January 21, 2008

• Hey, friends!
  Doyle and I got home from our road trip to SW Florida about 9 pm Saturday. We had a wonderful time with our families in Bradenton and the surrounding area, and also really enjoyed our time together on the road.
  It was chilly and windy in Florida, but in spite of the weather, we had great opportunities for good talks and visits with various family members.
  Here are some photos of highlights from our trip:

  Doyle and his "baby girl," Erika.....
  

  

  Bougainvillea blooms year-round in Sarasota.....
  

  Marina Jack's, at the Sarasota harbor. This is where Daddy kept his sloop, "Moonraker"  - his dream sailboat -
  for many years.
  

  

  

  Doyle and his older granddaughter, Morgan, 11...
  She's a sixth-grader and absolutely a doll.
  

  D's younger granddaughter, Madison ("Maddie"), six... a first-grader and a little Southern lady....
  

  My nephew Ben, five, at his horseback lesson on Pumpkin Pie....a happy guy! He LOVES horses.

  

  Ben also loves to cook. We stayed at his house, and I loved getting to spend some special time with my little buddy. I always think of him as my first grandchild, because he's the youngest of my mom and dad's grandchildren, and he's very special to his Auntie.
  

  
  

  Morgan looking great in a red hat!
  

  
  

  
  Maddie painting a ceramic bank at Splatters, a fun place we took the girls for an artistic outing.....Morgan painted glaze on a penguin figurine, but Maddie went for the flip-flops bank.
  

  

  We took the girls to Captain Eddie's,
  our favorite seafood spot.
  The restaurant owners have their own fishing boat, so you're
   eating shrimp or grouper or scallops that were swimming
  in the Gulf earlier that day...yum!

  

  My sisters and I went to lunch in downtown Sarasota, and decided to go to a place new to me....I had "bum (pronounced "boom") pork," which was a big bowl full of rice vermicelli, lettuce, fresh mint leaves, sliced cucumber, small slices of fried pork, all topped with a "mild fish sauce."
   Different, but not bad!
  

  After our Vietnamese lunch, I talked them into going a few doors down
  to the French place, where we had fruit and custard tarts
   and GREAT coffee!
  
  Doyle's son Rob (Maddie and Morgan's daddy)
  and his fiancee' Christine,
  whom we were meeting for the first time and were crazy about...

  
  

  Erika and her fiance' Mike, with the neat photo album she made for us to bring home to her grandmother...

  

  
  Maddie and Morgan were learning how to use my camera in the truck on the way home....
  Morgan shot this one of me and Maddie...
  

  Okay, thanks for coming along! If you can stand it,
   I'll post photos of our journey home another day.
  Write me a comment and say hello...I've missed y'all!
  

  • 9:45 pm
  • 6 Comments