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Key West Vacation

June 26, 2012 By JulieK

I love being a teacher, and one of the many reasons why is Summer Vacation!! Of course, one of the drawbacks is that you can only go on vacation when everyone and their brother is also on vacation (sadly, no late September Disney trips for us), BUT we always have a super fun time travelling during the summer when we can take our time and do what we want. Remember, last year? The 18 day and 5 states Amazing Western Adventure? Here’s a post about it… And another post about it… Well, this year we decided to tone it down a little bit… We went to Key West for 7 days. It was fantastic and relaxing, just what we needed after a long school year. CAUTION>>> This post will be long and picture heavy :)

So, we had a 7am flight, and that meant we got to Ft. Lauderdale pretty early and we could enjoy the drive down the keys :) We stayed at the Sheraton which is across the street from Smathers Beach! Our first order of business… Check out the (wow it’s warm) ocean!

Then it’s off to Mallory Square for the Sunset Celebration!

Most of our days were spent wandering around Key West, checking out the scene and eating :) No visit is complete without checking out Sloppy Joe’s

We visited a couple of different sights every day… Here’s one of the kitties at the Hemingway House

Another sunset, this one from one of the upper keys (not sure which one we stopped at… there’s so many).

A visit to the Summer White House. Our tour guide Jimmy grew up in Key West and sold the president a newspaper, by walking up to him as he walked down the street… Can you imagine just walking up to a president on the street?? He was a fabulous tour guide as he had so many personal stories!!

Fort Zachary Taylor… We toured the Fort, then went back later that afternoon to go swimming at their beach (but I didn’t bring the camera when we went back…)

Oh… Bahia Honda state park… Beautiful!! We took a day and just went to the beach! Here’s a bunch of pictures from our fun day there…

ummm… Do see that picture above?? If you know me, you know that it is SHOCKING that I went in swimming!! In the ocean (which was darn close to air temperature!!) I’m not a huge fan of swimming (I can do it, I just don’t particularly like to) … but this was great!!!!

Chickens, chickens everywhere… Seriously! The chickens and roosters and chicks are everywhere!! Including one trying to hop up on the table and steal Sean’s french fries at one restaurant (we were eating at a table outside), and another that got startled on the street and almost jumped right into our car!! Good thing Mike’s window was only open 3/4 of the way, the chicken banged into the window and went on his merry way…

Snow Cones at the beach!

and you can’t go to Key West and not see the “Cat Man”… That man is insane!!

Our last couple of days were overcast and windy… Here we were at the boardwalk and they were just looking when a wave hit :) They got soaked :)

And a peek at all of us at the southernmost point…

I “only” took about 500 pictures :) We had so much fun, and it was a relaxing trip… No agenda, the biggest thing we had to decide was where we were going to eat that day :) If you go… You must go to Paseo and get the fabulous corn… And got to the Hogfish bar and grill… YUMMY!!

For the Love of Peonies

June 14, 2012 By JulieK

I have a decidedly black thumb in general. I can kill nearly any plant I come in contact with, and unfortunately it’s not because of a lack of trying… BUT I am so happy about a couple of my green thumb accomplishments!! These are “my” peonies… They were elsewhere in the yard when we bought the house 12 years ago, They had been largely ignored when the kids were littler… some were in a very overgrown side bed, and some were also in the back garden (which my husband roto-tilled and I was still able to save them)… My Gram told me not to get my hopes up when I transplanted them because they can be finicky, she had some in her little front garden that just would never bloom (and she had the greenest of thumbs!). Anyway, like “my” iris, these peonies are the pride of my yard… And this year’s blooms were particularly stunning! Here are a few pictures from last week…

Faithful Friday Happy First Communion

May 25, 2012 By JulieK

Remember my post about Kathryn’s bracelet and rosary that I had made for her? I wanted to share some of the photos from the actual day… We had such a fun time with Nana shopping for her beautiful dress, Nana’s got mad “find a beautiful veil tucked in a drawer at the store” skills!! Plus, she also took the dress to iron it and ironed it for us… It turned out to be a nice day (with no rain at the actual morning! Yeah!) Try not to look too closely at me in the last picture… I was a sobbing mess during the mass, they have all the children step out into the aisle and turn to the families to sing a song… I am always a mess when there’s children singing involved… I cried every day when I picked them up last summer from Vacation Bible Camp ’cause they would all come together and sing a big song at the end of the session… Anyway… Here’s the photos! It was a beatiful day…

Whoooo you lookin’ at?

May 14, 2012 By JulieK

I know I have a ton of projects that I need to post… BUT… I was so excited a few weeks ago when “our” owl was back… Clearly not the same exact owl, the last time we “had” an owl was March 2008 But when that owl left (in the fall) we didn’t see another owl (even though we looked :) The tree in front of the house, RIGHT in front of the house has a fabulous “owl hole” and we were kinda sad when it was empty for so long… Well, a couple of weeks ago we were coming home from baseball at dusk, and when I opened the car door I heard it! We had another owl!! Yeah!!! but… this one is a bit more shy than the last one, we only see him at dusk, and the couple of times I’ve tried to get pictures, I failed… I do have CRAZY zoom in my p500, BUT, it was too dark for the shutter to be quick enough… So, Mike dug out the old tripod and voila! Here’s a couple of shots of him! He’s handsome, I think :)

This one was taken yesterday without the tripod a little blurry, but I like it anyway :)

Handsome (or beautiful… how do you know if an owl is a boy or girl? I think he’s a boy)

Mike was trying (and succeeded to) get his attention… Owl’s looking at him like, what the heck are you crazy people doing?

Then he looked right at me like… You looking at me?

10 on Tuesday

February 28, 2012 By JulieK

Oh, we had SUCH a fun vacation last week… Nothing major, no big trips, but we had a super fun time! Here’s my 10 for the last week (or two)!!

1. First… I discovered Teavana… Holy Heck, that place is DANGEROUS!!! I now have a gajillion different types of teas in my cupboard and man, it’s delicious!! and not cheap, but delicious! hmmmm… I don’t think I can pick a favorite, for morning, I like a mixture of White Ayurvedic Chai tea and Samurai Mate Tea… Another yummy combination is Youthberry or Citrus Lavender Sage and Scarlet Cloud… but the Cacao Mint Black tea, with a little bit of Wild Orange Blossom… Yummy!

2. We took a little mini-vacation… We drove to Howe Caverns

3. Very cool place to visit and tour. I was kinda surprised at how many people were there, it’s in New York, but barely :) not a far drive at all and the cavern itself was beautiful… but difficult to photograph!!

4. There’s also an OCC Chopper designed for the Caverns… Cool! I don’t know why the skull theme, but it was a really cool bike!

5. Next stop (well, the next day) was the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge.

6. It is fabulous!! We were there for a gallery talk, which was great and very informative, and the museum is really great (if you like Rockwell’s)… The Studio isn’t open in winter, we walked out to it anyway :) but we plan to go back in the summer.

7. We had an absolutely amazing lunch at the Red Lion Inn… I should have taken a picture… The Mushroom Soup was REALLY yummy :)

8. Our next “adventure” was to Parker’s Maple Barn, just for a yummy breakfast/lunch… It was their first day sugaring of the season… Which, of course put the idea in our heads… So… yup, that picture below… that’s a bucket on one of our own trees… drill a little hole, and holy cow!! Sap comes literally pouring out!! Amazing!! There’s not much time left in the season here, the buds will be out soon, but it’ll be fun anyway!