This past summer was great. We enjoyed our kids, grandkids, many barbeques and lots of company. We made a trip to the East coast spending some time in the Eastern states as well as in Quebec. Don's family is all well, and we managed to see all of them that are still down East. A stop in Kitchener on the way home proved productive as we were able to bring Don's sister to our place to visit for a few days.

Now the visiting is done, and we are busy getting the yard and garden ready for winter. Bushes and trees are cut back, leaves piled around rose bushes, and garden dug up for next year. Work, work, work!

Fall is here, the leaves have changed color and are falling faster than they can be mulched up with the mower. Before you know it, this scene will be covered in white. But, the good news is I'll be in Florida so I don't care.

There was snow a couple of weeks ago in Saskatchewan, and snow earlier this week in Northern Ontario. That is getting too close for comfort. As much as I love our Canadian Seasons and the changes that our foliage undergoes, I would much prefer just Spring, Summer and Fall. Winter is a 5 letter word to me. I guess growing up in Saskatchewan where -40 was the norm for so much of the winter has something to do with that feeling. I do have 2 siblings that decided to stay in that fridgid provience and be tough, but whimp that I am I decided that Florida is the only place to be during the months that have Snow in them.

CATCH UP TIME

It has been a long time since I posted anything. Needless to say it has been a very busy summer. We had a few grandchildren stay with us at the beginning of the summer. Don's 72nd birthday in July called for a big dinner and 5 out of 7 of the kids attended a big barbecue along with spouses and children for a dinner for 16..

My garden this year may have been small, but it was very productive. We have been eating cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini and okra. Herbs include parsley, thyme, basil, and chives. We are enjoying the fruits of our labour.

Don's sister Doreen from Kitchener visited towards the end of June and again just last week. We always enjoy her visits. We took the first two weeks of September for a vacation . We travelled through New York, Main and up into New Brunswick for a visit with Don's siblings.

Some pictures of our vacation were posted on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/72938403@N00/ My camera was left in Kingston so I'll post more later.

A couple of days were spent in Rimouski, Quebec reuniting Don with a friend he hadn't seen in 53 years. It was a touching reunion. We then spent a couple of days in Cornwall, Ont and visited friends from Florida and had a grand tour of the countryside including Moose Creek and St. Albert where we visited a cheese factory. I ate Poutine for the first time. A couple of casinos were visited over in the U.S. across from Cornwall and we played dice for hours with them. We spent one night with Don's niece in Amherstview just outside of Kingston, Ont. Her husband will be shipping out to Afghanistan early in November for 6 months. We learned how to make beer can chicken. It is excellent!

Lots to do when we got home as Doreen was with us and lots of catching up to do. Everything is now back to normal, Don keeps busy in his garage and I am back working at the local Food Bank and meals on wheels kitchen. Bingo on Wednesdays is the biggest game in town.

Heat Wave 2008

If you can't read the temperature it is 35.7 C. That is in the shade outside my livingroom window at 3:45 pm June 8/08

As soon as the heat breaks I will get back onto my Blog and fill in the blanks since March when I made my last entry.

A Cruise to Remember

The Royal Caribeean "Mariner of the Seas" Mar -29, 2008 visited St. Marteen, St. Thomas and San Juan, Peurto Rico. This picture may not be our vessel as we saw so many and I took so many pictures, but it will give you an idea of the size. There was a total of 14 decks the top two being only part the size of the whole vessel. We were in the center of the 10th deck and that was just about a perect spot to be. Hardly any motion felt at all.

The service aboard the ship was outstanding. This is a picture of just a few of the waiters and assistant waiters in the dining room. They performed for us a couple of times during the trip. The food was great! We had prime rib, Lamb T-bones, lobster, lamb shanks, chicken, tenderloin, and just about everything you can imagaine inbetween. Breakfast and lunch most days were in the buffet, but dinner (2 formal nights) was in the dining room.

My sister, Margaret and I did a tour of the Is. of St. Martin/St. Marteen, I shopped on St. Thomas and we just took pictures from the ship of San Juan.

Many hours were spent reading on a chaise lounge on the upper deck, a few relaxing turns in the spa, as well as many miles traveled up and down the halls. The ship was huge. There was a parade on the Royal Promenade, an Ice show one night on the skating rink, several musicals, as well as the Casino and bingos. We were kept busy.

This is sunset over San Juan. The color of the water changes as the sun goes down.

Here you can see the true color of the Caribeean. This is a view from a hilltop on the French side of St. Marteen. We did a bus tour of both Dutch and French side.

A 45 min. stop at a small flea mkt. to shop made the trip well worth taking. We saw wildlife (sheep that looked like goats to me) , and the salt lakes that used to supply the island with an industry before tourism became it's mainstay.

It was a week I will not soon forget.

Winter in Florida

Between Valentines Day and now my flowers have stayed beautifully fresh. It is a lovely bouquet. Today I picked my first cherry tomatoes. Feb 24 and gardening, I just love it. It is hard to believe that in just a month+ Don will be heading home already. I have been here already 3 months + a week. and soon will be thinking about packing. I hate the thought of it.

On the bright side, my sister arrives in just 3 days, not counting today (we count get-ups), and one week from today we leave on a 7 day Eastern Caribbean cruise. I am so excited.

Don will be well looked after while I am gone. He has many friends in the park and all of them will make sure he is well tended to as far as getting to the store, company, and maybe even an outing on the Treasure Island
Casino cruise. In fact I think he is planning that even before Marg and I sail. That is ok, we are doing the beach that day.

All in all it has been a perfect winter so far, and I have no doubts it will get even better.

Green Iguana

http://www.greeniguana.com/ The Food was excellent and the atmosphere was great. Too bad I forgot my camera. The burgers are to die for.

I had the burger on the bottom right topped with tabosco onions

Black and Bleu Burger
Take a whiff of this! Caribbean spices, bleu cheese, mayo and tabacco onions. $6.95

Winter in St. Petersburg, Florida

We had a near Tornado type rain/wind storm on Saturday, windy yesterday, cold today and tomorrow I will go to the beach. High of 75 F and sunshine all day. That is winter in Florida it changes day to day. So far our winter has been absolutly great. The rain on Sar. was the first of 2008, and not much expected over the next week or so.

I have been busy in the park, also joined Shpaes so go their for water exercise classes 5-6 times per week. Hopefully it will firm me up a bit. Eating out does not help the waistline but I have had lunch out last week at Leverocks in South Pasadena with the Shapes group. Dinner Saturday with the Scarlett Hustlers of Penellas (Red Hat Society) at Sam Seltzer's (See picture, I am on the right). and tomorrow the Crafter's group from our Park are going the the 4th Street Shrimp House for lunch. Oh well, it is a tough life......

Comfort Food

We had 2 days of cooler weather down in St. Peterburg, Florida so it was benificial to use the oven. This is a Cauliflower and ham Impossible Pie. I used the recipe on www.aliciasrecipes.com and just added some ham, sauted red pepper and left-over green beans to the Cauliflower Impossible Pie recipe. It had more volume so it took about 15 minutes longer to bake. Severed with some zesty chili sauce and a salad and we had a nice supper in a warm kitchen. Happy to report that the high today is back up to 22 and by early next week we could hit 30 again.