My Grandbabies LOL (picture heavy)

I've mentioned my two kids, but have yet to mention my grandbabies LOL  my son insists he is never having kids, so I have to just accept his two cats as my babies.  Here are their baby pictures :)

This is Commander

This is Midnight

They are both very sweet and playful, not big on cuddling though.  They will run back and forth, playing with their toys, and wrestling.  They even play fetch,  Throw the toy and they bring it back.  It's cute at first, but sometimes it gets a bit old,  

Commander is older than Midnight by about five months.

  

BTW: Commander is a boy and Midnight is a girl

They love to hang out together napping

I find them in the craziest places LOL

King Commander

Midnight Dragon

Sporting their Autumn looks

It is surprising how much my son dotes on those two cats.  I am still hoping that he changes his mind in the future and gives me some human grandchildren, but these two are good substitute cuddles in meantime.  

Water Wednesday

Usually on Wednesday I try to do something water themed.  Often it is going to the pool or the splash fountain at Sunshine park.  Today I thought we would try something different, and go have lunch on the water.  We went to Singleton's Seafood Shack.  It was featured on the Food Network's Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives.

The food selection was of course seafood, fresh from Mayport.  Prices were OK. Inside was just the way you'd expect an actual seafood place to be.  Since it was right next to the Naval Station there were quite a few Navy guys there as well as fishermen type.  It was very casual place,  The food though was great.  

I got the fried shrimp basket.  Even though fried, it was nice and light.  The coleslaw got Staci's seal of approval, and the collard greens were out of this world good.  I wanted a big bucket of them LOL 

They offer three different hot sauces to test out if brave enough. The Colon Cleaner one cracked me up.  I could just see us serving it to the patients at work before a colonoscopy LOL 

The owl was cute

Enjoying the sunshine while waiting on our food

After eating we looked at all these little miniature wooden boats on display inside.  There were hundreds and hundreds of them.

Singleton's was a great place to eat, we highly recommend it :)

Travel Tuesday

Since doing themes this week, or at least trying to, for Travel Tuesday we went to the Jacksonville Farmers Market.  OK it was Wednesday morning, but I am counting it LOL

I am all about having a happy and healthy summer, so to the market we went.  It is a great place to find fresh, seasonal, locally produced foods. It's an open air market located at 1810 West Beaver Street in downtown Jacksonville.  It has large outdoor bays filled with a broad selection of yummies. 

There are bins and baskets full of colorful fruits and veggies just waiting to be made into something fresh and healthy to eat. 

I love all the colorful displays. 

With Staci helping to pick out the fruits and veggies, my odds of her trying them greatly improve

What we finally ended up with LOL  The green tomatoes are going to be used to make baked green tomatoes (much healthier than fried, but just as good)  the okra is going to be stewed with the red tomatoes, onion, and spicy seasoning, and the bell peppers are going to be stuffed.  Peaches are just to be enjoyed alone :)

Well I finished up the kitty from yesterday LOL  disclaimer I am sadly in need of sleep, and I do not sew, plus no pattern, so this all came out of my sleep deprived brain LOL  anyway here is a picture of the finished product. Staci named her Sparkle Kitty :)

 OK well my girl likes the kitty, that is why she is the best.  She has been carrying it around all day long. She says it is special because I made it.  She about made me cry.  I love her so much :)

          So I guess if this blog is to be a success I need to keep posting in it LOL  It is challenging to do over the weekend since I am working.  Hence all posts will be done during the week when I am trying to be the best mommy I can.  I love being a mom.  I was blessed to begin in that role 21 years ago.  My son is amazing, he has been my rock since the day he was born.  No matter what life threw at me, he was there inspiring me and keeping me going.  Now he is becoming a man, and I cannot wait to see what he does.  I just wish I saw more of him, but between him working full time, and going to college to study law, I hardly get time with him.  So most of my mommy time is spent with my daughter.  She is my best friend.  She turns 7 years old next month.  She is gorgeous on the inside and out.  She loves laughing and keeps me on my toes LOL  She is also my excuse to enjoy doing kid-centric things.
          I love being a kid at heart.  I love all things Disney.  I am also a Southern girl.  I was born in Malvern, Arkansas which is about an hour's drive from Little Rock, Arkansas.  I lived there with my mom and my younger brother until I was about eleven years old.  After that I lived in Reno, Nevada until I was 21.. Yeah I wasn't that much into the whole gambling thing or snow sports, so I moved back to Arkansas.  After being back about a year I ended up sick and in Baptist Hospital for a week.  The nurses took such amazing care of me that I decided I wanted to be just like them and make a difference in people's lives.  So off to nursing school I went.  I graduated with my BSN from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.  I was an oncology nurse for the first five years of my career.  Cancer patients and their families are absolutely incredible.
          So along come Y2K and I get the itch to travel again.  So my son and I moved to Tucson, Arizona.  Beautiful city with lots to do.  My son and I lived there about six years.  The cost of living was low so I only had to work weekends as an agency nurse.  The rest of the time was spent being a mommy to my son, doing all sorts of boy stuff.  It was fun.  Eventually though we had to move back to Reno.  There I did float pool nursing at Renown Hospital.  In Reno I had family, and my son was growing up, but something was missing.
          I wanted a baby girl to play with.  Too many issues dealing with custody and my son, so I wanted a little girl all my own. No worries about having to share her ever.  I went to a specialist and with docs help and the California Cryo Bank I was able to conceive my daughter who was born in 2009.  I was forty years old and a new mommy again LOL  Now life was full of princesses, the color pink, and darling lil outfits.  She makes me smile every day.  I cannot imagine life without her.
          OK so now I have my son and my daughter.  Travel  bug strikes again so we moved.  We lived in Hot Springs, Arkansas for a year.  We had hoped to reconnect with family, but that didn't happen.  Too many years had passed, we didn't fit in with the relatives, so we decided to move to Florida.  We chose Jacksonville, because of an article I read that said it was good for people living on retirement income,  That is important to my mom who moves where we move.  Her and my daughter are completely inseparable.  So now we live in the Sunshine State.
          That explains the picture at the top.  So far we are enjoying living in Florida, and do not imagine living anywhere else.  I mean I am within driving distance to Disney World LOL  a drive I have taken many times now.  We love summertime, even though it get incredibly hot and humid.  The summers are long and the winters are mild and short.  Florida is HUGE, over 65 thousand square miles to explore, yet no matter where you are, you are never more than sixty miles from the beach.  It is ironic, I love looking at the ocean, I live by the beach, and yet you will never catch me in the ocean LOL I have an irrational fear of sharks,  I will get my toes wet collecting seashells, but that is about it. No going in the water for me.  Oceans have sharks, and all other water has gators, even the birds are deadly LOL

Yeah I didn't take that picture, I found it in my Facebook feed.  It cracked me up.

          So that is a bit about me.  Single mom, nurse on weekends, weekdays spent playing with my daughter.  Yesterday was Make It Monday.  Project was making this stuffed felt kitty.  It has spilled over to today, which is Travel Tuesday.  Not sure where we are going to go today.  Once kitty is done I will post pics of our efforts LOL  Tomorrow is Wacky/Water Wednesday, then Thinking Thursday (we go to library), followed by Fun Friday.  I try to plan activities to go along with those themes.  I am hoping that anybody who read this posts enjoyed finding out a bit about me and will hopefully follow along.  My plan is to blog about Florida life, the food we enjoy, the projects we do, the activities we share, and the trips we take.  So until next time I am off to sew the kitty together and plan our trip today. Wonder where we will go...

I did it!!! LOL

I went and bought my domain name. Excited to see if I can keep this up. I hope so 😊 Curious if that emoji will show up. Staci is excited about it too, but only after I explained what we were doing lol. She is going to help me come up with topics since she will be featured in most of the posts.  Scary but went and linked this to my Facebook so people I actually know can see what I write.  Hopefully I don't embarrass myself.

We Found Dory

Oh my goodness that was a cute movie.  It was every bit as good as Finding Nemo.  The small person, Bubba (her brother), and me all went to see the movie Finding Dory.  I cannot describe how excited I was to get to see this movie LOL  In addition to Dory, Marlin and Nemo returned as well as Crush, Squirt, and Mr. Ray the teacher.  The added character of Hank the octopus was great, took me a bit to figure out he was voiced by Ed O'neal.  Is hard to gush about movie and not give any details.  I will say baby Dory steals the movie.  The short film at the beginning called Piper was epically awesome. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time at this one adorable moment in it.   I completely recommend the movie.

The small person was all decked out for the movie.  She had her Finding Dory outfit on and was accompanied by her Dory and Nemo she got at Build-A-Bear last week.  She got a lot of attention walking in.  Here is a pic of her and her dates before the movie.

Plan for Best Summer Ever

OK just got through first week of the best summer ever, at least that is goal for the summer that I have promised  my small person.  She became an official second grader a week ago.  She had her last day at #Alimacani Elementary school .  So we have big plans for the summer.  It started by signing her up for a week of summer camp.  Kinda funny, I asked her if she wanted to go to summer camp and the response was "YES!!!"  then I asked her what summer camp was and response was "I have no idea" LOL .  So we signed up for the My Gym summer camp in July.  She is very excited about it.  We also started #CardioKids at My Gym as well as #ZumbaKids at My Gym.  She really likes Coach Natalia and Coach Amanda.  The classes we fun to watch.  Small person goes in there all bouncy and excited, but after an hour of cardio and zumba the bounce is a little less pronounced LOL  She is still excited about going though, which is very important. Let's see if I can post her first zumba lesson here .  

In July the small person becomes less small and turns 7 years old.  We are trying to plan an amazing road trip up Eastern coast starting in Jacksonville, Florida and turning back around in Washington, D.C.  We also have lots of other things planned for summer such as swimming, going to the park, crafts, going to Sunshine Water Park, Hanna Water Park, mini golfing, library, and the movies.  On Tuesday we are going to see Finding Dory I am so excited to see that.

So that is our plans for summer LOL  In addition we are working on developing healthy habits and healthier eating styles.  Today we cut like 2000 calories in under 2 minutes LOL. My mom accidentally turned on the stove top burner where my Pyrex dish full of strawberry cake was resting.  She exploded the cake all over the kitchen LOL  nobody was hurt thankfully, but the cake and dish were goners.

Now let's see if I can keep this blog going.  It would be nice to have record of THE BEST SUMMER EVER