Moving Along

So we decided to motor up to New Jersey and Vermont so that the Utah girls could meet their East Coast relatives, and son Jamie had a wish list of places and people he wanted to visit (mostly involving food spots, we discovered -- Al's!  Handy's!  Magic Hat!  Dippy's!).

Our first stop was Charlotte, North Carolina, because...  you know... NASCAR Hall of Fame. 

I must say it was more impressive than I had anticipated.

 

There were lots of hands-on exhibits for the girls to try though their knowledge of racing isn't much more than the cars are cool and go fast and their Dad and Grandpa yell at the TV a lot.

 

They did a great job as members of the pit crew.

 

 

Their favorite thing was walking up and down this red carpet area in their best Academy-Award-Night manner...

And posing in front of cars...

Jamie and Jim also visited a couple race team garages in the Charlotte vicinity.

Definitely worth the trip for Nascar fans. --cds

Summer Vacation

Beginning in early June, we were lucky to have the Utah clan with us here in Florida for the first three weeks of their summer vacation.  Mostly we hung out here at the house swimming, movie-going, card and game-playing, book reading, biking, and our favorite activity, hopping in the golf cart to hunt for alligators at all the golf course ponds - not many gators, tho - I think they've gone to Michigan for the summer.

Silly girls - deconstructing their lunchtime salads.

Hijacking my camera.

They spent a few days on Anna Maria Island - such a nice beach there.

Bella cracks me up.

Played some Disney mini-golf also.

And we never tire of regular Disney visiting, even in the brutal heat - we powered through.

More on the road trip later.  --cds

Update II

Did some mid-summer garden maintenance earlier this week in the heat and 100% humidity, so I've been quite happy to return to the coolness of the sewing room, sipping sweet tea and listening to stuff via iPod.  I did just download from my library one of Edward Rutherford's monster-sized books (Paris: A Novel), but I've never read any of his other works - historical fiction stuff, looks like.  Oh well, easily removed if I decide I hate it.  I'm on the wait list for Brown's The Inferno and Carl Hiaasen's new one Bad Monkey.  I'm hoping that one might have something to do with the real-life monkey that was on the loose in the Tampa area for something like nine months last year, just hiding out in back yards and suddenly appearing on balconies and scaring the bejeezus out of people.  Oh Florida, you are such a freaking gold mine of you-can't-make-this-stuff-up stories.

I have turned to downloading podcasts quite a bit when I can't find a good book and I'm currently mining the archives of The Nerdist.  Though generally not big on watching stand-up comedy shows, I'm really enjoying listening to Chris Hardwick interviewing/chatting with other comedians.  Most I've never heard of, but sometimes he talks to people like Alton Brown or Mark Hamill or Lily Tomlin and the conversations get crazy funny.  Recent ones with Tom Hanks and Mel Brooks and Billy Connolly are just hilarious.  Good thing I'm alone in the house - laughing yourself to tears at the sewing machine is probably a very strange sight.

I've sorted through all the pictures of our June-July gatherings with family and friends all up and down the East Coast and will start tomorrow with a little travelogue.  I'll get the popcorn all ready.

Evie and Isabella riding out a Florida thunderstorm on the sofa with Grandpa and Grandma.  --cds

Update

I get mad at myself when I let so much time pass without posting something.  If nothing else, this little blog helps me keep my life in order allowing me to look back and check when we did what since 2009 (coming up on five years in Florida already!).

June-July of this year have been particularly memorable because once again we were able to gather (almost) all of our kids together in one place - unfortunately Randi had to return to Utah for work and couldn't make the trek to Vermont with us.  Next time we may do another of those meet-up-in-Florida-overlapping-vacation get-togethers because nothing is better than watching all your grandchildren playing together.

My photography skills continue to suck, so the one photo I was determined to get right failed miserably.  All I wanted was a picture of the four grandkids all together, a photo I could enlarge and frame up and hang on my wall and look at every day.  Well, due to circumstances entirely my own fault, this is what happened:

First off, it was our last evening together; it was nearly bedtime for the little ones; it was hot and humid (Marcus sleeps in the A/C which is why he's in a knit sleeper); Ruthanne dislikes her picture taken in the best of times; Evie was just plain mad at us all and refused to remove the black sock (?) or put her knee down; Bella did her very best to set a good example, but kept forgetting to hold Marcus up a little straighter.

So, these are my grandchildren.  They are adorable, sweet, cranky, lovable, hilarious, ornery, beautiful, playful, pesky, talented, smart, and crazy fun to be with.  And next time, I'll spring for a studio portrait sitting.  --cds

T. S. Andrea

Our first tropical storm is circling about outside our house at the moment - off and on rain since about 4:00 a.m.   I've been listening to the local TV weather guys out of Tampa for most of the morning and I was just sitting here staring out the window since the rain and wind were picking up a bit and I hear the weather guy say "we don't want people to be staring out their windows."  Yikes!!

I do take these things seriously, of course, and I understand the dangers of flying debris.  But I was actually just staring at my soggy outdoor cushions and thinking I really should have brought them inside last night.

We were about to head out to the grocery store because our Utah family arrives in Florida tomorrow night, but I guess we'll wait until this afternoon.  Funny, they were here last year about this same time when T. S. Debby blew through.  I haven't looked ahead at the names of the other projected storms yet, but I so hope that the E name will be Eliot and it will start out as a Tropical Storm.  T. S. Eliot!  Oh, come on, it's a little bit funny.  --cds

Ho Chi Minh Trail Revisited

You're thinking this is going to be another one of Claudia's boring history rants, aren't you.  Something she's been reading triggers a little history lesson she's going to share because EVERYBODY loves history just as much as she does.  Well, you'd be wrong.

Well, maybe not too wrong -- I do happen to be re-reading A Bright Shining Lie, a really good book about the Vietnam War, re-reading because I happened to watch a History Channel doc on the War (well done, I thought - lots of interviews with 60-65-year old vets).

However.  The Ho Chi Minh Trail I am referencing is the effing trail of ants that has been running along my ceiling molding.  These are not the normal smallish black ants, or the even smaller fire ants that we have to watch for on our patio outside.  These are teeny-tiny, rather light in color, smaller than a pinhead.  They travel along the trail in packs of three or four, heading in both directions.  Sometimes they meet head-on, exchange a few words of greeting, or maybe saliva or something else disgusting, and continue on.  If there is a dirty plate left on the counter (HUSBANDS!), they make a beeline, ummmm, antline to the plate.  So gross.

I think they might be ghost ants???  They don't bite and they really don't get into my cupboards, perhaps because every speck of food in my house is either in the fridge or in a jar, an airtight plastic container or zip bag.  Seriously, buy stock in the zip bag company -- I'll make you rich.

So, yeah, I've been googling ants and ant killing techniques like mad.  I may go with the Borax and powdered sugar concoction.  A good squirt of Raid works like a champ, of course, and is very gratifying (drink this, suckers!).  But you can really only smell that stuff for a short time before you can feel yourself sprouting antennae and a thorax.  I'm off to war.  --cds