Family time......

It was a great Girl's Weekend.!! Jenna and Lizzie flew in

to see the Fairygodmother-in-training and we packed a lot of walking and shopping and sightseeing into a few days. We went to St Augustine but by-passed the Fountain of Youth for the beach.

Do two pair of glasses on your head work better than one ! ?
Daytona Beach is unique in that you can drive on the sand. Rather convenient if you carry a lot of beach stuff but busy busy busy. I think I prefer the quieter beaches with softer sand where you have to schlepp your important stuff thru the dunes.

On the last day, we wandered about at Epcot. They are gearing up for the Flower Show
later in the week and the topiaries were in place.
And with lunch at Italy and a stop by China and Norway and Mexico, we made short work of the world.

Driving home, this skywriter summed up the weekend for me ....

Can we buy you a drink ?

Joining us at dinner last night was this fine fellow...........................
He seemed to enjoy our conversation but refused a drink, even one with an umbrella in it.

Red Solo Cup........

Toby Keith - Red Solo Cup (Lyrics)

Yes, I agree.....this is a real sign that I have way too much time on my hands...... but it's a catchy tone and I was humming along even on the golf course yesterday....seemed to help (2 pars and a birdie).... but listen just once and it will stick in your brain forever.

Show us your beads..........

I didn't know they meant "THOSE BEADS !" Mardi Gras is alive and well in TV. We went early and stayed late and Freida managed to capture the best place to people watch.......the feathers, the purple and green, the outrageousness, the great music from 3 different bands around the Square. The Preservation Band was straight out of New Orleans with their version of "When the Saints Go Marching..... Next year you really should plan to come down for it......next up is St Patrick's Day and it will be another wild and crazy night with the showing of the Shamrocks.........

The next morning it was up and out early for the much needed hair treatments and cut.....and then off to see the Fairy Godmother. She is looking great and seems to still enjoy the full days of dressing up those little princesses and then spending the off hours being a kid again in the Magic Kingdom. We shopped, we ate, we shopped some more.

Tonight is Italian Night ..... our monthly neighborhood gathering for the Inner Circle neighborhood. They knew of my cooking skills and asked me to bring iced tea !!

Almost March and the weather is changing.......it was a lovely winter and now the temperatures are rising and a bit of the humidity is in the air....it won't be in full mode til May so you still have time to show up for the nice days. The golf courses have lost their winter brown and are all green and lush. The alligator mating season will be happening soon and they will wander all over in their search for love.... especially on the courses.

We had heavy rain on our drive home .... a real Florida downpour with the lightening and thunder and blinding road condition. It's hanging around this morning but I'm hoping for a dry spell to get the walk in. Already 70 degrees at 6 am. !

I'm off to find my Italian clothes........

Views......

There is a big advantage of buying a ticket to fly from the NE to the SE......usually we fly out of Newark which is a busy almost 2 hour drive from Jon's.......yesterday we left from Westchester Airport (White Plains) which is a mere 45 minutes. This was especially expedient since we had one little boy still dealing with a GI bug . And, the take off route brought us over Manhattan.....since we were above 10.000 ft, I was able to use my electronic device with an "on/ off button" to take some iPhone shots of the views below.
As we began our descent into the setting sun,
the clouds were quite impressive .................

The 2.5 hour flight went by very quickly with the LIVE TV and opportunity to watch the last 2 hours of golf......but we landed just as the regulation 18 holes ended and missed the play-off. That TV thing is worth the price of the ticket somedays.
The view off of Jon's deck showing a sky getting ready for some snow (just a dusting) and
the sky greeting us in Florida.... Welcome Home it said.

Tidbits.......

Do you BING ? Every morning there is a new photo on the Bing page.....many are landscapes and are quite stunning.....seems like China gets its fair share of top billing. Anyway, this one really caught my eye and I borrowed it to share with you. Red Cranes marching along...... check out the site for a nice way to start your day.
We're still enjoying Connecticut favorite things. After Pond Brook Road, the next thing I miss is Stew Leonard's.......a sort of grocery

store.....it started as a dairy store and has grown into selling almost every food item, both raw and prepared that a family could want... with a few talking cows and singing chickens thrown in for listening pleasure. There is basically only one way in and you follow the maze-like aisle through fresh pies and the fresh breads, then the cheeses and the deli, then the beautiful fruits and vegetables and on to the top of the line meats and fresh fish....then its flowers and a banquet of prepared foods, both hot and ready for the oven. There is a dairy , a petting zoo, a coffee bar and a pizza station and a stop to watch the sushi being made before dropping a lot of money at the check out. I can't avoid it no matter how much I try. Today, on our 3rd trip this visit, it was for more fresh bread and a seafood medley for dinner.

And speaking of diets........
Some of you may already know about this delightful little concoction....... If you like cake......(actually, I prefer pie ) but don't really want to eat the whole thing...here's a solution.

Take an angel food cake mix ... mix it together with another regular cake mix, any flavor like lemon or chocolate, or cherry, or white or......mix it well in a zip lock bag. Then..............When the urge strikes..... Take 3 tablespoons of the cake mixture, add 2 tablespoons of water....mix together in a smallish bowl or cup......then pop it in the microwave for 1 minute....no longer or it gets tough...you might even want to try 55 sec depending on your nuking device. Cool and top with whatever....whipped cream and strawberries, ice cream, frosting........

I think it strongly resembles sponge cake. Supposedly, it has only 50 calories (without the toppings !) Kids would enjoy it as well as those of us with a slight sweet tooth late at night. And when there is no pie around.

Our string of luck with finding empty seats on the airplanes has run out.......we got up here with no problem but didn't realize that it was a holiday weekend when we wanted to go home. Yesterday, on the last flight of the day from Newark to Orlando, the flight was overbooked by 6 passengers and there were 89 pass riders trying for NO seats. Fortunately, we weren't among that crowd waiting ......we were able to buy a reasonably priced one -way ticket home and will hop on jetBlue tomorrow afternoon. It's been a great 10 days but it will also be good to get back to the sun and bad golf.

Our Town

We moved to Newtown Connecticut in 1972 with 3 kids in tow. Although we had lived in Maine for a couple of years, New England was basically a foreign country to us with it's winding roads, heavy forests with meandering stone walls and colonial houses. As you can see from the brief history above, it was alive and well long before the Revolution. George Washington camped on the grounds of the boys elementary school. The tea bag and Scrabble started here along with many prominent actors, writers and inventors (Click to enlarge pics)

It is well known for its Main Street which has a 100 foot flagpole in the center of the intersection. It is almost impossible to get a decent picture unless you stop traffic or risk life and limb so this is courtesy of the web. It has been controversial since it went up in the 1800's. It originally was wood but after being challenged by many a vehicle, it is now buried 11 ft into the ground and weighs 2.5 tons. Every so often, efforts are made to remove it to make the road safer.....but over the years citizens have rallied to "Keep the Flagpole" successfully. Despite a speed limit of 25 MPH on the road and it being basically a round about, (for which Villagers are expert at navigating because we have so many), you'd think it would be hard to miss but each year it snares a few unfortunate souls.

The church next to the flagpole is so typical except for the rooster weathervane on the top. It has small holes in it that are reportedly a result of target practice by British soldiers. The rooster is used as a symbol for the town.

Main Street is lovely, with historic homes, stately town offices and traditional white steepled churches.

When we left Newtown, about 8 years ago, most of our friends and all of our boys had moved away. It was a great place to raise kids with its excellent schools and small town setting. But it was time for us to go exploring ...........as I left, I said that the one thing
I would really miss was walking on Pond Brook Road. It is an unpaved road near our home that we both walked, jogged , biked on for over 30 years. I knew every rock, tree and hill. It followed Pond Brook, a meandering stream or a rushing brook depending on the season. It is always a beautiful peaceful respite and a vigorous outing over its 3 miles.
So, a couple years ago, Jon moves back and now his boys will go to the same schools as their dad and we get to wander our favorite by-ways once again............

We just don't jog anymore.......................

Catching up........with an update at the end.

Yes, I've been neglectful of the blog again and probably have lost all 2 of you that followed along. So, here's what you have missed....... In the past month, I've only played golf twice....the first was dismal and the next day I did OK but then Paul came up lame and I had a reoccurrence of my sacroiliac joint pain...... if we were horses, they'd have shot us both. We are better, thank you for asking. Being laid up gives one a lot of time so I did some reading. First I read "The Orphan Master's Son". A compelling and amazing book of life in North Korea. It is fiction of course , but the author has been there and also researched this horrific society extensively. It is set in present day and I think that's what makes it so difficult. It is very convoluted but if you happen to begin it, don't give up. Just go with the flow and don't try to figure it out ..... it will clarify eventually. I have started to reread it and now it all makes sense. A book that stays in the mind. And then, because I hadn't had enough horror, I read an old Steven King novel from the 70's , rewritten for the 90's. It is gory, and slimy and scary and explicit and I don't know why I hadn't read it earlier. "The Stand" is set in Boulder, which makes for an even better read with mention of all the familiar. A true good vs. evil thriller.

And then we hopped on a plane on a foggy, cloudy morning and vaulted upward until we came to the sunny part of the sky.....so pretty.
And if you look real close, you can see that we were on a two lane skyway.
We came back to Connecticut. We have been promised that it won't snow or sleet or have icy roads or be below freezing. So far so good................ meanwhile, the parents of our charges are being tourists once again.......
And with Andy and Mason in school, we get to watch the cat nap !!

PS: Did you see that I have had 9700 hits on the blog !! Now, most blogs that I read get that in a day or two but I'm not greedy......altho it could just be the TWO of you with frequent peeks in hopes that I've written another titillating update.

AND..........3-6 inches of the white stuff after midnight is predicted......going out to stock up on the milk and bread because I think that's what everyone does.....even tho we have plenty but you never know................................and I might just throw in a bit of the wine.

A Sunday in January

Just wanted to add a TV alert...... As you know, if you watch the news, campaigning is alive and well in Florida. To that end, both Mitt and Newt are making appearances here. Newt was met by "thousands" in the parking lot next to Barnes and Noble yesterday....that is where he is quoted as calling Romney a 'liberal. Tonight, Mitt gets the coveted Lake Sumter Square Pavilion for his speech and I'm sure the paper will declare that "millions were in attendance " . The Developer is a prime contributor to the Republican party so we are graced with all the big wigs. The Bush's made several visits. The paper is also controlled by the Developer so we are regaled with Republicanism and virtually no Democratic mention. It's OK, we keep our mouths shut and keep politics out of the conversation except with those 'like us'.... So, you might see TV on the nightly news again.

I'm enjoying my new fancy camera but it seems that I take the most bloggable photos with the iPhone because it's always with me. I need to change that and think about using the big one out and about. I'm liking a 100mm lens that Michael lent me.......In our world down here, the flowers are changed out every 3 months. Sometimes they fill a large area just with various colored coleus and it becomes a beautiful mass of color. This month, they planted the cold weather flowers.....each season brings its own color...
Yesterday, we went to be with the Fairygodmother-in-training...or FGIT (fidget) as they call themselves. We visited the salon and saw a couple of the darling little Princess' outfitted top to bottom in glittery, sparkly fun. When they aren't busy, the FGIT's go about the area with their wands, dispelling Pixie Dust on the crowds. Later, we stopped at Portobello, an Italian restaurant at Downtown Disney......great food and people watching spot. Then a stroll around the lake and a picture of the dragon made entirely of Legos............

Downtown Disney is a fun place for a few hours but we need to get back to the Park before the March crowds take over.

Happiness is.............

...winning your heat in the Pinewood Derby !!!