Opening Day 2011

Saturday was the Little League Opening Day.  The boys and J had to arrive at 9:20 AM for team and individual pictures.  I met them at the ball field after my morning Zumba class at Curves.  There were so many people at Opening Day that I had to park a block or so away.  It’s so nice to see that level of community support.  The children enjoyed the bounce house, inflatable slide, sno-cones, pizza/hot dogs/hamburgers, the opening ceremony and the home run derby.  It was quite a busy day!  We didn’t leave the ball field until close to 2 PM.

Cousins T-bone and B are also doing Little League this season and joined us for a fun afternoon at our pool.  Can you believe it’s warm enough for that already?  Well, it’s warm enough for them.  It’s not quite warm enough for me.  I turned on the hot tub so they could jump in if they got chilled.

When J got back from kiteboarding he got our boat ready and we all headed up to a local restaurant for dinner.  I love the few restaurants we have on the river that have docks for boaters to tie up.  It was such fun!  There was a live band and a cool breeze on the deck.  The boys were wiped out by the time dinner was over and it was time to go back home.  In fact, I let my boys sleep in their clothes that night…

I love spring!

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The Weekend That Was

I’m sitting here at my computer with a plate of sliced avocado, a small stack of dill pickle chips and a toasted and buttered everything bagel trying to recapture the feeling of peace that I had when I took this sunset photo yesterday evening.  It’s kind of hard to recapture peace when you keep biting the same place on the inside of your bottom lip though.  Don’t you hate when that happens?  You bite it once then it swells and you keep biting it because it’s sticking out.  Ugh!  That hurts!

Anyway, it was another lovely weekend here.  We kicked it off with a couples date night at a really great local restaurant.  We had a private room for eight and a seemingly endless supply of malbec wine.  I had the cobia with a sun-dried tomato cream sauce!  It was pretty much a religious experience.  After dinner we exited through our private deck to the back of the restaurant and walked out onto the restaurant’s pier.  It was freezing but our huddled group made for a great picture 🙂  Our little party made its way over to rundown, hole-in-the wall bar near our house to watch some truly awful karaoke.  It was really fun but the smoke in the seedy bar got to us after a while.  We all got a good laugh about how we went to one of the nicest places and then one of the sketchiest places that night.

On Saturday, J took off to St. Augustine to meet up with his old friend from North Carolina.  His friend was in Florida to celebrate his 50th birthday at a motocross track.  I ended up taking the kids to the zoo then Big Red took Wildman fishing while Cutie Pie napped.  It was homemade pizza and asparagus for dinner then off to bed for us.  J finally rolled in from his wild birthday party fun at 4:30 AM!!!

Sunday found us out on a spoil island again.  The weather was warm with just the right amount of chill in the air to make it comfortable.  Weekend boat trips are one of the best things about living here.  I could have stayed stretched out on my picnic blanket, basking the rays of the sun, listening to the children play, watching the calm water ripple up on the sandbar forever.  It was wonderful.

An Afternoon on the Water

Sunday was another perfect fall day full of sunshine, clear skies and cool breezes!  A perfect day for taking the boat out.  J had spent some time on it making repairs and he wanted to run it to see how it performed on the water.

Big Red ended up texting us while we were out to ask how the boat was running.  He’s been dying to take a ride since we brought the boat home.  Since it was running so well we offered to pick up Big Red and his boys up at a nearby boat ramp.  All I have to say is that we need more girls around here…  I was totally out numbered.

I couldn’t resist taking a “cousins shot” of the boys in their life jackets.

Once everyone was on board and we were underway, I turned on the stereo and started dancing with the boys to “I Like It” by Enrique Iglesias.  Probably not the best lyrics for kids but it is a catchy tune nonetheless.  It was so fun!

We ended up cruising down south to some spoil islands in the Indian River.  The kids were so excited to play and explore!

We spent a lot of time playing Frisbee on the sandbar.

The boys did a little wading in the shallow water around the island.

I was glad that I packed lunch for us.  We were starving!

The boys split their time evenly between running around on the island and running around on the boat 🙂  There were sandy little footprints everywhere!

Around 3:15 PM it was time to pack it in and head for home.  Big Red had to get ready to work at his booth at Boo at the Zoo and our kids were getting tired.

Captain J pointed us north!

The kids retreated to the cabin for a while to play cars.

It was one of those awesome, carefree days that I will remember forever.