Our Florida Spring Break-Camping with the Js

Jan and Julie camped a couple of miles away from our cabin.  The kids had a great time going back and forth between the two places. on their bikes.  Each of them stayed one night with Jan and Julie, which was nice too.  We had dinner at the campsite one night and we cooked burgers and vegetables on the fire.

Ben was all ready to make s'mores for dessert

We had wine with dinner, but no glasses!!!!

Ben and I walked down to the lake by the campsite and we found this wonderful old alligator sign.  Luckily, we didn't see any alligators the whole time we were in Florida.  We even took boats out on the lake looking for alligators, but still didn't see any

Our Florida Spring Break-Beach Life

We had perfect weather every day that we were in Florida. It was a little cool when we got there, but got warmer each day as the week progressed.  The water was absolutely freezing when we got there, not as cold as the North Sea, but still....

Ben never misses an opportunity to do a spot of gymnastics.  I guess the beach is as good as anywhere

Ben found some free beach stuff in a store that recycles beach toys.  I told him that stuff is supposed to be for 2-3 year olds but he didn't care!!!!

Maggie, of course, spent the vast majority of her week in the water.  We found this surf board at the same place as Ben's stuff.  It was recycled, only cost us $6, which is just as well since it broke!!!

Ben made it to the sand bar!!!!

The water was so clear and the sand was very fine, soft and white

The kids played paddle ball and football on the beach

Julie spent a lot of time catching up on her sleep, but did do the Marilyn pose for me

I walked along the beach to get these cool pictures of the birds

Maggie found this starfish in the water

Ben and I got up early one morning and went looking for shells, but there were hardly any.  We did get some cool pictures though

Our Florida Spring Break-General Pics

I took a bunch of photos when we were in Florida. I have tried to organize them into some kind of order.  We had quite an interesting drive down to Grayton Beach.  We had to deal with accidents and road works outside Nashville and then an accident that redirected us 30 miles out of our way when we were almost there.  It took us 15 hours to get there, but we made it eventually.  We pretty much just fell into bed when we got to the cabin.  Poor Jan and Julie had to get their camper ready to sleep in, but they said it was quick and easy (even in the dark).
We met Jan and Julie for breakfast on Sunday morning.  Everyone looks very happy to be in Florida

We rode bicycles into Seaside on Sunday evening for dinner.  The waitress took a photo of all of us together, the only one we got while we were there.

Picture of Maggie sitting on a rocking chair on the screened porch of our cabin.  The cabin was really great, we even had a dishwasher in the kitchen!!!

Taking a break at the BadAss Coffee shop.  

We had quite an impressive mist on Friday morning, it was just like being back in England!!!

Saw this on the drive back home (Milly, this is for you!!)

Pile of laundry when we got back.  Lots of sand and salt....

General stuff

Sam and I did the Maplewood Coffee Crawl with Caroline.  It was fun, but we definitely had too much caffeine!!!  We got Strange Donuts while we were there.  They were great, but still not as good as English donuts!!!!

We found the Warren County cake outside The Book House in Maplewood.  I hadn't realized it had been moved to there

Maggie has been wearing Jan's overalls when they clean the dog.  We had been talking about it when we were in Florida.  Look what we found in Target.  Do you think Maggie is happy??????

Maggie's play was picked for performance at the WiseWrite program.  They have been working on plays this year and at the end of the program, they pick 6 plays to perform.  Maggie got a certificate and they printed and bound her play for her.

Update on Ben's wrist

We had an MRI done at Wash U on Thursday afternoon.  The results indicate that he has a stress fracture of his hamate bone, several ganglionic cysts and a tear in the cartilage.  Our options are to leave it alone and hope it repairs (unlikely) or to have surgery where they will take out the hook.  Ben wants to have surgery to repair it.  The doctor says he ought to make a full recovery after surgery.

Just ticking along with life

I realize I haven't posted anything on this blog in a long time, I must have been preoccupied with other things for a while.  Honestly, I don't feel like anything out of the ordinary has happened recently.  We have had the house up for sale for almost 2 weeks.  It's been the slowest start we have ever had, but it only takes one buyer, right?  As soon as we put the house up for sale, we had 6 inches of snow and it was 20 degrees for a week.  All that after a really mild winter so far-just our luck

I went to Columbia, Missouri to give a talk last week.  It was one of the most grueling things I've done in a long time-talking to many people that I'd never met before, then giving a seminar.  The hotel room was very nice though, you get a lot of room in Columbia.  Ben was jealous

Maggie and her Girl Scout troop have been selling cookies this month.  They held a cookie booth outside Dierberg's on Saturday morning, they had a lot of fun doing anything but selling cookies!!!

Maggie is doing very well with her horse riding, I have been taking her once a week and she gets a different horse every time.  This one is Hidalgo, he's my favourite one so far.  We had to change her regular time this month because we will be gone two Saturdays this month.  I like her Sunday teacher better, so we will probably stick with the new time for a while.

Great Western Invitational 2015

Ben and I went to Oswego for the Great Western Invitational.  It was another great trip, but absolutely freezing cold.  It was quite a drive up there on Saturday morning because the wind was so strong.  Ben did pretty well, I think he was better that at Houston, on the whole.  He didn't do high bar again, his wrist still hurt too much after his parallel bar routine.  I told him he needs to focus on high bar and leave pbars alone until his wrist is better.  He was still happy with his scores, so that's all that matters  

Vault
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ6mv8opqHE&feature=youtu.be
Parallel bars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSIS3P_Rqtw&feature=youtu.be
Floor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjyVcpE6y3I&feature=youtu.be
Pommel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtVnwJ2NStw&feature=youtu.be
Rings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBBI9MiH5CI&feature=youtu.be