Missed Blogs

We haven't posted in a while. I'm still trying to get the hang of this and we really don't take that many pictures except when we do fun stuff.

The following pictures are of our wonderful, exciting, and hot camping vacation in Florida. We explored many different things. Drove a lot, which we aren't used to when it comes to vacation. We definitely learned to appreciate our cruises. The gas prices were unbelievable. And here I was thinking this was going to be a cheap vacation. I mean come on, we have our own food, we have our own place to stay...how expensive could this vacation be. Well when you have a huge truck that only gets 8 miles to the gallon then sure $500 in gas goes a long way. So much for a cheap vacation. Let's just say we won't be camping that far again, at least for now. I am still hopeful that gas will go down. Who's with me???



After an easy set up in our first stop of St. Augustine, Justin and Cookie stop for a quick picture. Doesn't she look so hot?



This is our campsite in Hudson, FL, which is about 45 minutes from Tampa. It was a fairly decent campsite. We had mailboxes. That was way cool. We didn't get any mail. I guess we have to be permanent residents. The people were very friendly. They were all older people who lived there. One campsite had a sign that said, "Home is where you park it." I thought that was perfect. Our little home on wheels. We did see something very sad. We were watching two little turtles trying to cross the road at the campground and this lady came driving by and ran over one of the turtles. It was very sad because we thought that we should have moved the poor little guy out of the way. But we thought for sure that she saw the little guy. I can't believe how his shell cracked. Justin wasn't very happy with the lady. He was thinking all kinds of bad things to do to her. He is a fighter for animals. We did move him out of the way so he wouldn't get any more pulvarized.



I had a request to get a picture of Justin on his spiffy new bike so here it is. I got Justin this "old timer's" bike with a really big seat on it. He had a mountain bike before and the seat was extremely small. Let's just say he wasn't that comfortable. I like my old fashioned bike with a huge seat with the brakes you have to do with your feet and not the hand brakes. It is too much thinking when you have to use your hands to brake. Give me old fashioned any day.



Our little Cookie chillin'. I decided to sit out and read at our campsite. There is no grass area to sit and you only have a concrete slab. So Cookie was not going to sit outside on the concrete and we had to bring her bed out so that she could lay down. So here she is letting the wind blow through her ears. I think she enjoyed herself.



Justin hates taking pictures by himself but I couldn't resist these candid moments. The first picture he wasn't smiling because the wind was so bad we had to keep fighting with our umbrella to keep it up and not have it blow on innocent beach goers.


Isn't this water so clear!!! This is at Clearwater Beach. This beach is highly recommended but it was very crowded. This was during the week too. I kept wondering why people weren't at work. There is no way all of these people were on vacation the same time we were but I can be very naive on that kind of thing, wishful thinking I guess.


Our self portrait at the beach. It was really a nice day, except for all the people. It was very crowded.


I guess I hate being photographed just as much as Justin.



You can see how crowded it was and we were on the very end. The birds above were very bold. If you were eating something, they would come and try to attack you, no lie! Let's just say we were eating pretty darn fast. I was not going to be the victim of "attack of the birds."

We were lucky enough to find out there was Tampa Bay vs. Yankees (Justin's favorite baseball team) playing in Tampa. I always thought baseball was so boring when you watch it on tv but it was actually a very good game. The only thing I hated was that there is no half time or intermission. I wanted to try a famous baseball hot dog and by the time we found a good place, we had missed about 3 innings. I wasn't very happy because the game was really good. We had great seats too. And Derek Jeter wasn't too bad to look at either.

Our self portrait at the baseball game.

It was very cool because at the stadium there was a sting ray tank. You could actually touch the sting rays. It was quite interesting and that was also a factor of why we missed 3 innings, we had to find the tank.

On our last day in Florida we camped back in St. Augustine. I heard about this place called the Conch House. We love conch fritters from our times in the Bahamas. So we found out this place had a website and we did some research. They had such a wonderful menu that we couldn't wait to try it. It was absolutely wonderful and really met our expectations. We didn't get to enjoy sitting outside because a nasty rainstorm was going on. But it did not take away from our great time at this restaurant. I think we will come back to St. Augustine and just spend our whole time here. It really was a great place to explore if we had more time.

I just had to stick this in. I was reading outside in our backyard and Justin decided to be a paparrazi and snap a quick pic. I was into that book. It is the lastest Bourne series book.

The next pictures are of our time in Puerto Rico for my nephew's huge birthday party.

I couldn't resist snapping a shot of my father hulla hooping. It was priceless.

My half sister Angie.

Justin and Dariel really listening to the conversation and I can't help but taking a picture.

Aren't these trees gorgeous!!

Here is our hotel we stayed at. Everyone was so friendly to us and really made us feel special.

This is a picture of Old San Juan. It almost reminds me of downtown Charleston.

Me and my grandmother.

These pictures were taken in a museum courtyard. It was a candid moment.

Grandmother, me, and my father.

The following pictures were of my Godmother Cindy's 50th birthday party.

Many years of friendship.

What was I thinking with that eyeshadow...overkill.

Cindy had a blast.

Cindy attempting to do the Soulja Boy. She really didn't do too bad. I'm proud of her because I would have never dreamed of doing it.

The next pictures are when we went to Cherokee for a little birthday celebration gambling. I wasn't that lucky but Justin and April were. But we can never be as lucky as April.

Gorgeous faux waterfall inside the hotel.

These pictures are so old they were at Christmas time..our little animal children.

Boots sitting in his recliner in front of our tree.

Cookie doesn't like being photographed that much. She'll get over it.

And Tank...this is the cat that you will never see if you come over to visit. He is extremely shy. I can't even think about holding him but when he wants to get some petting then he is all over you.

The following pictures are of Thanksgiving at Justin's parents' house in NY. I wasn't there but it looks like everyone had a wonderful time.

Justin's genius little cousin, Claire. I can't believe how big she has gotten. She is so smart. I can't believe how intelligent her conversations are.

Justin's uncle Steve and his little cousin, Abbey (hopefully that is spelled right).

So that is the end and I think we are all caught up. Our next pictures should be of us camping on July 4th. However we do need to put pictures of our new front flower bed. We are so proud of what we did. I'll have to post those soon.