Fun videos

Cold Water!

Fitz gives the boys a run for their money!

Ellen Claire "trains" Nelly!

Better than Illinois, for sure

Here are just some pictures of why Florida is better than Illinois in February...


Sunshine and water heading into Tampa Bay...

Food tastes better with life-long friends...

Frenchy's Rockaway Grill, eating outside on the beach...

All you can eat sushi (one in mouth, one in hand) at Sunday Brunch..

You actually get to WEAR your sunglasses...

You can wear shorts...

You get to go to the pool, even if you have to "swim" in the hottub...

Poker with the big guys where you win with a straight flush...

....FAMILY!!!!

Grand-Pop's 60th Birthday Party

Our real reason for visiting family was a great excuse to get everyone together. We came from Illinois, Mike and Amy came from Oklahoma, Andy came from Reno and Emily, who lives in Clearwater, even hurried home from a business trip to Tallahassee to surprise my father in law for his birthday. He knew that we were coming but no one else. Mike and Amy came in late on Thursday night/Friday morning. Andy was home after we all got back from Bryan's flag football game. It was just the beginning, but to me, the most important part! Everyone was there. We had a great family BBQ that evening. We got beans from Sonny's BBQ (only the best ever!) and Amy brought me back the biggest cup of sweet tea!! I had to rescue it from Jack and Meg. Get your own! Mike II put together the coolest video of pictures from his dad's life. We all sent in different ones, with the one's from Grand Pop's younger days being our favorites. Check out the video on their blog (the link is on the list to the left). It was a great party, with fun gag gifts. The toilet seat was a regift from Reese. Believe it or not, that was her Christmas gift. Not kidding. Did I mention that I worked at Tiffany's this Christmas?!?!? :)

Our "Other" Family

Our other family is the Jewetts from Oviedo (outside of Orlando), Florida! We met Michelle and Aubrey in Alumni Village, our married student housing in Tallahassee during our Florida State days. Mackenzie went to Michigan with us last summer, so you may remember her from those pictures on the blog. Jack actually met Michelle and Mackenzie first. I was so anxious about being out of the norm--and who would want to be friends with a nineteen year old mom?!? Well, who but Michelle, age 21, with Mackenzie! Jack jokes that he makes all the best friends for me. He broke the first mold with Michelle, though! Through several moves, several children and just life in general, the Jewetts are just a part of us. When she was little, Hannah (now age 12) didn't know how to classify us. She knew we weren't part of her immediate family, but knew we were closer than just friends. So she named us the cousins! Precious. Our monkeys in the tree are Hannah (12), Trent(8), Will (9), Isabelle (5), Ellen Claire(13), Mackenzie(15) and Meg (15).

They all got to skip school and met us in Lakeland for the afternoon of Valentine's Day. We played for HOURS and wanted DAYS more. It's been almost 3 years since I've actually put eyes on Michelle as we haven't been able to swing a visit since we moved to Chicago. Now that our babies aren't babies any more we're hoping to get a grown up trip in soon. Where to, Michelle?!? And I swear we look the same as we did when we met about 15 years ago!

Beach Time!

What a great break from the powdery snow of Illinois and a great treat to be on the powdery sand of the Gulf! We had a great afternoon at Clearwater Beach the Friday of our stay. We were a little chilly, but who cares?!? We were in swim suits!!! ECP collected shells, Meg tried to get some sun and Will spent his time throwing the football with cousin Bryan. That all was fine and good until we had major excitement on the beach! A boat came in to the swimmers only section of the beach with a hurt jet skiier. Bryan was fascinated with the injury--a huge gash to the guy's leg. With all the fire and rescue, life guards, police and ambulances, we had a front row seat to some serious excitement. In the paper the next day, we found out that there were 2 guys on the jet skiis. The injured man was from Montana and had stopped suddenly, causing the other guy to run up over him. Crazy! After all this excitement, we headed to one of our favorite places, discovered several years ago by Andy, Jack's brother. Frenchy's is the restaurant and it's right on the beach. At sunset, they applaud the setting sun over the sea. Beautiful and so much fun. We don't order shrimp or grouper up here, so we ate our fill of it there!

Why did we ever leave Florida?!?

If you think I'm kidding, I'm not! What ever got into us to leave Florida?!? We took a long weekend to visit the Piedmonts for my father in law's early birthday celebration this past Presidents' Day weekend. I have a ton of pictures, great stories to share and some fun videos to post...but for now this will have to suffice! We got in at 1:30am Central time which was 2:30am to our adjusted time clocks...late no matter which way you describe it.

This picture is from the restaurant Island View (I think that's the name!) where we had brunch on Sunday. Meg ate SO MUCH, so you know it was good :-) From left to right, Amy Glass Piedmont, Mike Piedmont II, me, Jack, Mike Piedmont, Reese Piedmont, Emily Piedmont Vesey and Andy Piedmont. The whole grown up crew!

PS--it's 9 degrees right now in Oswego. NINE STINKIN" DEGREES!

SNOOOOOW DAAAAAY!

Well, it's happened 2 years in a row now! An honest to goodness, school's out, snow day! We woke up to 12 inches (measured in my neighbor's front yard!) of pure, white snow! It was such a mess that our street just got plowed a few minutes ago, which means that the busses had no chance of getting everyone to school today. Hence, we got a 5:45am call from the school district saying school is cancelled! So here are some pictures of what REAL snow looks like (that's for all my Southerners who thought they had it tough with 1/4 inch a couple of weeks ago :-)!!! My dear friend Christine, born and proud Mid-Western gal that she is, actually made it outside to take pictures. I got the video, a couple of ECP and Will and then promptly returned to the house to view through the window! I'm not too tough, either :-)