‘Tis the Season for Pool Parties

I can’t believe I haven’t posted about this yet.  Dr. Cindita and her husband, Secret Agent Man, were here!  And we had a pool party to celebrate!

They stopped by Florida (from San Francisco) on their way to a vacation in Vieques, Puerto Rico.  Cindita is from here and has many family and friends who still live in the area.  She wanted to have a get-together at the beach for everyone and have Secret Agent Man’s family drive in from Deltona.  But none of the local beach pavilions with grills were available on the date that she needed.  I offered up our house as an alternate location since our backyard is pretty much a family party paradise.

The idea was for everyone to be able to relax, converse, drink, eat and be merry while the children played.  I think we achieved those goals.  If the party had been held at the beach it would have been more difficult for people to interact.  The pavilion and grill would have been up the stairs at the park while the beach would have been down below.  The party would have been divided between food and water play.  I love that we were able to make both happen in the same location.  It was such fun catching up with people I haven’t seen in a while.

This is a photo of all of the people at the party who graduated from my high school.  Classes of 1971, 1990 and 1994 are represented.

It was a long afternoon filled with lots of yummy food (everyone brought a side dish to share) and sunshine and laughter.  I love being able to share moments like this with one of my best friends.  Even if Cindita did let a slight jab slip about a texted “happy birthday” message instead of an actual phone call.  I was guilty of this offense along with another friend.  But as a busy mother of two kids who are in school- she’s not only lucky that she received a text message on her actual birthday but that I also found time to mail her card and gift that got there on time.  I love her and, of course, would not purposely hurt her feelings.  It’s just that most days I’m doing good to remember to charge my phone and take a shower.  🙂

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Memorial Day Recap

We spent Monday out on the islands with B and her family… for seven hours!  It was great!  I have been battling a head cold and was pretty much in bed all weekend moaning, complaining and reading The Help (which is a tremendous book, by the way).  By yesterday morning I was so fed up that I refused to sit in bed another day.  J found some Sudafed in our medicine cabinet that I combined with Advil.  The concoction fixed me up (for four hours anyway) and we set out to enjoy the day with my meds packed in the beach bag for later on.

When the last cookie had been eaten and we could no longer stand another minute in the sun, J drove us to up to Grills for dinner in the boat.

Cutie Pie fell asleep as he usually does at the end of an island adventure.  His power nap was enough to energize him for dinner.  By the time we’d driven through a brief rainstorm and docked at the restaurant, he was ready to go!

Dinner was excellent.  I had the Mahi mahi tacos that had some kind of wonderful spicy sauce on it that made my nose run.  It was about 9 PM by the time we left Grills and the kids were naturally beat from a day full of excitement.  I ended up putting Wildman to bed in his clothes because I could not wake him up when we got to our house.  Both boys had to take a good long bath first thing this morning!  LOL!

The Zoo! The Aquarium! The Actuallys! Oh, my!

On the day we went here,

to see this:

and this (which thoroughly cracked us up):

We also went here:

And could not leave without our own black tip and leopard sharks…

Throughout our comprehensive tour of the animal kingdom I was texting back and forth with a certain someone trying to make plans for that evening.  By afternoon we had a game plan together for a cookout and we were bringing the chips.

That’s right!  We visited The Actuallys!  Bethany and her family graciously invited us over to their home for dinner.  Troy grilled and we shared dinner on their lovely back deck.  It was wonderful meeting Bethany, Troy and Annalie in person.  They were just as sweet and funny as I thought they would be.

It took Wildman (and Cutie Pie for that matter) a while to warm up to the new people and new surroundings.  But as the evening wore on he became more comfortable and was able to communicate effectively with Annalie in the way only 5- and 6-year-olds can…

When Bethany broke out the glow bracelets she secured a place in my boys’ hearts forever.  They still have the necklaces that they made from three bracelets and refuse to part with them even though they don’t glow anymore.  That’s love!

This sweetie and I became fast friends:

Katy loves to be petted and I was happy to oblige.  I am a cat person, after all 🙂

It was hard to tear ourselves away from The Actuallys.  My family and I had a great time getting to know them.  Thank you so much for being such lovely hosts, Bethany, Troy and Annalie!  We will always remember the fun evening we shared with you!  You have an open invitation to swim at our place any time you want.  Just let us know!