Another fun night out with friends

We had another little high school reunion a few weeks ago. It started as a girls night out and ended up with Kenny and Jennifer joining us later for a drink. It's been so much fun to reconnect with my Florida friends on this trip, often our visits back are too short for me to get to see everyone. Amy came back down from Georgia and Kristin picked us up to head to Guppy's - a yummy restaurant on the beach. We weren't in the car together more than 5 minutes before we were laughing it up just like old times.

We met up with Karen, Tracy and Brooke once we got there. I keep in touch with Amy pretty well anyway, and I've reconnected with Kristin and Karen on Facebook so that we are back in touch more regularly, but I hadn't talked to Brooke and Tracy since our last official high school reunion.

L-R Amy, Me, Kristin, Brooke, Tracy, Karen

We got on the iphone at the last minute to try and recruit friends out to one of our old haunts for drinks but only Kenny and Jennifer got the message and actually came out -but we're so glad they did!

Amy, Kenny and I met up again another night and her son Carter snapped this pic:

I love that no matter how much time has passed or how much our lives have changed we can all still enjoy time together and just pick up where we left off - it was a special time and particularly poignant to me having moved overseas this past year to get to spend time with people that I have known and have known me for a hundred years (or so).

Cousins Camp

Mimi and Big Daddy invited all the girl cousins to a "Mermaid Camp" at their house last week. The girls all arrived in the morning, spent the day and night, and we parents arrived to watch a talent show and have dinner for the camp's finale at 5:30 pm the next night. I have lots of pictures to share thanks to Mimi letting me have some off of her camera, so I'll try to caption them as accurately as possible!!

It's kind of hard to see in this picture but there is a mermaid in the wreath on the front door:

And painted hibiscus near the topiaries:
As soon as the girls arrived Mimi gave them all matching t-shirts and went over the activities and rules for the next few days:
Camp director:
First the girls enjoyed a mermaid swim:

Following their swim they went inside to make mermaid cookbooks, here is Anna showing hers off:
They all also learned some cooking skills - beginning with one of the recipes from their mermaid cookbooks. L-R Samantha, Meggie, Anna, Josie, Lilly and Katie.
The finished product - not sure what though since I wasn't actually there:
Later that evening they had relay-races in the yard. I think they had sack races, dress up races, marshmallow and spoon races and I'm not sure what with the cooking utensils.
Oh and also relay races in the pool - here's a crazy picture:
They went on a treasure hunt - here are Josie and Anna, best buddies:
And made and iced their own cupcakes, here they enjoy the fruits of their labors:
They also went down to the beach and collected shells which they later brought back to use for their craft project - glueing them on to ceramic crosses.
Big Daddy gave all the girls pedicures - Lilly enjoys a magazine while getting her toes done:
Then it was time to prepare for the arrival of the parents so Samantha and Katie rolled up the cutlery in pretty flowered napkins and tied them with twine:
Josie and Anna made the appetizer of gorp - for you non-Americans that involves peanuts, m&m's, raisins and goldfish crackers:
Meggie and Lilly worked on the marshmallow fruit salad:
When we arrived they greeted us at the door, offered us drinks, took our bags and found us a seat for the talent show. Here's a group shot before the show begins:
Our program for the evening:
Stacy, me, Ali, Brian and Shannon watching the talent show:
Each girl did her own thing - we had singing, dancing and piano playing - then they sang their camp song all together:
They also learned how to do the hula:
Fun picture after the show:
Then we headed outside for our yummy dinner on the patio:

The girls about to dig in to the dessert they made - some sort of ice cream and cake concoction that looked like the sea with gummy fish swimming in it. It was delicious and a great end to a fabulous few days - thanks Mimi and Big Daddy!!

Southeastern Guide Dogs

As you may recall from this post, my girls have a fondness dogs, particularly seeing-eye dogs. My sister told me about the Southeastern Guide Dogs program in Ellenton, Florida and I knew I had to take the girls. They train the dogs there and part of the program is to have lots of strangers come and love on the dogs for a few hours each day in order to get them familiar with lots of different people, sounds, ways of being held, etc. If it weren't an hour away I probably would have had girls begging to go every single day!

In this picture we've only just arrived - due to a garage door glitch Ali and her girls were a bit late so I didn't get their pictures. They had the people participating sit in a circle around a big batch of dog toys.

Then they let the puppies out:






These two were so cute, after about 20 minutes they were exhausted and wandered off into a corner to rest.
After we'd played with puppies for a little more than an hour we went over to the dog walking area. I'm not sure what the story is with the dogs we walked - they weren't puppies and they certainly weren't ready for prime time! Both Ali and I felt like our dogs were walking us - Meggie was devastated that you had to be over 16 to get to hold the leash, but honestly our dog would have taken off with her! Her name was Bri and she was sweet, but very strong. Here she is after our walk getting brushed by the girls:

A few vacation videos

Clearwater Beach with Friends

The girls and I had a night out awhile ago with some of my dear friends from high school and their children. We headed to one of our favorite restaurants, Frenchy's, and then across the street to frolic on the beach and check out the Friday night action.

This is my friend Sue and her girls Isabel and Abigail. They drove in from New Port Richey to see us - none of us that met for the evening are locals anymore!
Amy and her boys Carter and Harris drove down from Georgia:
Nancy and her daughter Hannah came down from Gainesville, about two hours away.
It meant so much to have these sweet women come together, and it was great to just catch up on each other's lives and see how the kids have grown and blossomed. I was surprised that my Meggie, the oldest (but just barely), was smaller than Carter, Isabel and Hannah. We think she seems so tall!!

One of the activities taking place near the pier was hair braiding and so the girls got to get a special new "do - they are all still sporting them now, a week later!





After all the braiding we watched a "Break Dancing" show - very impressive!
The girls wanted photos with the guys afterwards, so here it is:
Finally I'll leave you with a picture of me and my girlfriends - it was a great evening with some dear friends.