Sunsplash

It's Outdoor Wednesday and Susan of http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com/ is hosting it so be sure you swing over her blog to see her and her other participants' outdoor posts. It's a fun event for sure.

I am in Florida visiting my kids right now. It so happened that my nephew in law drove from Chicago and took her 3 children as well. So, we, together with my daughter and her family, all drove to Cape Coral to visit my youngest daughter and her family.

While the big guys and my older daughter went fishing, I and my youngest took all 5 kids to Sun Splash Water Park.

There they are! Brendan, my grandson was so funny. As soon as he heard we were going to Sun Splash and the pool, he got his swimming trunks, took off his top and asked me to put his trunks on. Then, he kept saying "swimming pool" , "swimming pool", and kept crying until we placed him in his car seat. He just could not wait. I stayed with Brendan while my daughter took the bigger kids around the water slides. This little guy really had a lot of fun! Then, they all came back to get us to go on the lazy river. Omigosh! I am getting so dark!

The whole gang minus me since I was the photographer.

AJ and her little cousin.

Brendan even tried the water slide for the first time, with much hesitation. I had to get ready to catch him when he got down so I did not want to take another picture.

We were getting hungry so we decided to get home. We all had a great time! What a fun place to spend under a hot Florida sunshine.

Thanks Susan, for another fun outdoor event. And thank you all for coming by!

Welcome to Our Home!

Kelly of http://www.kellyskornerblog.com/ is hosting "Show Us Where You Live Friday" and for this week, the theme is Foyers and I am excited to show you ours. Some of you might already have seen it and I hope you don't mind me showing it again. It will be a lot of fun seeing others' entryways also so let's all visit Kelly and check out all of the participants' contributions.

Welcome to our home!

This is what greets you when you open the door. Black slate flooring, cream tone on tone striped wallpaper and I am not sure what kind of wood frames the entry ways and the crown mouldings. To the left is the formal dining room, straight ahead is going towards the family room and to the right is the formal living room.

There's the entrance to the formal dining room

Going clockwise will lead you to this corner

where my little Buddha fountain sits. I think it exudes some serenity in the space. It is hard to see but the fountain has some light emitting from its hands, which gives just the right amount of glow in the dark.

There you see the tiny light.

This is the view looking out from the family room.

Going clockwise again will take you here.

A 17 inch Lladro "Karina" stands there with a Sevres egg compote,

with a vase with faux orchids and a fairy lamp.We brought her back from Grand Cayman.

A glimpse of the living room.

And now we are getting back towards the door.

I don't know if you have noticed but I do love angels and bunnies, among many other things. LOL!

I hope you enjoyed touring our foyer. Thank you all for coming and thanks to Kelly for hosting this event giving us the opportunity to show you where we live.

A Dinner Party

My favorite day of the week is here again. Yipee! It's time to play but don't forget to visit Susan, our hostess for this fun event. Check out her creative table and visit everyone on her list.

Does this table look familiar? It should cause part of it is what I posted for TT last week. I modified it a little. Can you spot the changes? We had a dinner party Tuesday evening. We invited a physician who refers a lot of patients to John, and his wife, who we recently discovered live only 2 houses away from us. It was accidental when we found out. Their mail was delivered by mistake to us. We also invited the hospital COO and his wife, who is my shopping and planting buddy. They also live in our neighborhood.

Since my table was not used last week and was only set for 4, I added 4 more place settings. I only had a set of 4 of the Tracy Porter Artesian plates so I pulled out some other plates that I thought blended very well.

Here is AJ's place. Do you like my zebra plate? I got it from TJ Maxx about a month ago. And then I saw that little zebra figurine at Marshall's in Destin last weekend.
Here's another pattern.

What do you serve if 2 of the guests are on a strict diet? I decided to grill some chicken breasts and the King mackerel that we caught last weekend. The fish was really good and I know they are fresh since we caught them ourselves. I also made Caesar salad and served the cheese and croutons on the side and light and regular Caesar dressing. My friend Nit, brought some grilled Asparagus with eggplants and mushrooms. Although our 2 guests on a diet did not eat dessert, the rest of us enjoyed a fruit salad and Key lime pie.

These are the Artesian plates that were original to my TT last week.

Another added set. I used my dragonfly place card holders.

They have a 2 year old baby so I took our high chair from the kitchen for her to use.

I used plastic ware for the baby.

I hope you enjoyed my post today. Now, let's all go over at Susan's. Thanks for coming!

Deep Sea Fishing and Pool Progress or Not!

Outdoor Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Susan of http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com/. Let's all go and visit Susan and all of this week's OW participants.

We spent Independence Day weekend in Destin, FL and packed a lot of activities in the 3 days that we were there. One of them was deep sea fishing. Here you will see my nephew, Valiant, who drove 6 hrs. from Port Richey to join us. AJ was already with us since she flew with us from Tampa after the Caribbean cruise. Her mom and step father drove to meet us also but they arrived late so they missed the boat.
AJ really did not want to fish. She said she feels sorry for the fish so she just enjoyed the ride and scenery.

It was a very busy weekend in Destin and we sailed through a lot of resorts, condos and colorful buildings. There were boaters all over.
This is the Emerald Grande right on Destin Harbor.

We used live fish for our bait.
Yes! John is catching one!
Hey! Me too! You know I never realized how hard of a work this is. My arm muscles were aching cranking and reeling that thing up. I was done after 1 fish. LOL!
There's my King mackerel.

Pretty site.

Not a bad catch, huh? They were all King mackerels and they were all over 20 inches long.

And there is the whole gang and all the fish that we all caught. It was an experience but I think I'd rather stay in an air conditioned home blogging. LOL!

And now an update on the pool. They tried to install the turbo slide but unfortuntely, it was facing the wrong way.

The right one where the drop is to the deeper end of the pool has been ordered. Tomorrow, they are installing the brick coping around the pool and on Thursday, they are pouring the cement on the deck. Yipee! I can't wait! I am really getting tired of seeing the dirt outside.

Thanks, Susan, for another fun event. And thank you all for visiting me. I enjoy having you around! Now, let's go see the rest.