The Rest of the Trip

Sunday was really just a clean-up day, as we had to leave for the airport before lunch. Dad sent home a suitcase full (literally!) of scrapbooks and clippings and pictures for me to sort through and label. He had been telling us great stories about our grandpa, and brought out some articles about some of his exploits.

One story that has become almost legend in our family is about the day Grandpa crashed his plane in a field and crawled with bloody face (he slammed into the dash and broke most of the bones in his face) and broken back (5 vertebra!) over a mile to a farmhouse for help, where he then scared two poor widows when he knocked on the door! I never even knew there was a newspaper article about it, but Dad found it. Now we have names and a location. Amazingly, the crash site is less than an hour away from where I live! Now my sisters and I have a mission: we are going to go up and explore the area, and see if we can find anyone still living in that area who may remember hearing stories about the crash. It's a rural area, so I'd imagine that something like that would have been big news for a while. We'll be playing History Detectives for a few weeks :-)

As I said, Sunday was just a pack-up-and-go day. I got one last picture:



I joked about cutting and pasting Aimee twice, so I could be in the picture too LOL.


Our visit was very relaxed, and that was deliberate. We didn't want to pack our days with tourist activities and get worn out while we were supposed to be relaxing. We watched DVDs of LOST, spent some time on the computer (I brought my laptop along, so we didn't have to borrow Dad's), went out to eat, read books, slept late, visited friends. Oh yeah, we giggled and laughed A LOT! It was a great vacation! I could have done with another 5 days of it LOL.

I Had Other Things to Post

I had plans to post pictures; of the kids, of the spring flowers, of my wondering where the heck Spring is???? lol. But I came across this quote in a book I'm reading, and I thought it was awesome.

We live together, you and I, in a dark time when all official history is propaganda. If you want truth, you have to struggle for it.

John Taylor Gatto

I'm not going to make any commentary here. Just chew on that for a while.

Saturday

On Saturday we went over to my dad's friend's house for dinner. We went early so we could go out and see her horses. She owns just one of them, but she boards 3 others. We were hoping to have a chance to go for a ride, but the day was warmer than expected and after a very cold winter (for Florida LOL) they still had their winter coats on. As a result, they were overwarm and not in the mood for any extra work lol. Still, it was fun to pet them and help feed them.

My dad's friend, Maxie, with Chip


Aimee with Maxie's horse Max


Maxie is German, so she fixed us a tasty German meal, with cheesecake for desert. Yum! We had a lot of fun with her. She is funny and well, um, not uptight LOL. It was fun to see her with my dad, who is, especially compared to her! I'm looking forward to spending time with her again, the next time we get to go down.

Friday Night

Here's what we did Friday night:

a few hours of this


an hour of this


and another few hours of this


It was a good Friday!

Florida

My sisters and I are in Florida for 5 days, just the 3 of us at our dad's house, no kids. Ahhhh the quiet! We flew down yesterday; I came down with Michelle, and Aimee met us in Tampa. We worked it out so that our flights would land at the same time down here, so we could all drive to dad's together.

Here, we read the safety instructions, just in case. Oddly enough, there were no warnings if we experience bright white flashes or the plane starts to break up. No worries, though; Frank Lapidus was not our pilot. ;-)



I got the window seat. I love to watch while the plane takes off. So cool! I've flown since I was very young, but the take off still thrills me.


And here, the obligatory wing shot:

because, you know, no one ever takes pictures of the wing and clouds ;-)

I hope to have more pictures over the weekend. My dad is taking us to meet a friend of his who has a stable with 4 horses in it. She has offered to let us ride! A special treat, we don't get that chance very often.

I hope my kids have been enjoying the 40 degree weather; it was 80 here today! Woohoo! Hee hee.

Cuties

Generous Neighbors

Here's a video of the boys riding their tractor and wagon around the driveway a few weeks ago. We have great neighbors, and they offered this great tractor and wagon set to us. I guess their grandchildren are too old for it any more. The boys love it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbBemJpLogI

I had to post the link because YouTube won't let me embed the video for some reason. Darn.

Woohoo, it wasn't YouTube that wasn't working, it was Blogger that wasn't letting me paste the embed code. I got it working Yeah!

What a Difference a Month Can Make

It's good to know Winter is almost over! I mean, just a few weeks ago, the boys were out in this weather:







Note the lack of heavy coats, and the sunshine?


Today, on the other hand, just on the edge of Spring, they were out in this:



It's good to be reassured that it won't always be cold, right? Sheesh! LOL



*just a note; I added pictures to the post about Jacob's birthday below!