A River Runs Through It.

Hello everyone -

What can I say about July in Florida that won't sound cliché? It is hot. Like crazy, birds bursting into flame, sidewalk melting, hanging out in the core of the sun hot.

Not that I am complaining, mind you. Although our daily walks have become a dangerous health hazard.

At any rate, when we aren't napping or being motionless, we've taken part in a few blog-worthy activities.

First off, we'll go back to the fourth of July/ Glenn's birthday weekend. Glenn decided he wanted to celebrate by working on a project we had been planning for the backyard. I've shown you in past blogs how a portion of our yard turns into a stream in the summer, so we decided to put in a dry riverbed. This would also give Glenn less grass to mow.

He got 6 1/2 tons of rock (that's 13,000 lbs for our math friends) and shoveled them all, wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow, from the driveway to the back yard. Here's the proof.

Here's the before pic

Did I mention it's been smoldering hot? Glenn probably lost 10 lbs in sweat.

I think this is as close to finished as we can show you. As you can tell, Glenn built up the wall on the side so we hopefully get less flooding in the rest of the yard. Mulched and added some new plants around the palm trees. Evened out the rest of the yard with some dirt and will be planting grass in those spots. I think it came out beautifully. Atta way, Glenn!

However, as much as he just wanted to shovel rock every day, we did some other activities as well. We went fishing on July 4, but had no luck except for this.

I feel like we've all seen this pic before.

That night, we decided to check out the little fireworks show in Safety Harbor. There were more people in Safety Harbor than we had ever seen.

Despite the crowds, our little Harbor looked beautiful.

I hate fireworks pics, but since Glenn took a bunch, I feel obligated to show you a few. It was actually a good little show.

This was all well and good, except since there are only two roads to get in/out of Safety Harbor, the enormous crowd completely gridlocked traffic. It took us over an hour to get home (probably a mile and a half.) I was very close to ditching Glenn in the car and walking home in the dark. So, we'll probably never do that again.

The next morning, all was calm again. Glenn and I took our morning walk along Bayshore and stopped on the bridge.

You'll have to take my word for it, but there were two little manatees playing in the water. Here you can see a nose...

Ok, so now, back to this weekend. Yesterday, we decided to go to a park we hadn't been to yet - A.L. Anderson park in Tarpon Springs. It is the sister park to John Chestnut, and on the other side of Lake Tarpon.

It's a smaller park, but was really beautiful.

We did some bass fishing here after our walk, but alas, no fish.

Really Glenn?

Nice, huh?

So last night, we drove to Clearwater Beach for dinner, and then walked down the beach to the Sandpearl, where we sat out in Adirondack chairs in the sand, listened to some live music and watched the sun come down. It was a perfect evening.

Glenn took a pic of me taking some sunset pics. Thanks again to my superzoom, I got some cool shots.

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Looks like the sun is just melting into the sea.

Goodnight, sun!

This morning, we decided to take the pups on a walk, even though I've been hesitant taking them out into this heat. We took them to Phillipe Park which at least has lots of trees and some shade.

Female night heron.

There was a dolphin that swam up along here as well, but he was too fast for us.

We took the pups into the Bay to cool off a little, although the Bay water is in the 80s and the Gulf water is in the 90s.

Tonight, we went to Indian Rocks Beach for pizza at Slyce, and then took a long walk along the beach. It was...need I say this?...hot. But still, can't complain. Hope you are all having a great week. Talk to you soon! Love, us.