We Are Family! A Sociable End to Summer

Hi Everyone!

Holy smokes, it's August! Summer is flying by.

We've been making the most of it though and spending as much time in the great outdoors as possible, despite soaring temps and lots of storms.

First, I think I told you that we got a canoe. We've taken it out a few times now and it's a lot of fun.

One day, we took it out onto Tampa Bay, using the little canoe launch at Cooper's Hawk Bayou.

Since Glenn was taking the pics, you're going to see a lot of my back.

You can see that the Bay is very calm and shallow - just like being out on a lake.

We got to see lot of houses along Bayshore that we hadn't seen before, or at least from a different perspective.

Check out the cute little yellow pool house off of the main house.

Saw these guys catch a fish. We weren't fishing this day, just paddling.

On another morning, we went out to Alligator Lake. It was so pretty and still.

This is the back of that big house they've been building on Bayshore. 

Anyway, no fish that day. We did see a big gator but he was far away and left us alone.

The weekend before last was my birthday (woooo!) and David and Marsha drove up from a youth conference in Orlando to hang out for the weekend. They stayed at the Safety Harbor Spa. Saturday evening, we met up for dinner, stopping first at the Baranoff Tree.

Look how cute they are!

We had a nice dinner on the porch at Parts of Paris, where they gave us free champagne and free desserts for our celebration. We also saw a drunk guy ride his bike straight into a telephone pole and cut his head open. David, Glenn and our waiter tended to the guy, and eventually his wife came and picked him up.

Sunday morning, we took a long walk along Bayshore (Marsha and Glenn taking off at a ridiculous pace) and after breakfast, took them to John Chestnut Park for more walking. I think we did around 6 miles total.

Here's one of the ponds covered in lily pads and purple flowers.

By Lake Tarpon. A little sweaty.

Then we went to cool off at our pool, where David discovered his love of our $2 pool noodles, while Deuce looked for things to steal.

Marsha and Glenn eventually got in as well. The water is really nice right now.

Marsha giving Deuce a talking-to.

Later we had lunch, took naps and met back up for dinner. We went to St. Petersburg and ate at Bella Brava - a nice spot for people watching. We took another quick walk afterwards through the marina, but a storm was rolling in.

Fortunately, we made it to the car with about three minutes to spare.

Despite the storm in St. Petersburg, we thought we might be able to catch a decent sunset at nearby Pass-a-grill Beach. We definitely lucked out.

You can see the rain coming down.

Love this.

I should mention here that David had the nerve to make fun of me for the amount of sunset pics we post to the blog, but he did admit that they were pretty darn nice. (Shut up and put on your Snuggie, Dave!)

Monday, Glenn and I went back to work and left Dave and Marsha to their own devices for the day, but then met up for dinner. We went to Clearwater Beach, where we ate at the ClearSky Cafe and then went and sat around a bonfire on the beach in Adirondack chairs and stuck our toes in the sand.

Dave and Marsha left on Tuesday morning and we were sorry to see them go. We had a blast together. Come back any time, y'all!

Saturday night, we had Chad and Lisha over for a cookout. Because it was a very grey and rainy day, they described it as more of a hurricane party, but we had a lot of fun and a lot of baby back bbq ribs.

This Sunday we got to be a part of a lovely surprise. First - a little background. Dick Galloway was my dad's law partner and is one of his best friends. David and I called Dick and Janice our Uncle and Aunt growing up, and their daughter, Lisa, and son, Rick grew up with us. Lisa married Jeff Monzo, and is now a partner in her dad's law firm.

Anyway, recently Janice had a stroke and she's been having some memory issues and health problems since then. Lisa sent me a text a few days ago and said that their whole family was coming down to Siesta Key Beach for a vacation. She said she didn't know how her mom was going to be healthwise in the future and she wanted to give Glenn and I the chance to see her and spend some time with her while she was still able to appreciate it.

So, we drove down to Siesta Key on Sunday. Lisa did not tell Dick or Janice that we were coming, and they were both very surprised and emotional. Janice knew us right away and was on the ball the whole time we were there. We had a lovely time just sitting around together in their condo and telling stories, laughing, and watching the storms roll in over the Gulf.

(By the way, both Lisa and Janice downloaded Glenn's favorite weather app, called Dark Sky. Janice said she is a big fan of tracking the weather.)

From left to right around the table: Jeff, Lisa, Karen (Janice's sister), me, Uncle Dick, Rick, his girlfriend Cindy, and Aunt Janice.

Glenn captured a pic of Dick trying to get a selfie of us.

All the kids met up with us later (Lisa and Jeff's kids - Connor and Meghan, Connor's girlfriend Annie and Rick's kids - Sydney and Logan). They had gone to a Tampa Bay Rays game.

Then we all went to dinner at Carrabba's. I wish we had gotten a picture of the whole crew at dinner, or one with us and the Monzos but we were having a raucous time telling stories and laughing and we didn't think of it.

Still it was a wonderful heartwarming afternoon, and I was really happy we were able to go.

So - I think that's it for this edition of the blog. Having a delightful end to summer, thanks largely to our family and friends.

Next weekend, we'll be traveling to St. Augustine. We'll keep you posted. Love to you all!