Florida – March 26 to April 12, 2016
We went to Florida and stayed for 6 days with our “May Our F’ing Adventures Never End” wonderful friends Rodger & Kim. We had a great time taking walks, site seeing, working out, playing games, and of course eating and drinking too much.
This is the view from their 7th story condo, just beautiful. Since I hate elevators, Kim & I took the stairs up and down for a week. We also did pool areobics, a boot camp class, and self workouts… so we got some exercise.
This is a big alligator that Kim saw before we arrived, but I just had to post these pictures… scary!!!!
Pizza & beer night out with a bunch of friends.
We toured the Wicked Dolphins Rum Factory, and of course rum tasting!
We went to an awesome Bonsai farm and saw a lot of really unique and beautiful bonsai’s.
We walked the Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve. It was really cool because we saw all kinds of wildlife and got some exercise while hiking around. 
Turtles were everywhere 
Snakes mating 
Baby alligator 
Mirror image in the swamp area 
Loved this sign… check it out
Panama City Beach, FL - April 1st - 12th
After leaving Kim & Rodger’s place, we rented a car and headed up north 8 hours to Panama City Beach. We stayed at a really cool house just a few steps from the beach. Literally we just walked across the street and our feet were in the sand, so awesome! A great big heartfelt THANK YOU to our really good friends Sheila & Denise for letting us stay at their home away from home. 
The beaches were very crowded because it was “Spring Break” and the traffic driving up to PCB was a nightmare. Our friends warned us, but we didn’t listen… next time we will!!! LOL
It was fun to watch all the kids walking on the beach, playing games, and seeing every single girl holding a cell phone… sign of the times.
A unique portable BBQ that we saw in a parking lot which claimed to be “Home of the World Famous Butt Fries”, “The Best BBQ on the Beach”, and “Deep Fried Oreo’s” for dessert, just to name a few items on the menu.
Another unique hole in the wall we found, a drive through liquor store… WTF?? They also had a bar ouside, a bar inside, and a big liquor store. We went to the bar twice and had Long Island Iced Tea’s…. good and cheap!
We were able to golf a couple of times and encountered an alligator and turtles. The gator was about 6’ long just happily sunning himself. 
The sunsets were nothing less than spectacular. We went to the beach almost every night just to watch the sunsets. You’re lucky I’m only posting 4 sunset pictures out of the dozens that I took!!
We are always on the go and not used to just relaxing, so we read, went for walks on the beach, I colored, and we played many games of Chicken Foot Domino’s.
Look at Mr. excited below… this is what happens when he beats me at the game.
We found all kinds of hot sauce at the house and loved the names…
Slap Ya Mama and Butt Rub, just to name a few… LOL
Although we didn’t tour Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, I liked the upside building so I snapped a photo.
We BBQ’ed almost every night, yumm!
The sand is beautiful and it’s so fine it feels like powder 
Lizzy’s 1st Communion – May 21st
Lizzy looked so pretty!! 
Great Grandpapa & Papa
Best buddies with the Everson kids
I was lucky enough to get a photo of Alex & Joey before they got changed to play in the backyard. They looked so handsome in their suits.
Auntie Jessica made this beautiful cake for Lizzy and everything was edible.
Just a couple days after her 1st Communion, Lizzy donated her hair to a good cause for the second time. Way to go Lizzy!!!
We did a little wine tasting with our neighbors in April in downtown Lincoln. 
Lizzy & Alex’s Birthdays – May 22nd
Since the kids birthdays are only 4 days apart, we celebrated them together. Lizzy turned 8 and Alex turned 5.
Alex was very excited about receiving this $100 bill.
Marisa had a new puppy that the kids couldn’t wait to hold.
3 Grandkids… June 18 - 25th
We had Lauren (14), Charlie (10) & Lizzy (8) at hour house and man were we busy!!! The kids had a great time. We made a calendar to make sure we didn’t forget anything. Our activities included trampoline, swimming, the zoo, roller skating, the science museum, girls day/boys day, baking, crafts, hide and go seek, corn hole game and lots of other games. Makes me tired just thinking about it… LOL. Click on the calendar to enlarge so you can see our activities.
Of course Vovo had the craft table set up and they were off and running the afternoon they arrived. First on the agenda was to make placemats for the week and many other crafts followed.
They were very creative with their designs on their tee-shirts.
One day we had “Girls Only” day and “Boys Only” day.
After we all had breakfast together, Vovo, Lauren, & Lizzy started off with manicures and hand & arm massages, followed with shopping and lunch. Lizzy was kind enough to make “Gril Party” (LOL) signs to keep the boys OUT.
We had a great lunch at The Cheesecake Factory followed by a decadent yummy chocoate cheesecake for the girls. They scarfed it down, I had one little bite and it was awesome. 
The Boys Day consisted of practice at the golfing range, lunch at McDonald’s (Charlie’s choice) and building a bird house. We all met up in the afternoon for 2 hours of trampoline at Sky Zone. 
We took them to get ice cream one hot day, not to mention that they had ice cream with all the toppings every night for dessert!!
We went to Red Robin to celebrate Papa’s birthday.
Papa & Lauren horsing around
We also took them to a cute little restaurant in downtown Roseville that has a small train that circles the restaurant near the ceiling (Charlie was interested in that). They loved their strawberry waffles, strawberry pancakes, and Mickey Mouse pancakes… Yummy!
We often brought Oliver to our house so the kids could walk him and play with him. Oliver is only 4 houses down at a friend’s house.
I cannot believe that Lauren can still fit into this cubby hole. It is certainly a tradition with the kids (somehow I missed taking photos in 2014 & 2015, but she did it)!
2016
2013
2012 
2011
Let’s bounce off the walls with sugar cookies!
This is how our entry hall looks whenever the kids stay with us. Everything lined up and ready to go for the next adventure and it works great!
This is the Powerhouse Science Center Discovery Campus that the kids love. We take them every year because they enjoy it so much and the exhibits change every year so there’s always something new to discover. 
They have lots of “hands on” things for the kids to discover.
You can tell who’s not camera shy… and I love it!
We took the kids to 3 different pools and they went swimming a total of 4 times during the week.
One pool was at a friend’s house and there were 3 dogs, so we went there twice.
After 2 hours of trampoline they were really tired!!
The kids love the zoo! It was really hot that day so most of the animals stayed inside their enclosures which was a bummer, but we still saw several animals and had lots of fun.
All tired out from the zoo…
Some of the cards I’ve made…
This is a pop-up Darth Vader card I made for Alex
This is the birthday card I made for Lizzy’s 8th birthday.
This card was for Lizzy’s 1st Communion.
I love the way this card turned out for my 8 year old grandson… his birthday is in August, hope he likes it! 
Here are a few group photos from April & May. I’m the one on the left doing the handstand. This particular Saturday workout was running 3 miles up and down a 4 story parking lot structure with ramps and stairs, along with exercies in between… WOW what a workout!!!
Follow the yellow arrow to see me. I know this photo isn’t very good, but it shows you the great turn out we get for Saturday Power Hour workouts.
I think you can find me in the next 3 pictures.
In my last post I showed photos of us clearing out all the rocks, digging holes and planting these bushes. A week later we finished it off by adding bark for that finished look. So now the side yard is complete with bushes and fruit tree. BTW, the fruit trees have grown over the last couple of months and look great.
Planted Bushes in the Retaining Wall
BEFORE - when we first moved in
Had a retaining wall built in 2014
We added a river rock bed in 2015
Finally planted shrubs in May 2016. Talk about a SLOW project, but it wasn’t at the top of our priority list and we’ve been busy doing other DIY stuff the last couple of years. We’re now focusing on the barked area. 
We dug 3 holes along the fence and it’s incredible how many rocks we discovered… it’s never ending. Thank goodness our neighbor wants the big rocks to decorate his yard.
AFTER
Alcove DONE!!
We have this stupid tiny alcove with nothing in it… a really dumb design by the builders. We wanted to make a cabinet ourselves but we also wanted to match the wood cabinet (which is Alder) that’s adjacent in the other larger alcove . After shopping around and pricing it out, we decided it was going to be cheaper to have the cabinet made, so that’s what we did.
BEFORE AFTER
To save money, we ordered it unfinished and stained & varnished it ourselves. We added a handle & knob to match the others throughout the house.
It turned out really good and we are happy with the results. At least it looks better to have something in there and it gives us a little bit more storage. 
I made these bookmarks for Joey a while ago, but just forgot to post them. Super easy project and he loves them.
