Key Lime Turkey Day

Finally, the long awaited Key West Blog. Sorry it has taken so long to get these pictures posted. We have been very busy since we got home, and on top of all of the shopping, and wrapping, I am sick AGAIN! uugghh. So, since I am home today, I figured I could at least sit in front of the computer and post this blog. Hope you all are healthy!

Tom and Castor in Marathon, FL. We stopped here to have a Thanksgiving lunch on the way to Key West. geeeezz what a drive! We sat outside right on the water! Ask Tom if you should feed the fish at this place. (FYI : I am NOT a bird person!)

This is where we stayed. It was actually pretty nice, considering the 2 pictures on the internet were from 1982. We weren't sure what we were getting into!

On the first night the ladies went to a drag show. This was my first time at a drag show, and it was a blast! This is Melissa and "Cher". Melissa also got to get on stage with "Cher" for her birthday!

Happy Birthday Tom and Melissa! Here we are at Blue Heaven for birthday breakfast. This restaurant was wonderful. If you are ever in Key West, be sure to stop here!!

Tom's birthday breakfast : Lobster and filet mignon eggs benedict!

We had to stand in line for this picture!! We didn't have to wait anywhere (except Blue Heaven), so I was shocked that there was a line for this thing!

This was on the Rum and Reggae cruise. After snorkeling, they serve free beer and rum punch. Since the snorkeling was not fun, we got our money's worth of "free" drinks!

Some stranger thought it would be a good idea to give Jamez a giant sparkler. It was funny!

Tom riding a mechanical bull. I think he is wanting to make this his profession!

At the famous Elbo Room in Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Another classic Jazz Hands picture!! Ft. Lauderdale.

This was our last night in FL. We got some stone crab to munch on since we never really got to have the seafood feast Tom and I were hoping for. Stone crab is pretty yummy- but you eat it cold, which was a little weird. That's Archie trying to get a little taste of the crab. He is such a good boy!

HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trish and I usually stay home on Halloween to greet the millions of trick or treaters......Yeah right, out here in the county in the past 3 years I think we've only had one. We got invited to a costume party and racked our brains for ideas, I wated to go as an Amish couple, But Trish wasn't in to that, so she said..."Why don't we go as a Greek God and Goddess". What a perfect idea!!! They also handed out door prizes for best costume, most original, and sexiest costume. We won the trophy for best costume!!!! So here are some pics...............

Our friends Eric and Crissy always go all out for this holiday, and the proof is in the puddin', Eric won the trophy for sexiest costume!!(thats a guy on the left:) He's crazy, he shaved every piece of hair off of his body to really get into costume!!!

Finished Product!!!

The tile/grout and metal transition strip went really well, only cut one of my fingers, and managed to embed a small sliver of tile into the ball of my foot, but all is well, it will heal. Not too bad for the first tile experience I've ever had.........

TILE!!!

There was a lot of tile left over from a job I've been working on, and the home owner said I could take some. I've always wanted to get rid of the vinyl flooring in our entry way, and this was a great opportunity!!! Here is a before picture...............
Maggie was a great supervisor............

I still need to put down the metal transition strip between the carpet and tile and also grout it, but not too bad for a Saturdays worth of work.

WISHING IT WAS ALL A BAD DREAM.........

I know what you must be thinking.....Not more wood photos.......well, Mother Nature made this decision for us, we weren't planning on this, but due to severe drought and then 6 or 7 inches of rain, (that we got in a matter of 48 hours) this old Hickory tree gave up. 11:30 the other night, we heard what sounded like a large limb coming down, but it was actually a whole tree. I talked with a tree guy and a lady that works for the Forest Service, and was told it was the biggest Hickory tree that they have ever seen. What a shame to lose a tree, but whats worse is that it landed primarily in our neighbors yard and on his chainlink fence. What a mess!!! But with the help of Trish, my neighbor, some of his relatives, a couple friends of mine, and the lady from the forest service, we got the majority of it cut up, cleaned up and 6 truck loads hauled out. The biggest parts of the tree are still down there, I just couldn't do it today. I worked on it 11 hours on Friday, 10 hours on Saturday, and a couple hours yesterday morning, then we had company show up, so we were entertaining them yesterday, last night and for a while today, running around downtown and stuff. So here are more tree pictures........................

this is where it crunched the neighbors fence- this picture is actually taken from the road, looking up at our house
Some of the cuts were a little scary, but how else was I supposed to do it?

My buddy josh(red bandana) and my neighbor brad. Root Ball......... Trish throwing wood around.

Massive pile of brush, we hauled multiple loads and built this huge pile, it's 10 feet tall and probably 20 feet long. Wanna come over for a massive bon-fire???

My famous pictures....

I might be a famous model next time you see me.
Just kidding, but I am making my big time debut on the side of a bus in September. This is how it happened.....
I volunteered to have my picture taken for a recruitment and retention ad campaign at work. When I emailed one of the "bosses" at work about it, I said that I would do it, but that I did not think I was "billboard quality". I was assured that although she thought I was billboard quality, we would ONLY being doing posters. So a few weeks went by, and the big picture day came. When we showed up, the lady who was organizing this ad campaign greeted us and asked which slogan we wanted. I guess I should back up and tell you that we are coping an ad campaign that New York City just did, using "real social workers". Their campaign features 16 real workers with slogans that say "Are you____ enough" to be a CPS social worker. The blanks are filled with adjectives such as kind (mine), tough, real, strong, clear, bold, cool, calm, and so on. So we are picking out what word we wanted, and being a Libra, I picked 3 before it was all said and done! They only put me on one picture though! So as we are doing that this woman says, Oh, this is gonna be great!! You know we have the buses for the months of September and October right? We were like, um, what buses? So she goes on to tell us that our beautiful pictures are going to plastered on the side (or back, or inside) of the Asheville City buses!! Well, it was too late to turn back at this point, so I went on and figured that half of this county knows I'm a social worker any way, so whats a bus picture gonna hurt? I can hear it now....."Hey, there goes my Social Worker!!". The guy taking the picture was not a professional, and he was a tad bit obsessed with the shadow effect. So not only was he trying to get the shadow right on my face, I was also having a REALLY hard time not smiling! so the picture is not the best...but it's not too bad... Some of the other people's pictures were really not very good. I guess thats why we are the lucky 3 on the bus sign!
So, here they are.......

I have NO idea what has happened to this picture. It looked normal when I was down loading it.
Chances are most of you have seen it in an email anyway.....sorry!

This is the official city bus picture!!

Southern Ohio and Fresh Garden Pictures!!!!

This past weekend Trish and I and the dogs headed up to South Central Ohio to camp for the weekend. Our Friends, Brant and Erin, have 40+ acres that sits next to a national forest. They have a small lake on the property, hiking trails and a rustic cabin. We met up with some of their friends that still live in Ohio and hung out for the weekend. There were ten of us and three dogs there. We had a great time and I think the dogs had even more fun. It was a long ride(5hrs.) but well worth it!!! When we got home today and checked on the garden, a lot of things had changed. The Yellow squash was ready to pick and there's another that will be ready in a day or two, the corn started producing, cucumbers were bigger and multiplying, and a few of the jalapenos were ready to pick.

I think that maggie tried to find the patches of Poison Ivy to lay in, she must not know how easily I get it. Loungin in the lake and Maggies first real attemp at swimming. She jumped/fell off the dock and swam out to me, looked pretty scared but she survived. She wouldn't get back in, so we had one of the other people there throw her in so we could get the picture above.
Brant and Erin, they both work with Trish and also live just a mile and a half up the road from us. Brant's Grandfather and a friend bought the property in Ohio in the 60's and passed it down to Brant's Dad who then bought out the other fellow. The forest service wants it, but they aren't willing to sell........Can you blame them? It's beautiful!!!! Sorry no pics of the cabin, but it's a really cool place, a hand built log style cabin, constructed out of trees they cut down on the property. No running water, but they have power via a generator and an outhouse for when nature calls:)
The garden.....................Neither of us knew how big the squash plants would get, but that's one right in front of me..almost waist high!!

Garden Update.......

For those of you who looked at our previous posts, this is what our garden started out as.......
Out of all of the different veggies we planted, the only things that didn't come up were the carrots and green onions. The Corn, Yellow Squash, Cucumbers, Roma and Cherry Tomatoes, as well as the jalapeno plant have been doing very well!!!! Looking forward to making some fresh salsa with these little guys.......

Good Friends....Good Times.....Lots-O-Critters!!!!!!!!!

Well, Here is the long awaited vacation blog! Sorry it has taken so long. We have been busy (and tired!) since we have been home.
Here is Tom, Melissa, and dog Blue on a mountain in the Wasach-Cache National Forest Melissa and I at the Snake River Brewing Co. in Jackson Hole, WY.
Tom and Castor at the Brew Pub- yummy food and beer!
Arriving in the Grand Teton National Park. Beautiful huh?

Welcome to Yellowstone.

Bison (buffalo) EVERYWHERE!! This is truley where the "buffalo roam"!
Mammoth Springs. These springs, or geysers have made some really cool formations.
These trees are extremely old (can't remember exactly how old), and they have been calcified by the geysers' water.
This was the most exciting part of mammoth springs- there is actually water in this area. The rest of it was pretty old and dried up. The colors in the water are from the bacteria and other little creepy- crawleys that live in the water! Take note of some of the other colors in the pictures to come.
Here we are at Norris Geyser. And oh yeah, it was HOT!

This is the only green/yellow water we saw around the geysers. It was pretty!

When we first got to this attraction we passed a group of people and an older lady with the group said something about going to see more "Geezers". It was so funny--- so we called the geysers "geeezers" all week! Her group quickly corrected her, and told her they were geysers. She then said something like, well what ever....

This is the grand canyon of Yellowstone. We are on top of the water fall. It was beautiful, but I was scared to death and didn't like standing on the edge for very long, even though there was a fence! The older I get the more I am scared of heights! Take note of the snow on the right side.
Tom throwing snowballs at Castor. Walking in snow with sandals on is a unique experience, so I had to go down there and stick my feet in! This was at a little "pull out" just past the canyon. We stopped here and ate lunch out of the car.
We sat down by a river and watched this herd of bison hang out. See the dust? The males were fighting (showing off I'm sure!) and kicking up the dust. There were quite a few babies out there, and it was so relaxing to watch them....but we kept looking over our shoulders to make sure none came up behind us. We passed some on the way to this spot.
This is the inn at Old Faithful. It was built in 1904. The inside is beautiful, and I have no idea why we didn't take pictures of it........sorry! Guess we will have to go back!

Melissa and I showered here. Tom seems to think that we weren't supposed to use the facilities, but Melissa asked at the front desk where the showers for the "public" were and she was told that they are on the 2nd floor. The rooms in the hotel are pretty small and some don't have their own bathrooms, so there is a main bathroom/shower room. I don't feel too bad about showering there, I need to wash my hair!!

Here she is.......Old Faithful!
We don't know the name of this geyser, we saw it from the back. It is huge, and the colors in it are very cool! The steam looks blue and reddish orange....kind of looks like Mars! There was a storm in the background, and it looks like the steam connects with the storm cloud.

Damn tourists!

In the Uinta Mountains. There was a ton of snow in this parking lot. Tom walked to the bathroom and he was in snow up to his knees! The snow was melting and running down the hill behind us- thats why our feet are wet!
Ahhhh, Ruths. We could write a whole blog on Ruth's Diner. Food was GOOD, Bloody Marys were GOOD, and the biscuits were TO DIE FOR for! (Ruth's gravy was not good though---sorry Tom!)
Putt Putt Fun in the Hott Hott Sun! In Salt Lake City.
Tiger and Arnold of putt putt.
The next group of pictures are from Castor's camera.

Melissa and I, in the Wasach-Cache in Salt Lake. This was like a 10 minute drive from their house. The hike was pretty short too- but the air was thin!

At mammoth spings in yellowstone. These were young French tourists and they asked me to take their picture. As I was taking the picture sassy girl here, arched her back and got all sassified and I laughed at her as I took the picture. I didn't recall actually laughing at her- it was more of a nervous, I will laugh at this later, laugh....but Melissa, Tom and Castor said I laughed right at her. It was very funny! You know I love to people watch and this was a great place for it! Some of the tourists must not think they are going to the woods, and they get all dressed up, and sassified! I'm pretty sure I just made up that word too--- sassified!
Castor and Melissa
A Marmot. Cute little critter!
A herd of Elk!
An Elk right near the parking lot at the canyon.

Waterfall, at the canyon I believe. Black bear asleep in a tree!
Grizzly bear! This is the 3rd one we had seen on this day. This was after the big carcus eating adventure!

Here is a momma moose! She was grazing, so it was hard to get a good picture of her. She had a baby down there with her too! This was in the Grand Teton Natl. Park on our way home.

Fairy Falls

This is the huge geyser from a few pictures back. This is a picture from above, obviously! Doesn't it look like a big sun?

A very cold night!

leaving fairy falls

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! We had a blast on this vacation.......hopefully we get to do it again. Yellowstone is just amazing, and I would encourage anyone to go! I think I would like to sleep in a small camper next time though....I was a bit scared of the bears, and it was cold! Thank you Castor and Melissa!!!!! We had a great time and can't wait to take Ya'll on a Smokey Mountain Critter Safari next year!!!!