Reef Donkey

I went fishing with customers and wanted to post pictures from the trip.

Because Florida DNR has all but eliminated fishing during the winter months including Grouper and Snapper, all we could go after are Amberjack affectionately named Reef Donkey's down here, they are a really fun fish to catch but not much to eat, just a little meat. We only displayed four here the smallest was 34" and 35lbs and the largest was 38" and 42lbs. That is small for these fish, they can grow to 65" and 125+ lbs. Enjoy the posts. BTW, the small fish in the mouth of the largest fish on the right is a Dolphin, for you northern folks a "mahi mahi" it was just a peanut (baby) only 20" and 5 lbs, and yes we are having it for dinner tonight I only could clean about 1.5lbs of meat off of it, blackened dolphin tacos with saphron rice and black beans, always a treat after fishing.

Saturday swim

We're just relaxing and hanging around the house this weekend after two hectic weeks of work and two past hectic weekends! We had an exicting morning outing to Sam's Club this morning where we had to pick up some staples for Jackson and also where we found new pillows and a new mattress pad and pillow top! Remember, I told you it was "exciting". I feel really old when I am talking about replacing pillows and a mattress pad! It was necessary though since Jon has allergies and after we stayed at a hotel up at Disney last week with a really comfortable mattress pillow topper, we decided we needed to bite the bullet and replace ours. We have had it for almost 5 years so I guess it is time!

This afternoon after Jackson woke up from his nap he and Jon went swimming in the hot tub. While we do not close our pools down here since it stays warm enough to keep the pool open all year, we do not get in the pool this time of year unless we heat it and that takes days to heat the pool this time of year so instead he just heated the hot tub and they had a blast.

Don't mind the scratches ALL over Jackson's face.......he had an accident with himself at school yesterday. He was kicking a ball on the playground and was running after it and somehow got all tangled and pretty much gave himself a rug burn form his forehead to his poor little nose. Pray for fast healing as we are supposed to take outdoor photos next weekend!!

eskimo kisses

Do you remember what an eskimo kiss is? I can remember my granmda Grace teaching me this when I was little.....you rub your nose against someone else's and that is an eskimo kiss! Jackson learned all about eskimos today at school, they built an igloo, drew eskimo houses for their art project, and learned to give eskimo kisses! I know this because they give me a sheet at the end of the day which I did glance at (mostly to see what he ate and to see how long he napped) but I did not remember reading about the eskimo business until after he gave me an eskimo kiss tonight when I put him to bed!

He is a bit of a wild man at times but then there is this sweet and lovable side of him as well, you just have to catch him at the right moment and he will shower you with love (and eskimo kisses, at least for this week)!! He also let me rock him tonight after we read our nightly bedtime stories and then after the eskimo kiss I carefully set him in his crib and he tucked right in with his silky blanket and went right to sleep like a sweet angel boy. I love nights like this and hope you all get an eskimo kiss before bed too!!

post bday photos!

We had a great time last night and the whole plan really came together nicely! We had a great dinner at the Japanese Hibachi restaurant where we took up an entire hibachi table and then headed back to the beach for the Ocean Drive Pub Crawl. We met up with the other half of our group celebrating the 40th birthday and hit up Ocean Grill, then Bobby's and we ended the night at Costa d'este where they had live music until 1am. Everyone had fun and thank GOD we got to sleep in this morning!

The hotel rooms and services were just as amazing as they looked online and the service I had experienced in the restaurant carried through as a guest at the hotel. I would highly recommend staying at this hotel for anyone visiting our community, it is really neat and different than anything else we have around here!! Our room was a studio room, the lowest rate and it was as large as a regular hotel room with super chic south beach style contemporary design and a large bathroom and balcony and all the amenities you would think you would NOT get in a studio room. I wonder what the other rooms look like??!! Here are some photos from the night and of the hotel!

The big 30 for Jon!

Today is Jon's 30th birthday and the weather we have could not be nicer! 75 and sunny with a nice breeze. Jackson and I just took the dogs for a walk and then went to the park by our house to run and enjoy the sunshine while Jon has one of his friends over to help with hooking up surround sound and other manish electonic things. I don't really understand it but it has to do with coordinating all of the electronics on to one controller (if this happens it will be a miracle) and some other stuff like that! We have plans to go out to dinner tonight with friends and then stay over at Coste D'Este www.costadeste.com ( I don't know how to make the link live so cut and paste or google it yourself if you want to see, it is an amazing South Beach Miami style hotel!! It should be a cool night!

We'll go out to breakfast at our favorite beachside spot tomorrow morning and then be back home to enjoy Sunday with Jackson!! Here are some pictures from our b-day decorations this morning!

scholastic book orders......

Does anyone remember those awesome scholastic book order pamphlets we got at school about once every other month as elementary students? I LOVED to read as a child (and still do although now I only get to read for work) and so I can remember the excitement I would get when the teacher would pass them out with our brown envelopes and other paperwork to take home to our parents. As soon as I would get my hands on it, I would frantically look through it and take out my pencil and start circling the books I wanted to order, and then rank them in number of importance to me!! I can also remember looking for what the freebie was...ususally if you ordered 3 or more books, you got a free sheet of stickers or something, awesome! I would always take it to my mom and then she would say "ask your dad" and my dad would ususally say yes and let me order a few things.........ususally enough to get the free stickers too!! Thanks mom and dad........I still remember this and how excited I would be the day THE BOOKS ARRIVED AT SCHOOL, YIPEE!!

Well.......I feel like I am getting to re-live my childhood these days as Jackson now gets the Scholastic book orders at his school and THEY HAVE NOT CHANGED! Jon gets mad at me when I browse through these book order forms as he says we have too many books as it is but I cannot help myself, the thing even still has the same smell! I try to hold back and not order every time, just around holidays so I was really excited to get the last one with all of the VALENTINE'S DAY themed books:) I did not see any offers for free stickers (darn, maybe they cut that out) but I did order him 3 great books! I can't wait for them to arrive. He LOVES to read these days and often now we will catch him in a corner in his room or in the playroom surrounded by a pile of books he has dumped out "reading" to himself, it is SO cute! Maybe he will take after me after all with my love of books...........if he can sit still long enough to enjoy reading that is! I can always hope, good night everyone!!

surviving through the week....

Well, I think it is Wednesday and we are making it through one heck of a busy week! I have an appointment this morning at 9 so had a few extra minutes at home before the daycare drop and start of another hectic day. We both had to work on MLK day on Monday, Tuesday I had a court hearing first thing and a bunch of appointments at work, Jon had jury duty (luckily he was not picked since I had just been in front of the judge that morning) and today I have two client appointments along with my office work, Jon has his bosses in town so left before 6:00 am this morning and I have a late meeting tonight! Tomorrow is chamber of commerce leadership day for me (long story but suffice it to say I will be out of the office all day for it) and then I have the hospital district monthly meeting tomorrow night, phew. Friday is just Friday and we are thankful for that!!

We have fun plans for Jon's big 30th b-day weekend. We have reservations at Gloria Estefan's hotel to stay overnight on the ocean Saturday night (Jon's actual birthday) as do several of our friends and my co-workers. It is also one of the partner's 40th birthdays so we're doing it up right with a big dinner at a Japanese hibachi restaurant ( I made reservations and got our own hibachi table reserved for 22) and then we have plans to meet up with a bigger group at the Ocean Grill for after dinner drinks. The hotel where we are staying has live music at their outdoor pool bar into the night so it should be fun and the setting is amazing. I am excited to stay at this hotel and see the rooms! The rates were unbelievable too, only 129.00 a night! Our babysitter Jesse will come before dinner time Saturday and stay over night with Jackson, and we'll be home before lunch time on Sunday! He will hardly get to miss us since he will be sleeping most of the tim we're gone! Of course we will post pictures on Sunday.

For now here are some pictures of our little man this morning (he is in desperate need of a haircut, that is Friday after work) but enjoy his brand new "Jackson" dump truck shirt that arrived in the mail yesterday! I found it online and had to order it, it was supposed to be a valentine's day gift but it was so cute I just decided to let him wear it! Happy Wednesday everyone!!!

Bob the Builder........

These photos are from last weekend Sunday morning when Jon and Jackson got out their new "Bob the Builder" play set from Mimi and Papa...notice I said it was both of their's......I think Jon likes it as much as Jackson!!!

conference and a mini vacation

We've just returned home from a legal conference and a mini vacation at Disney! I have been up in Orlando since Thursday early in the morning for an elder law/estate planning conference and Jon and Jackson joined me on Friday to enjoy the resort and to take in some family time and fun over the weekend. We stayed at a really nice hotel thanks to the conference and were literally a block or two from Sea World and just about a 10 minute car ride to the Disney properties so we took full advantage of that once the conference was over. We have our Florida resident Disney passes already so other than our food, everything else was paid for and we earned hotel points of our own to save up for later!!

We made the most of our time and really enjoyed spending quality time together, lazy mornings waking up with Jackson jumping around in the king bed (we brought his pack and play and he slept on his own through the night but we could not resist to let him up with his before bed, first thing in the morning and after nap times)!! He was a great little traveler and got to enjoy a day at Animal Kingdom (his favorite, this blows any zoo we've ever been to out of the water) and we split another day at Hollywood Studios where he got to meet his favorite Disney Playhouse characters (this was really cool to see) including Mickey and crew, Pooh and crew, and Handy Manny and the Little Einsteins! We also went to Magic Kingdom last night where we had dinner, and got to see the park all lit up at night and of course we rode the train, his favorite thing of all!! Other highlights included Downtown Disney where we ate dinner one night at the Rainforest Cafe (this is an AMAZING restaurant for adults and kids if you've never been to one, it was my first time) and he got to visit lego world at Downtown Disney, and he rode a small train and carousel too! What a weekend we had.......here are a few of the pictures.

We are so thankful to live so close to such an amazing vacation destination and then we just got in the car and drove an hour and a half and we were home with no major travel stress! For the first time in three years I have to work tomorrow, we usually get it off for MLK day but of course they decided not to give us that this year (but we get President's day off in stead so I'm fine with that) so I'll be at work tomorrow, so I've got to go get the laundry going and get us in order for the week!

robeez boots, green striped pajamas and a dump truck

This is how you will find Jackson on this chilly Friday night.........wearing his warm furry green Robeez boots, along with his green striped pajamas, pushing his larger than life ride on dump truck all around the house before bed time!

Phew, it has been a rough week folks! Our first week really back to the grind after the downward sliding holiday filled month of December. January is a cold (and I mean cold, even in Floirda, we have had frost on the car each day this week and temps in the 20's and 30's at night) dose of reality and I don't like it!! We survived though and TGIF!

Enjoy some pictures of Jackson playing post-bath tonight before bed time. He was so cute I just had to get the camera out and capture him at play.

Christmas take 2 photos

Here are some photos of Jackson helping to unpack the Christmas gifts, and re-discover what he had received!! Also, here is a photo of him this morning styling in his new comfy pants (I think these are from Aunt Julia) and his sporty striped sweater from Aunt Frances! He looked like a toddler Baby Gap boy model today when I dropped him off at school:) Never mind that I had to HAND pick like a bucket worth of mulch off the sweater tonight after I put him to bed.......it looks good as new though now! I guess he played hard on the playground at school:)

Christmas, take 2!

Our gifts FINALLY arrived via UPS last night. The shipping took a full week even though we shipped via three day select..due to all the holidays in that time period 3 days became 7. It had been so long since we opened the gifts, it was like Christmas all over again. I will post pictures of the box opening party tonight!! Jackson loves all of his things as do Jon and I and not ONE item broke or was damaged. Thanks everyone!!!

Our budding Picasso and our attempt to visit the zoo.......

Today we realized that after all of our organizational efforts this past week, we were actually ahead of the game (for once) so we hung out at home this morning, Jackson got into his paints and wore his art smock, and then decided we would take Jackson to the zoo after he got up from his nap. The onlyh problem is that we don't have a zoo here, we have to drive to the town where Jon sometimes works north of us (I'm not mentioning the name but many of you should be able to guess where I am talking about) and once we got on the highway, we were driving for about 15 minutes and promptly got stuck in stop and go traffic for almost two hours! When we FINALLY got to where we could turn around on the highway, we did it and drove back towards home, bummed as heck that we could not get to the zoo today due to some sort of a really bad accident practically shutting down the road going north (thank God we were not trying to catch a flight) but we wound up going to a super cool park for Jackson and then we stopped at our sand bar restaurant, Captain Hiram's, for an early dinner and some live music and outdoor fun! It was COLD here today, I had on a turtleneck, fleece patagonia AND A SCARF and Jackson had on his winter coat, a sweater and a long sleeve shirt under the sweater...Jon of course just opted for a cotton button down and his staple North Face vest ( no sleeves, crazy guy) but we had fun!!) I must say this was the first time I've ever been to Captain Hiram's when they had the wind flaps down around the tables and the portable heaters down, the shade was cold (the high was in the 50's pre wind chill) but the sun was warm as long as you avoided the wind.....I took some scenic shots for our northern family and friends if you are seeking a view of green......it is COLD here the next week or so, lows in the 30's at night (remember we have no furnace so we have the emergency heater on, which somehow works and reverses heat through our air conditioner), it is struggling to keep up so everyone is bundling up and pretty much wearing some sort of fleece!! It is January......after all!!!

Happy New Year!

We are spending New Year's day relaxing (I am still in pajamas at noon) Jackson is napping and Jon is in his glory preparing for the Ohio State Buckeyes Rose Bowl game this afternoon against the Oregon Ducks! Of course Jon and Jackson have been wearing their OSU jerseys all day and loving it. It is rainy and grey here today...perfect since all we want to do is relax in our house!!! Happy New Year everyone, the start of a new decade, I can hardly believe it!