of course that starts to lead into fish tales. So I won't go there.

Mike caught a bonnet hammerhead shark. The kids danced around shouting while daddy reeled that bad boy in. Once he got it on the beach the kids were so exciting and praising daddy for catching a shark. It was pretty cool. We decided to keep it, hearing that hammerheads are good to eat. We had to bleed it right away so it would stay good. We got it home and I cleaned it and cut it into 10 good sized steaks. After marinating in Italian dressing we grilled it for about 15 minutes. Let me tell you something, that was the best I had ever eaten. I never have tasted shark, and it was awesome. The kids are hooked too. The shark steaks tasted just like fillet mignon.

Needless to say we are ready for another fishing trip, but this time we hope to hook another shark. It was well worth the trip out.