History Park - flower in Butterfly Garden

Tom returned home from his work week in Pensacola just in time for dinner last evening. Today we did some photography in El Jobean and Punta Gorda, gawking at historical points of interest and generally making the people driving behind us very angry. Historical points of interest have been expanded thanks to my copy of Our Fascinating Past, Charlotte Harbor: The Early Years by Lindsey Williams and U.S. Cleveland signed by Mr. Williams. I've been unnaturally happy since I started reading this book. I'm a history nerd.

Tomorrow we're doing something Episcopalian. We'll being going to Church of the Good Shepherd, which we've gone to before and had a good experience with. I've been making a few major decisions after months of prayer and thoughts, and finally reaching out to friends for the sound, caring advice they can give. I won't go into it on a public blog, but it's with a lot of nervousness that I look forward to this change and seeing if this is really the right path for my family at this time.

After church, we're going to the beach... until the rain chases us home. I'm really looking forward to the beach.

Tom's been talking about barbecuing steak so I think he's got Sunday dinner covered. Here's a couple pictures of my handsome husband and my daughter and youngest son in History Park in Punta Gorda. They're checking out the old jail.

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CCFEMS 16 - Tommy behind the wheel of E16

Pay day means paying bills and grocery shopping. Exciting stuff. Bailey and I detoured to our favourite pet shop to visit the puppies and pick up something for Indy. They had a baby boy blonde golden retriever but their sale price was actually more than what we'd paid for Indy! Not that I can bring home another dog. Just saying. They did have a gorgeous Macaw that they were selling with the appropriate cage for $750. If I didn't know better that you only buy a parrot if you nurse it from birth, that would be such an awesome deal.

We had dinner at Golden Corral in Punta Gorda before meeting Bailey's father for her visitation. After that, I took an update photo of PGFD 2 (forgot the hard hat!) and went out to CCFEMS 16 for some visiting. Tommy had fun with E16 and we talked with Gary and Mark for a bit.

No plans for the weekend, yet. I'd like to do something, though.

Here's Tom and Tommy sitting on the bumper of E16:

CCFEMS 16 - Tom & Tommy

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Bailey on the couch

Bailey is home!!!

Tommy is so happy to have his sister back!

I had to go to Punta Gorda to pick her up because her father had a lengthy, complicated explanation about how he didn't have time to drive her home but then waited the 30 minutes for me to get down to South Punta Gorda without complaint. He's gotten into a nasty habit of fibbing but I didn't mind the drive. It was too rainy so I didn't stop to take an update shot on the construction progress of PGFD 2. I'll take one on Friday when I'm back down that way, and bring a hard hat with me.

I was really hoping the processing for renewing Tom's passport would muck up the plans for him to go to Hong Kong, but the company is really making sure Tom can go as planned. Except now it's not Hong Kong, it's Korea. At least it doesn't interfer with Michael's birthday party and the kids starting school. It was really important to me that he be here. He could still be called away on another business trip during that time, but it wouldn't be for two weeks like this Korea thing will be. We can work around that, especially since my parents will be in town for a little bit.

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TL taking off

Today, we went to Pine Island Airport, where Tom's father had flown out of the Punta Gorda Airport to join the Fly-in. We stayed for a couple hours to look at aircraft and watch people zoom around, land, and take-off. For $5 you could get a plate with a hamburger, hotdog, and all the fixings. Iced tea was free (and it was really good). Check out more photos of the airport and aircraft on my flickr's Pine Island Airport set.

TL doing preflight - finished

After Tom's father left to return to PGD, we returned to Charlotte County to window shop at the Harley Davidson dealership in Murdock. After a few more errands and spoiling ourselves with a frozen treat from Sonic, we headed on home for the day. Tom barbecued hamburgers for dinner and I spoke to my three children who are all in Illinois at the moment.

Bailey lost her first tooth yesterday and has gotten her first visit from the Tooth Fairy. She was really excited when that tooth first came loose and she could start losing teeth like her older brothers.

Tomorrow, Tom's riding the harleys with his father. For lunch or dinner, his parents are treating us somewhere in celebration of Tom's birthday on Tuesday. Of course, Tom will be in Jacksonville so that's why we've done all the celebrating this weekend. Tommy and I will do our own thing for the day until it's time to eat.

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Busch Gardens - pounced!

We went to Busch Gardens for the morning and left around 2pm. We came all the way back towards home to have lunch/dinner at Golden Corral in Punta Gorda, then spent some time at Garden of the Five Senses in North Port. After that we came on home to rest up for fireworks since Tom required his nap and my shoes had killed my feet.

We made it just in time for fireworks at Laishley Park but it was slim pickings on free spots to sit. We ended up behind a line of palm trees that blocked the center view. I have palm trees or the bald head of the guy sitting in front of us in every shot. After a while, I gave up and just started playing with my camera and the light to see what I could create. With the rotten view combined with the non-stop chatterboxes behind us, I think it might be worth paying the admission fee next year to get further down towards the shoreline. The important thing was Tommy's experience, not my photography, so I don't mind a bunch of crappy photos as long as he had a good time.

Independence Day 2008 - Fireworks

Tomorrow is planned, but since it involves my in-laws, we'll see how it goes.

Hope y'all had a happy fourth of July and hope your holiday weekend continues to be just as fun!

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Lime and onion

MAHI MAHI MAUI STYLE
1 1/2 lb. mahi mahi
2 tbsp. butter, divided
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp. teriyaki sauce
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. honey
1 tbsp. sesame seeds

In skillet set at 250 degrees or medium heat, melt 1 tablespoon butter; add garlic and saute until tender. Remove from heat. Stir in teriyaki, lemon juice, honey and sesame seeds. Pour over fish and marinate 30 minutes.
Heat 1 tablespoon butter in skillet. Set at medium heat. Add fish and saute 4-5 minutes on each side, basting with marinade.

Mahi Mahi Maui style with white rice

I don't have my son's flair for food arrangement, so it was served with a simple side of white rice. I had to substitude a white onion for garlic and a lime for lemon juice. I had to work with what I had in stock and I'm out of garlic. I don't know why. I also thought I had one of those little plastic lemons with the lemon juice inside but I don't have that, either. By the way, "Mahi Mahi Maui" is really fun to say. More fun to eat.

Tommy and his camera

Tommy's camera does not have an LCD screen like mine does, but he still flips the camera around to show me what picture he's taken. I'll have you know that he's very talented at taking imaginary pictures. His new fascination has been with the movie, Spiderwick. I laugh that Tom had thought the movie would be too scary for him. He's got just about all the dialogue memorised. My review on that movie and Demetri Martin's stand-up, Person, will come soon.

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Bailey on the couch

Bailey's father picked her up several hours later than what he had told her, but I'm not complaining. When she went, Tommy decided to take out his anger about the situation on me. The poor thing is out of siblings for two weeks until Bailey returns and then August when his big brothers come home.

Being down to one kid is a very odd feeling. It will make going places easier, for the most part, but with the weather rolling in predictably when Tom is finished with his workday - which is earlier than the standard workday so with cooperative weather I'd have good light and dramatic shadows to play with - there's still not a whole lot I can do... unless I muster up the courage to start photographing lightning. I've come to view Florida lightning as especially dangerous and unpredictable, but I also have to photograph lightning to bring all these ideas in my head into reality. This one-child timeframe is complicated further with Tom going to Jacksonville from the 7th to the 10th. But it's only three days plus some travel. He'll work with me, I'm sure. He has been so far. It's a real downer that he'll be out of town on his birthday.

I haven't concreted any plans for the fourth. Tom keeps asking me what we're going to do. I don't even know what we'll do just the three of us. With the way Indy hates thunderstorms, I think the fireworks in the neighbourhood are going to freak him out. Wherever we go, maybe we should bring him with us.

We had hotdogs for lunch but are still planning to have bratwurst for dinner. We need to do some shopping first, for propane and also for milk. Tommy was very creative in arranging his lunch, using one of Bailey's paint palettes. Thank goodness it was thoroughly cleaned out and disinfected!

Tommy's creative lunch display

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Tom, Tommy, and Lt. Brad Wasmus

My Sunday was pretty uneventful. After I delivered a print to CCFEMS 12, we had breakfast, went shopping and stopped by CCFEMS 7 so Tom could see an old friend. There wasn't much else to the day after that, just relaxing. We had subs and watched Spiderwick again.

Bailey starts her two-week visitation with her father this afternoon. It's the longest she's been away from home and, of course, they're taking her all the way to Chicago instead of considering the possibility that she's going to get homesick [read: miss her mother] at some point. I don't remember if I'm supposed to meet him in Punta Gorda or if he's coming here. He was supposed to email and didn't. So, I'll see if he calls me in a panic because I'm not in Punta Gorda, or if he shows up here. I think because he's taking her on Tommy's birthday and there was the disagreement about it, he knows I'm not going out of my way.

I actually wouldn't mind going to Punta Gorda today. It'd be a good opportunity to find those South County Park geocaches.

While the older boys have decided not to go on visitations when they're old enough to not be forced (13, I think?) (they know better than I do), Tommy is the only child that never has to go anywhere. So, I guess we're looking at camps or my parents' house when he gets a little older. Then again, I really hate having an empty house.

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Bailey likes her hair short so when it started to touch her shoulders, she kept asking if she could get a haircut.

Bailey's new haircut - getting ready to cut

Now her hair is how she likes it best:

Bailey's new haircut - June 2008

Our livingroom set had seen better days and the couch was downright broken. It was so bad we didn't even feel right about Freecycling it. It deserves the landfill:

Old, Tired, Broken Couch

So out with the old and in with the new, plus tables:

New livingroom set

We still need a new entertainment center and a rug, but that can wait.

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Busch Gardens - gorilla habitat

Yesterday, Bailey, Tommy, Tom and I went to Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida. It's our closest theme park. The forecast maps showed intermittant rain, typical for summer, but instead it was a miserable day. After we had a good lunch at Golden Corral and the rain hadn't let up, we debated going to the Museum of Science and Industry [MOSI] but after we found out that MOSI had raised their prices to $25/adult and $20/child (with Tommy being charged), we decided not to spend that much and just hope the rain let up at the park. It did for a few hours and we had a really good time seeing all the animals.

I've put some photos in my photo album here and you can see them all in my flickr Busch Gardens - 6/21/08 set.

Busch Gardens - flamingo

Recently, I picked up Scene It - Disney 2nd Edition and we've really had a lot of fun with it.

I hadn't even so much as looked at my camera since Michael and Eddie had gone to Chicago. It kinda fell into a little depressive spell. The problem with sadness, depression and generally feeling sorry for yourself is that it's self-sustaining in that you don't really care to do anything that could possibly bring you out of this awful mess. I'd had enough of it, which is what prompted our trip to Busch Gardens.

Busch Gardens - The Anheuser Busch bush sculpture

For dinner, Tom aims to cook on the grill. I'd gotten him a new one and called it an early birthday present since it would cost nearly as much to fix the old one as it would for this new one. We freecycled the old one to someone who had everything wrong with their grill except what was wrong with ours. This decision worked out for the best in two households. I went grocery shopping this morning and we're all set. I should get my act together and plan a BBQ. Sometime in July.

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