And He Cleaned.....

...... that beautiful master bath from top to bottom.......

........ the furniture and the blinds and the light fixture in the dining room.....

......... all the horizontal surfaces in the front entrance...

......... even the entire office.........

....... he did the blinds and the furniture in the great room.....

...... and in the third bathroom.......

...... he even did the laundry room, including that spot that I always miss (because I can't see the dust up there!), the top of the cupboards!

He wandered around the house, cleaning all the door frames and baseboards........ whew!  It made me so tired watching him....

....... that I sat down and made some more socks!  Can you tell that they are made from odds and ends of yarn from other socks???  Oh yes.....

....... a cat cartoon for all you knitters and yarn lovers out there.  Do you recognize the brand name of the yarn label????

Lucy!!!!

May I present....

..........Lieutenant Lucy of the US Navy!  She makes quite a statement with her pink sneakers to put a feminine touch to her naval uniform.  This is Curtie's new bear.  He wanted a girl bear, but he also fell in love with the navy uniform - and Lucy is the outcome!  Isn't she cute???  Shortly after.....

..... our excursion to the Build-A-Bear store, Mommy was chatting with Daddy about when they would arrive back home.....

........... Munchie helped the bears finish their colouring projects....

....... there was one more pool adventure, and soon....

........ our little boys were boarding an airplane, and after a fantastic vacation in Florida....

........ they slept on the plane until it landed back in Canada.  Sweet dreams little guys!  Meantime, back in Florida, things returned to normal....

.......... and Poppa started his cleaning in preparation of our own departure from the sunny south back to the frozen north.  David and Allison will arrive tomorrow in the late afternoon and after a couple of days visiting with them, we will head north too.

Then There Was the Day....

....... when I spotted......

......... Poppa and the boys headed up the road to.........

...... the community clubhouse where there is this large pool for use of residents in the development (that's us for about 3 month/year!) where David\s new house is located.  That's not the clubhouse you see, just a cabana which can be rented for the day should you desire.  There is even a poolside bar (not a swim-up).

But, the boys were more interested in playing in the pool than any of that other stuff....

........ Munchie went floating by demonstrating his relatively new ability to do the back-float......

......... then he celebrated the fact that he swam all the way across the pool (which he proceeded to do several times!).  Curtie also.......

.... checked out the splash pool and posed nicely..........

.......... while his older brother floated somewhere down the lazy river.  They spent a couple of days playing there and they came home.....

........ ready to relax for a while with Mommy as I made supper, and....

.... the bears were all busy colouring Mickey Mouse related pictures...

......... then Mommy and Poppa did the dishes, and pretty soon....

.... they were once again snuggled with Poppa, having some quiet time before bed.  Of course, this visit precluded quite a bit of knitting.....

........ just look at all this un-knit yarn!  But....

......... I did get some knitting done.

The Blaxter Excursion

I had promised both the little boys.........

.... that we would visit this store at the Florida Mall.  What store???

The Build-A-Bear store.... where you choose your bear and they put the stuffing in, and the owner of the bear operates the stuffing machine, by stepping on a power button ....

.... here's Munchie with one foot on the power button while they put stuffing in his bear....

.... as Poppa kept a close eye on the goings-on to make sure the staff - who were all wonderful with our little shoppers... did exactly what was required.

When that was done.  the little boys got to pick a heart to be inserted inside their bear.  They rubbed the heart on their selves to put the life into the bear and then watched while it was carefully placed in each bear.

We stopped on the way home so they could have supper at Chic-Fil-A - that's Curtie way up there in the car.  As soon as I can get Mommy to send me a picture of Lucy (I somehow missed doing that) I will post a picture of Curtie's bear.  As you saw in the last blog post - Munchie's bear was named Blaxter - so Blackie now has a brother!

Alligtors.......

....... are everywhere when you visit......

.... Gatorland!  Mommy had fond memories of Gatorland from a visit to Florida many years ago - when we first started coming down in the winter - and she wanted to take the little boys to see it. 

Just inside the gates was a place to buy Dippin' Dots - which were little candy coated bits of ice cream....

....... there were several varieties to choose from - the first one you saw was Munchies', and here is Curtie with his flavour (and sporting his "Michael Jackson" hat.

There were also a lot of birds there - as well as alligators - and I guess the alligators were well-fed because....

.... they sure weren't eating the birds - all those little white blobs in this picture are birds sitting in those bushes!

And, there were alligators of all sizes from little tiny lizard-sized specimens to this rather chubby looking older fellow.  We watched staff members feeding some alligators and crocodiles later - which everyone enjoyed.  And there was even a playground near the exit with a splash pool, so the boys played there for a while before we left.  The next day.....

........ we went someplace else and somebody got a new teddy bear (named Blaxter) with a Gator t-shirt!!!!  More on that coming up!

Pooling

The meditation area was moved  ...........

........closer to the peaceful sound of the waterfall, and that led......

.... to a long stretch in the pool.   As you can see, the boys had great time - that's Munchie flying through the air.  Both boys can swim quite well and they both loved to splash Poppa!

Munchie was tired, and wanted to have his picture taken with Oliver's big bear...........

......so after supper......

........... they watched TV with Poppa for a while, and then went to bed.

The Boys Came..........

....... at the end of February.  Mommy brought them down for six days of activity!  They arrived at the airport about 12:30 - the middle of the night.  We picked them up there and put them right to bed!  The next day...........

......... we dropped them off at Disney World where they stayed until late afternoon.........

....... they checked out the fun spots..........

........ Munchie got a photo with Goofy and........

......... Curtie posed with Donald Duck..........

......... they went on some crazy, dizzying rides.  By the time we picked them up they were worn out and ready for bed again!