i just realized that it has been well over two months since i have posted anything....not that i haven't had anything to write about but....well, i just haven't really had anything to write about!
spring here in michigan was just as beautiful as the winter - much better than usual. not much rain, a lot of sun and a lot of warmth. it has been the opposite of last year thank God!
our trip to florida was amazing. after ft. lauderdale, we drove down to key west for three days. the drive was awesome - it was a little over 4 hours but it didn't seem like that at all because it was all new to us. we love the keys. we are going to spend our winters there in our retirement years. and key west - wow. we are thankful we got to spend time in key west during the week. we got there on thursday and spent the evening on duval street. had dinner at the original margaritaville and spent a lot of time walking around the shops. on friday we rented scooters from our hotel (we stayed at the casa marina - wow it was GORGEOUS!) and spent the day going all around the island. we went to the ernest hemingway house, met some of his six-toed cats, back to duval street for dinner, and then back to the hotel for a late night swim. on saturday there were a couple of more things i wanted to pick up before we headed back to ft. lauderdale that afternoon so we checked out of the hotel, left our bags with the concierge and headed on our scooters downtown. and what a change duval street is from the week to the weekend! we are not prude, but i have a really hard time with the in-your-face immorality of the world sometimes - i was shocked it was so different from the other two days! within 5 minutes of getting to duval street though, i realized that i had left a bunch of stuff in the room safe (my jewelry, iPod, Bose headphones, and some other valuables) so we just went back to the hotel to get my things and picked up our luggage and car and headed north. we took a nice leisurely drive up to ft. lauderdale and spent the night at a hotel close to the airport and flew home on sunday morning.
and when we got home, it was as if the stress of the previous 6 months had been completely lifted. it was amazing how refreshed we both felt. and now we're just busy enjoying the summer.
we are having a party at our house for my entire family tomorrow. my dear niece is being induced to have her baby late monday night or early tuesday and we wanted to get everyone together before she had the baby. because she is diabetic, and the baby is already almost 8 pounds, they are inducing her 4 weeks early. her original due date is the same that mine was....july 25th. but i have completely surprised myself with the fact that i am absolutely ok with all of this. there is no angst or sadness on my part. i am so excited to meet my new great-nephew (i already have 4 great-nephews and 3 great-nieces!) that it just doesn't matter. i am just hoping that the weather holds out! it's supposed to rain on and off tomorrow and OMG i don't have room for 29 people in my house!!!!
OH! i almost forgot. so through all of this soul searching and growth over the past two months since i've been MIA, i have decided to go back to school and get my MBA. i took my GMAT earlier this month and, while i didn't do as well as i wanted to, have spoken with the admissions team at the university of michigan where i am applying and they said that, with my 3.76 undergrad GPA and my 20+ years of experience in the investment business, my GMAT score will be ok. phew!!! i was going to start in september, but have decided that i will probably defer until december - i have some things that will be coming up this fall and don't want to have more than that to focus on....wish me luck on my acceptance!!!
so here are some pictures...i just realized that all of the florida pictures are on ed's camera - SHOOT! (bang) well, here are some random ones from the past couple of months....
i wanted to get a good shot of my hanging flower baskets and peony bushes but it didn't turn out as well as i wanted :-( i have to take some photography classes!
this one is a little better....we love our front porch. a lot of summer evenings you can find me laying on the loveseat reading my kindle :-)
here are some closeups of the flowers....peonies are my favorite....they were my father's also and i can't get over the beauty and happiness of their smell :-)
this one gets me...i am so proud of ed and his service in the navy. when he asked if i would mind if he put a flagpole up in the front yard i didn't even have to think a second about it. i was sitting on the loveseat on the front porch, heard the flags flapping in the wind and snapped this one.
ah yes....here's an awesome picture that i took....we went to the detroit tigers/boston red sox game may 15th. it went into the 11th or 12th inning. we were bummed because johnny damon (who used to be with our old home team the red sox) wasn't there...until it went into extra innings - and were we happy he showed up! and yes, we were as close as this seems....our seats were in the 7th row. but the first 6 rows right there are actually the tigers' dugout - so, yah, we had a place to put our beer when we didn't want to hold it - right on top of the dugout :-)
ed and i...see where he's resting his elbow? yah - on top of the dugout - wicked awesome! and yes he's wearing his red sox hat :-)
one of our friday night mexican nights :-) those are "it's 5 o'clock somewhere" glasses from margaritaville in panama city beach, florida from a couple of years ago...
the boys just hanging out...they're so lazy!
miss marlyn...probably hiding from the boys! (i took this while standing on the bridge on the second floor looking down into the family room)
and to close out the "ninesandquines" theme - since we've covered the k"nines", let's hit the e"quines"....the even bigger boys - beFORE they lost their winter coats!!!
oh wait - i can't resist....the man and his tractor mowing the lawn....with his coffee :-) it was maybe 8 am on a saturday morning...
k that's it - see you soon!
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