Where did the last month go? March 19th was my beautiful daughter’s 25th birthday, so of course we asked her where she wanted to go for her birthday, after all, it’s the quarter century mark, she didn’t like that comment. So we’re thinking, start calling the airlines, we know she is going to want to go to Vegas or someplace out of Florida, and unique…not her, she wanted to go to Disney, the Magic Kingdom to be exact. So, that morning we get up, her boyfriend arrives on time, and off we go for a great day in Orlando and the Magic Kingdom. We were stopping off at the Mall at Millenia first to do some birthday shopping. She wanted to get a Gucci Messenger Bag…and we called ahead, they had the exact one she wanted in the color and size. So, knowing they had a few of them, we thought we could do at least 2-3 hours of shopping before heading off to Disney….WRONG!!! As soon as we got onto I-4 (for those of you who live in this area, you know how bad it can be), there was an accident that closed all East bound lanes. We were stuck for almost 3 hours, just crawling along, at best. We get right on the other side of the rest stop area, and turn off…now we are deep into the country, it is beautiful there, but not on a two lane road for an hour. But, we made the best of it and enjoyed the scenery…we arrived at the mall and was only able to shop for about 2 hours, she got her Messenger Bag, new clothes, and some beautiful jewelry, now it’s time to become a kid again, and off to the Magic Kingdom. We arrived around 2:00 p.m. The weather was perfect, warm, not hot and just a crystal clear day. We haven’t been there since she was about 11 years old…I must say, it doesn’t matter your age, we had the most wonderful day. We enjoyed every minute there. And, we decided to stay until midnight, so we watched the night parade and the fireworks show, it was just beautiful, and most of all my daughter had a great 25th birthday, and I had my “little girl” back for that one special day. Though she will always be my little girl, but it was as though, we were able to go back in time to when she was actually little. This is what memories are made of.
So, since that weekend, we’ve been so busy working around the house, doing spring cleaning, painting, and gardening. I planted more herbs, chilies, and plants, and even some flowers (though as I’ve said before, I can’t grow them). Our home is sparkling clean and ready to enjoy the upcoming spring and summer.
Last weekend we had company. My cousin, his sweet wife and two adorable teenage children were in town from Ohio, so they and another cousin who lives here and his family came to our home for a BBQ. Those from Ohio just couldn’t wait to get down here; they had a horribly cold and snowy winter. Their first day was perfect, second day it rained, third day it rained, then it was nice again – all until Thursday, when Mother Nature released her furry on this part of Florida. We had hurricane force winds, tornadoes, and so much rain; we thought it would never stop. We on the Gulf Coast got hit first, and my daughter was at work. She works on the penthouse of an office complex on Tampa Bay – all windows. They saw the funnel cloud and had to evacuate down the 7 flights to the bottom floor of the stairwell. They were all partying and laughing it up, all the while, I was worried sick about her, but she was so sweet to continue to text me and let me know she was fine. Now my cousins were more inland, about an hour and a half away in Lakeland, Florida…they were staying with her parents in a mobile home, because they only spend 4 months out of the year here…she said the mobile home was bouncing up and down, they were all huddled in the one bathroom, so scared. We can laugh about them now, because they are all safe and back home in Ohio. We on the other hand, had so much debris from our large oak trees, and other plants, that it took 6 hours on Friday to clean it up. So grateful we have a good pressure washer that did most of the branch and leaf removal…without raking. Today, everything is so beautiful and green from ALL the rain we had, even my avocado tree survived with no damage, though I was very concerned that I would lose most of the new little baby avocados. We had a tornado touch down just a short distance from our home…God was definitely protecting us and our home.
Now, it should be quiet for a little while, until I have more family coming down for Spring Break at the end of the month. But, that’s just fine with me, family is everything to me! I am glad however, to have some normality back in my life, to be able to enjoy our home, each other and have the time to enjoy reading everyone’s wonderful Blogs.
Just a few photos from Disney....
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| From Tram overlooking Fort Wilderness Lodge |
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| Love the look of the building, from Pirates of the Caribbean |
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| Again, another building from the Pirates of the Caribbean, the moon was extremely large this evening |
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