It's that time again! Time to Celebrate!!

Been "home" a week already. Now the celebration starts here.

July is our month; to celebrate, have fun, really let loose, get jiggy with it, love each other, laugh together to relive moments and make new ones...it's a great month for us!

Birthdays galore & a couple of Anniversaries.

We start out with our "1st date anniversary" on the 4th, this year we celebrate 9 years! The dogs birthdays are on the 7th (easier to celebrate on one day for them!) Jamies' birthday is on the 11th, our wedding anniversary on the 14th, my birthday is the 25th and lil hoot is the 28th!

Lots of celebrations! I call it Christmas in July (especially my birthday)!

Take a walk through some old memories and new moments with us...

Happy 5th birthday to our Naner Nut

Happy 5th, 6th or 7th Birthday to Chili Moon...??

And a Happy Birthday to yours truly!

 With our numbers in alignment with this year of 7, we believe we are already off to a great start of OUR new year.

We wish we could be with our lil hoot as she starts to celebrate her 22nd year on this Earth, but we know she knows we love her and are always with her in spirit. Hoooooot!

Here's to a great year not just to us but to all of you. Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary, Happy....whatever!

Make it great and memorable. Here's to many more years of having an awesome life together and on this Earth.

Much love to all of you, from us to you!

PEACE

Back to Where we Started from

Shortest trip ever...or what!?

Yep, we're home from our excursion to Florida to see 'the kids'....ahhhh what a trip, always good to see our lil Hoot and JP!

Wouldn't ya know that as soon as we exited the boat yesterday, the sky opened up one hella storm. It rained most of the night into the next morning, stopped for a little bit then as soon as we left their house, boom...starts raining again. Not the time for rain....we're on our way to drive up the coast, see the ocean, feel the sunshine...

You can see in the picture above, the humungoid line to get out of New Smyrna Beach due to the storm. It started coming down so hard that we pulled into a Burger King to take a break and it just wouldn't let up, so we sat for a little while longer and decided to just get in and drive anyway....rain, drizzle or storm.

We mushed on to good ole Flagler Avenue, even though the lightning and thunder were very close together and just about right over head, people were still coming from and going out to surf. Ahhh, Florida storms...best time to surf!

We had on and off rains from New Smyrna to Daytona...expected. All I wanted was to be able to get out, walk the boardwalk along beach side and maybe buy a cool shirt or something....even if that meant no sunshine, at all. We arrived in Daytona, looked for parking (it's all meter or prepaid parking now), found one of the last spots in this lot, pretty close to the beginning of the boardwalk and were set for 4 hours for $1.25 per hour or $10 for the day.

We walked the World's Most Famous Beach Boardwalk, for me this boardwalk is a very very good part of all my growing up years, adolescent through early 20's... this was my "backyard" pretty much, so it's always fun to walk down memory lane. I like to see what's new, what they've taken down, what they've fixed up, etc.

I noticed the Sky Way is gone; pretty much a "ski lift ride" that went out to the end of the boardwalk, around the restaurant and back to where you started. This was always such a cool experience as a kid, due to "flying" over the ocean like a bird! I know that the hurricanes have been taking down the boardwalk little by little for years and I think the Sky Way had just about had it, so they finally took it all down. (sad face)

They have also added a couple of rides to the amusement park, fun for the kids...when it's not raining, lightning or thundering, they close that all down at the tiniest inkling of rain!

We were happy that it stopped raining enough for us to be able to walk around for a quick minute. We both love love love the Ocean so it was important, to us, to at least walk, hand in hand, alongside it while we were here...we don't get the Ocean where we're staying right now (just a creek)!

We did our loop back to the van and on the way to Flagler we go. For those of you who haven't been on the East Coast of Florida, it's pretty much a beach side drive up the entire coast. We started at New Smyrna, went up to Daytona, then onto Ormond and Flagler Beaches and then St. Augustine.

Our next stop was The Waffle Cone (used to be The Sweet Shoppe) in Flagler!

We arrived at The Waffle Cone and were so excited to get our chocolate shakes, we even told the girl scooping for us...I think she thought we had a couple nuts/screws loose! haha Anyway ya slice it, they ARE the best place in Flagler for shakes, cones, what-have-ya- in the ice cream department. As soon as we got our shakes it had started raining again, so we ducked under an umbrella outside to get our "suck" on before darting back to the van.

 We puddle jump the entire time back to the van and....vamonos, we're on our way North once again!

Next destination?

Our all-time favorite...St. Augustine!!!

We got a great parking spot at 'the fort' or Castillo de San Marcos and walked "our walk": down to St. George's street, down to the Lightner Museum or Flagler College, back down on Main street, to the Fort then......food!

[caption id="attachment_5589" align="aligncenter" width="446"] Flagler College[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5590" align="aligncenter" width="417"] Lightner Museum[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5591" align="aligncenter" width="424"] Oldest Wood School House in USA[/caption]

We found a sweet little spot to eat dinner and have a beer, even looking right out onto Joon Van, called No Name Bar & Grill. It was perfect. Cheap beer & food prices, good food, a view of The Fort (& Joon), live music and a beautiful night to spend with my babaa'! What more can you ask for?

[caption id="attachment_5593" align="aligncenter" width="421"] Our view[/caption]

After filling up our bellies and being fully entertained, we made our way back to Joon van where we grabbed the pups for a sunset walk and some reenactment photos.

[caption id="attachment_5597" align="aligncenter" width="358"] Nanaaaaaaa![/caption]

Our trip home was just one big long drive, but we're very blessed that we were able to spend good quality time with Brittney & JP, see the Ocean, drive up the coast and even have the pups set foot in St. Auggie grass!

It was a very short but sweet trip. Just one more thing to get our mouths salivating for the next road trip....

pant...pant...pant

'til next time

[caption id="attachment_5592" align="aligncenter" width="401"] Happy Anniversary to Us![/caption]

PEACE

Boats. Beers. Babes. Bucks. Bazinga!

Last night as we lay howling with the dogs, we were trying to decide what to do with our one full day together, on this short weekend trek to Florida.

We tossed around ideas of going to the beach, the shooting range, the dog beach or park, walking around downtown or just hanging out around the hoots' nest. Then the spark of a marvelous idea came to JP and BAM! 20 minutes later we had reservations on the Victory Casino Cruise ($10 per person to board boat)!! What a great idea, indeed!

We had the morning to get ready at our own pace, have a great breakfast filled with sausage, eggs, coffee and toast and be on our way by 9:30 a.m. The drive to get to port is about an hour and a half, the boat leaves at 11:00, so we had plenty of time to get there...as well as plenty of time for "sillies"!!

The place to board the boat is called Cape Canaveral and is also the place where all of the major cruise lines leave out of Florida, it was pretty cool seeing those humungous boats!!

Once we parked, we pretty much walked in, checked in, then off to the boat & potties we went!

The boat is 6 floors of fun: 1 floor with a restaurant, 3 floors of gaming, 1 floor is gaming with a night club and the very top is a rooftop bar with live music, called The Dolphin Bar. We walked in hit the potty, then went to the very top deck to set sail. It was pretty warm...imagine sitting in the sun of sunny Florida, with tight skinny jeans on and make-up! haha Before I knew it I was sweating and sitting in the shade and we hadn't even taken off yet!

Once we set off into the sea for the day, we all headed inside for some game time and much needed A/C! JP started with Roulette and was getting lucky on every number, Jamie started with Black Jack and Brittney and I headed to the penny slots! We played this game, that game, moved around for a little while and then met back up with the boys for lunch.

We had a great lunch on the bottom floor, right at sea level...you can pretty much feel every movement down there (good thing none of us are the seasick type!) We watched a hot dog eating contest while waiting for lunch, not the greatest of ideas but that's what was on the tube. Lunch was pretty good, Jamie & I split quesadillas and a french dip type sammie, then headed back out to game it up!

After lunch Brittney & I decided to head back to the 1 cent slots and moved around machines until the Betty Boop game, Brittney wanted to play all day, finally opened up. We popped over there and played for quite a while...Betty Boop was good to Miss B, but we moved on to an even better set of machines! We sat down at these two machines that were just regular old timey slot machines, they were 2 cents a play and within 10 pulls I went from $20 to $108! I'm NOT a gambler so I played a couple more pulls then cashed out at $84.36! I was a happy camper due to getting back the money that I played, some of what Brittney played and walking out in the black! Needless to say, I didn't play anymore for the day!

We headed upstairs to the "night club" where there were games, air conditioning and less smoke. Since I wasn't playing, I was people watching and saw there was one solo lady dancing on the dance floor, she seemed to be having a grand ole time and I told Brittney, "I'm going to have to get in on that! Watch my purse...." The lady, Yvette, and I danced and had the whole place clapping along, as well as a whole bunch of hootin' & hollerin'! It was great fun, we even exchanged information...what a great gal!

The day was coming down to a dwindle on the gaming for us gals, so we just kept going up floors until we hit The Dolphin Bar. We enjoyed a nice drink together making sure everyone on deck was okay & having fun, especially this guy....

I walked over with a glass of ice water and woke him up, asked him if he was okay...he slurred, "I'm good, just getting some sun." haha Okay dude, have fun with that! Can't say I didn't try.

We sat up there for about 45 minutes before the boys joined us for the trip back to shore and what a trip back to shore it was!!

I can honestly say that I think we were the ships' best entertainment of the year, shit probably the entire existence of the cruise line! You get me, a day of beers, my family & live music together and well, everyone is in for a treat! Brittney & I started dancing around our table for a few songs, with even a gal giving me a dollar bill! (Holla)

[caption id="attachment_5565" align="aligncenter" width="363"] ...[/caption]

 Then, as if I didn't feel American enough on this 4th of July/Birthday/Anniversary/Family time trip, they started playing the Electric Slide......ohhhh yeah baby! I got up there, started dancing and no one wanted to do it with me...Brittney didn't even know how to do it! I said, "I'll teach you, I'll teach everyone! C'mon everybody!" So we start dancing and I grab a couple of people, some people get up on their own and before you knew it, we had a deck full of dancers doing the Electric Slide! Yesssssssss!!!!

[caption id="attachment_5572" align="aligncenter" width="371"] now back...[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5573" align="aligncenter" width="324"] now turn...[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5571" align="aligncenter" width="311"] Thank you for dancing![/caption]

Everyone had a great time on the ship, us and the people watching us! (You're welcome people for giving you a story worth telling about your trip! haha)

I think we were all pooped on the way home, but we made it in the pouring rain back to the house and 4 very excited dogs. Just glad it didn't rain on the ship and cancel our roof-top dance party!

Hope your weekend is as much fun as this and if not....make it that fun!

PEACE

 

Off to Florida we go...

We took off for the weekend to go visit our lil' hoot (our daughter, Brittney). Her & her boyfriend just bought a house in Central Florida as well as bringing home the newest addition to their family... a gorgeous Doberman Pinscher named Dash.

We just had to make a trek to go visit them and enjoy all of these firsts with them, plus it was nice to get on the road again, even if it was just for a short weekend trip.

We wanted to leave the house no later than 7 on Friday morning and ended up leaving the gas station at 6:35 a.m., so we were happy about that. It's about a 9-9.5 hour drive, and we were sure driving through Atlanta on the 4th of July would probably put us in some traffic. The great part? We were wrong about the traffic AND Atlanta and never hit either one! woo hoo...Nothing worse than driving through a major city on a holiday!

The drive, for the most part, was nice & easy. During the last two hours of our drive, we endured some pretty heavy rains accompanied by BIG thunder & lightning storms. We finally arrived at a restaurant-bar I used to work at, at around 5:15 p.m., to meet our lil' Owlings for dinner & drinks. It was so great seeing them!

At Jax, we had some wings, beer, hugs and great conversation. Daddy got to meet B's boyfriend for the first time and they hit it off, talking up a storm about technology, sports and technology!! (Did I say technology?) Brittney & I talked about our usual stuff, giggling and loving just being together again!

After dinner we headed to their new house. It's in a quiet, cute neighborhood centrally located to their town and Orlando...not too shabby!

We went out back to play with the dogs, all 4 of them, Savannah & Chili and their two Roscoe (Dachshund) and the newest baby of the family Dash (Dobie). The initial playtime was interesting because Dash is full of spunk and tons of energy and Chili is so small and kept getting stepped on, Savannah has to play referee and Roscoe just wants to play with everyone! It was funny to watch and their backyard is HUGE so it made it a little more enjoyable to run around, throw balls and just be goofy! They were all running around like crazy dogs so the only actual picture I could get was of Roscoe, he is thee sweetest boy ever!

We settled in for the night a couple of hours later, after deciding that tomorrow we will go on a Casino Cruise. JP & Brittney had done it once before and said it was a full day of fun...so heck, why not!

It's good to be with our girl again and we are so proud of how her family is growing as she becomes more of a young woman. We just love JP, the dogs, the house, everything that they have worked hard for, they seem very very happy and I think, as parents, that's all we really want for our babies!

Off to the snoozer ...

PEACE