So Proud of Kaitlyn

While we were on the beach Friday, Kaitlyn received great news. She was so happy that she was crying. Before the school year ended she signed up to be a possible Teaching Assistant in Anatomy for next year. There were 35 people signed up and she didn't feel she had a chance.

They only pick a handful and not usually an undergrad. She was picked and she was also picked to be a PAID teaching assistant, which is rarer still. This will look great on her resume. She has now decided to apply not only to OU Dental Hygiene school (where she is already pretty much accepted), but to Baylor Dental Hygiene School (located in Dallas) and to University of Kansas. (She made a 4.0 in anatomy - about 15 students out of 200 made a 4.0.) She'll see where she can get the best offer. If she keeps up with her grades she should be able to go wherever she wants. She has a 3.96 cumulative GPA right now. I'm so proud!
Do you know how you get an instant tan? You wear a bright neon green/yellow bathing suit! (At least according to Kaitlyn.)

Last Pictures

These were taken while we were waiting at the airport yesterday in Fort Myers. It was a small shuttle plane to Key West. Cool looking plane; only held about 7 people or so.

The front was painted like a shark.

I swear the pilot looked just like the guy painted on the plane.

Some apartment buildings in Sarasota right at the harbor.

More apartment buildings. Sorry the car was moving when I took the pictures.

I got a picture of this statue last year when we drove by it. This time it was daylight outside.

Tampa - Kristen Leaving for Las Vegas

Thursday, we drove to the Tampa-St Pete airport to drop Kristen off. She was flying to Las Vegas to meet up with about 20 of her friends for the Memorial Day weekend. Now, of course, Kaitlyn is bored since Kristen is gone. Joe on the beach when we got back home.

Me on the beach.

Siesta Key/Sarasota has the largest sea turtle nesting grounds in the state of Florida. When we went out on the beach yesterday, there were several places marked as nesting areas. We're too lazy to get up in the middle of the night to go watch them crawl out of the ocean and up onto land. However, I'm sure it would be amazing to see.

This is a picture of St Petersburg from the Sunshine Skyway. It's zoomed in as far as I could go.

The bridge (Sunshine Skyway) was beautiful and from a distance it looked like two sail boats.

Joe, Kaitlyn, and I ate at a mall on the way back to Siesta Key and we tried Five Guys hamburgers. I heard they were phenomenal and I wanted to compare them to In n Out and to Smashburger. The burgers reminded me of Smashburger (messy but good); the fries, however, reminded me of In n Out, they were VERY GOOD and we got the Cajun ones (which In n Out doesn't have) and they were awesome. Highly recommend!

Back Issues

Yesterday I woke up and the routine and the bed, etc. had finally caught up to me. My back gave out. So I was forced to stay inside yesterday and take advil and rest all day. I did rally around by dinner time and we went out to eat and walked on the beach right at sunset. So these pictures are NOT in order as I'm having to use Joe's netbook from work to upload these.

Joe holding the camera out to get us both in the picture.

Right as the sun is dipping below the horizon.

We ate dinner at Gilligan's Island Restaurant and Bar. Really neat place and good food too.

More Pictures

Late afternoon on our balcony.

Kristen, playing frisbee with Joe and Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn, waiting for the frisbee.

Kristen and Kaitlyn.

A girl using the paddleboard.

Jerome on my knee.

Jerome in the middle of boca clips and starfish, all bigger than him!

A daytime view from our balcony.

A video of the view from our front door.




A video view from our balcony.

First Days of Pictures

The view of the dining and kitchen area.
The view of the master bathroom.

The master bedroom.

Our living room area. One wall is mirrored floor to ceiling. I like the look.

The view from our balcony looking north on the "key"

This shell is a lamp and I have it lit up. I brought Jerome with me because K&K don't like me to take their picture.

Jerome thinks the new Lily Pullitzer iphone case I got for Mother's Day REALLY blends into the quilt on our bed.

Had to take a picture of a seagull.

Parasailing. The view of our condos from the beach. The way the building is designed, all condos have a beach view.

A sunset view from our screened porch balcony. This doesn't do it justice. It was beautiful!

Our Trip So Far

We left on time to drive to Dallas on Friday afternoon; however, Joe drove through blinding rain most of the way. As we arrived at the off-airport parking, it was raining so hard we had to wait a few minutes to board the shuttle. When we actually got up to the airport the rain stopped for several hours. We ate dinner in the airport then went to our gate to wait out the last 30 mins or so. Some Asian family was sitting in the "pod" behind us when this AWFUL smell hit us. It was the most foul-smelling something, kind of like a diarrhea-diaper. One by one everyone in our area got up and moved to another seat. I kept praying that they weren't getting on our plane. They had 2 small children too. As we moved to another seat I realized where the smell was coming from - they had brought some food with them in tupperware containers. Thank goodness a gate change was announced and they got up and moved to the new gate. They did not get on our plane. It smelled like they were eating s**t. NOT JOKING!! Then we had to wait for our plane an extra 30 minutes or so, we get on the plane and have to wait another 30 minutes or so (for the caterer) - needless to say by this time our plane was backed up due to the previously mentioned rain and the caterer delay. So we were 2 hours late getting into Fort Meyers. We got in around 1:15 am and the car company didn't have the correct car we were supposed to have and tried to shove off a smaller one that all our luggage wouldn't fit in. We had to pay extra for a larger car (we will be writing the car company and complaining). We spent the night in Fort Meyers and then on Saturday morning went to the Miramar Outlet Mall and shopped for several hours. Later in the afternoon we drove the 70 miles up the coast to Siesta Key and checked into our condo. We're on the 10th floor and every condo has a great view. Will post some pictures later. Today we slept late after staying up late to watch the Thunder-Mavericks game last night and then spent most of the day on the beach. Went to eat dinner at one of our favorite places "The Olde Salty Dog." Signing off for the evening, I'm tired!

Today's The Day

Well, wouldn't you know the day we're supposed to leave for vacation we're having "gully-washers." Bad for several reasons: 1) you can barely load the car because of all the rain; 2) it's supposed to be like this for most of today and all the way down I-35 to Dallas (where we will board our plane @ DFW); 3) the dogs don't want to go outside, where unfortunately, they will be until we return. Kaitlyn's friend Lindsey, and her twin sisters (who graduate from high school next Thursday) are going to be taking care of our animals for us while we are gone - feeding, watering, and letting them in/out of the house as needed (in the case of severe weather). Ah, the joys of living in Tornado Alley.

We have had an unusually cool spring. We had a week or so of 90 degree weather, but mostly in the 60s and 70s. Between Joe and Jann, I'm slowly being frozen to death. People look at me weird because I go around with a sweatshirt and jeans on at home and I keep my space heater cooking at the office. If it was up to me, I wouldn't turn the air conditioning on until it was 80 degrees inside the house/office. Soooo glad I'm going to Florida so I can "warm up." I don't foresee me going out in our boat until mid-July when it's HOT. Plus with the price of gas, we may be utitizing the smaller boat more this summer - it only holds 14 gallons (the larger one holds 50) and parking it and swimming a lot instead of wakeboarding/skiing/tubing.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Yesterday, I started packing my clothes for our trip to Florida next Friday. I got all my clothes packed along with my shoes and I even picked out all the jewelry I'm taking that matches what I am wearing. My dilemma came when I couldn't figure out how to get all the cute necklaces I picked out to keep from getting all tangled up until I needed them. I needed a jewelry roll, but wasn't going to pay an arm and leg for one. So I went online and "googled" how to make one and then dug through my material tubs out in the garage to come up with stuff I already had. I picked some floral cotton, along with some soft batting-like material.
On the inside I sewed two rows of elastic and made little pockets for the dangly thing on the necklace to nestle in. On the back I sewed some ribbon.
Here is a picture of the finished product.
All packed up and ready to go into my suitcase. That took about 30 minutes. Now I can get busy going through my "personal care products". I swear I lug around more hair spray, shampoo, conditioner, mousse, straighteners, etc. that they literally need a suitcase by themselves. Do you ever feel that way???

I Want to Go To the Royal Wedding....

After watching all the royal wedding hoopla, I became "fascinated" with the hats the women were wearing. So I started looking it up and they are called "Fascinators." I thought I could soooo do that myself! AND I DID. I first cut out a shell using the pattern for the top of the hat I WAS going to make. I cut a double thickness. Used the same pattern to cut out the black material, slipped the form inside and hand-sewed the opening closed.
I then went out to my garage and dug through the many tubs I have of leftover material scraps, etc. to see what I could come up with. I found some sparkly material and some black pipe cleaners and some old combs from the 80's. But thought, nah, too sparkly.


I went to Michaels and Hancocks and purchased what I needed to dress it up a bit. Black braid, an already made black rosette, some feathers, and what I thought was black tulle.
It actually turned out to be brown tulle but since the feathers were brown it went together well.

The finished version. Except for me digging around finding stuff to put on the hat and not counting the time it took me to go to Michaels/Hancocks. It probably took be about 30 minutes to make this "fascinator."

I was the hit of the party at my Prayer Shawl Ministry tea. People couldn't believe I made my hat, and this morning to boot. I got LOTS of compliments. I also wore black gloves and pearls.

What do you think? Should I open my own millinery?

After all, girls really do just want to have fun.