Wordless Wednesday

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The End of an Era

Today marked the final launch of the space shuttle program.  At almost 11:30 this morning, Atlantis safely lifted off from Kennedy Space Center marking the end of an era.

We joined friends at the beach to share this historic moment with the million or so spectators who lined the Space Coast.  The weather has been iffy lately and we were not sure that the shuttle would even go today.  Happily for us and the many, many visitors who made a special trip to Brevard County, we were treated to a beautiful launch.  The cloud cover did not interfere with our view, thankfully!  And there were no storms in the area to delay lift off.

J was able to take the day off to join us at the beach.  He brought his longboard along for a little surf session before launch.

We met three other families for a play date of sorts.  The children were so happy to see one another!  They had a great time running from the surf to our chairs and back again.  It was fun watching them all interact.  One little girl brought a packet of astronaut ice cream to share.  Wildman loved it, Cutie Pie was not so sure about it…

It was also nice catching up with the adults.  Two of the moms who met us are pregnant and they looked so lovely.  Time flew by as it always does at the beach amid a flurry of games, snacks, lunch and conversation.  As we packed up to leave after three hours of sandy fun, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit sad that we’ll never be able to use a shuttle launch as a reason for an impromptu play date again.

It’s Florida. It’s June. Let’s Swim.

I’m joining a friend for a yoga class in an hour.  So, I’m sitting here at my computer eating a bowl of raisin bran to fuel up for a possible beating.  My friend is a yoga instructor and is wonderfully limber and strong.  She is not teaching the class tonight, however.  And I’m thinking that any class that an instructor attends as a student must be good (meaning brutal for us mortals).  Wish me luck.

Yoga has nothing to do with this post except that the lady who brought her kids over for a play date yesterday (Kati) is a fellow yoga lover.  She used to join me at the preschool on Monday mornings for the free class that our instructor friend (the one I’m joining tonight) taught.  Kati will be summering with her kids in Wisconsin.  Her husband travels for work quite a bit and Kati didn’t feel like staying here with her kids by herself all summer long.  Her mom, dad and extended family all live in Wisconsin so she’ll have plenty of support.

Kati and her family leave next week and yesterday at noon was the only time that worked for both of our schedules for us to get together before they take off.

Kati’s oldest son is the same age as Cutie Pie.  They were in the same class when they were two years-old but had different teachers this year.  Her son is a beginning swimmer and discovered the joy of using a kick board in our pool.  He went from being very nervous about trying it to needing some assistance from his mom to completely kicking around the pool on his own.  It was so cool to watch his confidence grow!

I invited Wildman’s friend to join us too.  Both of his parents work so he is spending his summer days with his grandma and his baby brother.  I think this play date was a nice break for him.  The boys played in the pool nonstop!  They build floating forts, had water squirter battles, did cannonballs and swam laps.

I served all sorts of finger foods to snack on.  The boys had cheese pizza for lunch and ice pops for dessert.  Summer would not be summer without Popsicles!

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My cereal has been eaten and my daily blog post has been written.  I think I’ll look up the size limit for mangrove snapper for J.  He called me from the boat in the Keys to ask me this afternoon.  Unfortunately, I was with the kids at Chuck E. Cheese’s and could not easily look up the information for him.  Chances are the overly friendly (read: gay) marine patrol officer will search the boat again “looking for fishies” this evening…  I don’t want him and Big Red to be fined for illegal fish!