Spring Break...Day 2

After having breakfast at the hotel, we went to Tarpon Springs, which is the Sponge Capitol of the World.

This is a town that has an area historically devoted to sponge harvesting in the Gulf of Mexico. In the late 1800's, one of the towns prominent citizens realized that there was money to be made in sponges, but the primitive harvesting technology available in the USA would make it difficult to make money. He imported sponge fishermen from Greece to harvest the sponges. They brought with them the technology of supplying air to the sponge divers from the ship (ala deep sea diving) so they could stay below the surface for hours at a time. Soon the sponge crop supplied sponges for most of the Western World and did so until synthetic sponges were invented in the 1940s. At one time there were over 300 ships that harvested sponges, and some 2500 Greeks immigrated to do the work. Today, there are only 3 ships that still harvest the sponges full time. The dock area where all the ships sailed from and brought their loads of sponges has been transformed into a "little Greece" area with Greek shops, Greek restaurants, and an area where descendants of the original Greeks still congregate. The city has a Greek Orthodox Cathedral, and by some estimates 20% of the people in this area are Greek.

We ate at a Greek resturant...Hellas...and enjoyed a delicious Greek Salad.

Later in the afternoon, we went on a boat tour of the area and it included a stop at Anclote Key State Park. We saw an interesting lighthouse that is no longer in use. We also had a chance to collect shells along the beach there.

Along the way, we saw lots of wildlife including Bald Eagles, Ospreys, Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Brown Pelicans,raccoons, squirrels, dolphins, and sea turtles.

After we left Tarpon Springs, we stopped and had supper at an ok Mexican restaurant. We get spicier and better in Cleveland.

Spring Break 2009

This is Spring Break for Mike so we headed out this morning for Florida by flying Alligiant to...

We got a rental car...

and checked into a Ramada Inn in St. Petersburg. After unpacking, we headed for Clearwater where we drove through downtown and saw the Scientology headquarters and several religious retreats. We then went to the beaches there where we did lots of walking...off and on the sand. We put our feet in the water and it was chilly!

We ate supper at Frenchy's and we both had their shrimp basket which was wonderful.

We walked to Pier 60 and watched the street performers and Mike was chosen to be a "helper" for an escape artist. Such fun. We saw several other performers as well.

The sunset was a real highlight for the evening.

The full moon was pretty too.

We came back to the room and got to see UTC win the Southern conference tournament.

A Week End in Texas

We have spent the past few days in Texas visiting the the #1 daughter and the 2 Texas grandsons. the SIL was in Washington, DC for a Cotton Council meeting and other meetings. while we were there, we took in a high school basketball game.

On Saturday, the boys walked their pigs to get them ready to take to San Antoni0 tomorrow. This is the biggest barrow (pig) show in the country. There will be some 6000 pigs at this show.

The mother helped with the brushing and general loving on the pigs.

After the boys played and won their basketball games, ( they didn't get to choose the color of their shirts!)

they walked the pigs again. This is to help the pigs lose some weight and build up some more muscle.

Sunday, we went to church, out to lunch and then the SIL flew in. The boys walked the pigs again before the #1 grandson and his father cooked some delicious rib eyes with a blue cheese crust on top. The #1 daughter fixed some wonderful new potatoes and a spinach salad.

This morning we flew back to Birmingham and then drove to Cleveland.

The Season Came to a Halt

The past few days the Stuart Elementary Lady Bulldogs have been participating in a post season double elimination tournament. Having an undefeated season,they drew a bye for the first round,won in the second round, lost in overtime(to their chief rival) in the third round that sent them to the loser's bracket. They won the loser's bracket finals that put in the championship finals tonight ...again against their chief rival. They lost 18-16 tonight to end a season that exceeded all expectations.

Here's a picture of the Lady Bulldogs that was taken after the game tonight.

What a Difference a Week Makes

Look back a couple of posts and see what it looked like in our backyard a week ago today. Cold...snowing... but pretty.

Here's what it's like today. Sunny...warm (high 60s)...still pretty.

More Cold Temps

After the big snow on Monday, we have continued to have cold and windy days.

This morning we woke up to 11 degrees at our house. (I tried to post this this morning before I headed out, but the computer was feeling the effects of the cold weather and just couldn't get started!)

This afternoon it has warmed up all the way to 36 degrees! Wow, that sunshine sure did help. This is better than yesterday when it never got out of the 20s.

We should see warmer temperatures in the coming days; in fact, Mike is playing golf tomorrow about mid morning after it gets above freezing.

It's real hard to show a picture of cold except for the cat's frozen water dish and I didn't think that it would be too interesting.

Snowy Day

Boy, did the weathermen miss this one today! It started off at 42 degrees this morning and wasn't suppose to freeze until after dark with light rain during the day. Well, by mid morning we had snow flurries, the temperatures dropped to 32 degrees, the flakes got bigger and heavier, and it has continued until early afternoon. Schools were closed at noon so I'm sure there will be lots of snowmen around town this afternoon.

This is how our yard looked like around 1:00 this afternoon.