March 18th, 2018

Hope your last week was a really great one!  Ours was.  We got to spend it with these two.  Youngest son, Hurley,  and his wife, Jessie.  They had been on a cruise and docked in Miami.  We were very fortunate that they were then willing to, instead of just going on home, come to spend some time with us!  Yay!

​Tim and I drove down to Miami the day before.  We took our time, stopping here and there and therefore were fairly relaxed when we arrived in Miami which is a good thing because Miami is kind of crazy!  Lots of big buildings, lots of people, lots of traffic and poorly marked roads and more than anything, construction which plays havoc with a nav system.  But we arrived at our hotel, eventually.  It was very nice, We had a lovely water view and in fact we could see Port Miami and the cruise ships sailing in and out, from our window. Cool.  We checked out Miami Beach too. Once you get past the rows and rows and rows of rentable lounge chairs and cabanas, the beach was beautiful. Very clean.  And once I looked past the endlessly circling airplanes towing advertising banners (and the boat acting as a billboard!!!) the water was beautiful too.   While we were walking and driving around we saw no less than a half dozen Rolls Royce's, more than a dozen Lamborghini's and too many Ferrari's to count. I won't even try to enumerate the yachts. And I don't mean boats, I mean yachts. Yowza. It was definitely a different sort of place.

The good news is that the next morning, we met the kids at the boat and headed out after a nice walk around and a lovely al fresco brunch a wonderful Brazillian place.  I think it was called Maya's.  And next door was a Cuban Coffee shop that Jessie and Tim loved.   However if you have good news there is often also bad news for balance.  The bad news is that the weather was totally uncooperative. 

Cloudy, gloomy, windy, a little rainy and much much cooler than anyone would normally expect for this time of year.  I am sure that Hurley and Jessie were expecting to have a good deal of beach time here.  Well, the beaches haven't gone anywhere but it was too chilly to enjoy it in the clothes that they brought. So the first order of business was buying some warmer clothes.  Hurley bought some shoes (as opposed to the flipflops he was wearing).  Jessie found a pair of long pants. And she and I both bought sweatshirts and were so glad we did!

The kids really wanted to chill, to relax more than anything and Venice is a good place for that.  We talked and laughed and ate a lot and did two puzzles. We looked at a different batch of old photographs, watched a movie, toured a few model homes (yes they enjoy that sort of thing too) and did a lot of on-line quizzes. Oh yeah and we talked a lot. Did I say that we talked a lot?  It was wonderful. Probably one of my favourite parts.

​A wonderful surprise. They found a coffee place here that we  never heard about. A real coffee shop.  Where they roast the beans themselves.  Of course we had to go there and it smelled wonderful.  We thought it was so funny that our guests had to come here from New York to show us a store we will now enjoy in our own town.  

​Of course we went to the beach despite the weather. Gotta do that.  But, in the kind of weather we were having,  you also have to be prepared to either bundle up or get wet or both!

One day we all went to the Ringling museum complex.  Everyone enjoyed practicing their circus skills, even Tim.  Jessie fit the best in the Clown Car and Hurley could traverse the "high wire" both frontwards and backwards. They had tremendous poise on horseback and who wouldn't love to be a clown. These two have mad talent!

Since we all love to eat, there were a lot of restaurants visited.  Surprisingly, one of their favourites was The Soda Foundtain.  It's certainly not fancy but it's quality, old fashioned, good food.  Jessie made taco's for us one night, woohoo!  That girl can cook!  And another night I made a very simple meal that everyone seemed to enjoy (especially the biscuits).  Before the kids came, naturally, I did a bit of baking and we all dug in to a cake and a large batch of cookies. Naturally!  I think our family motto should be something about sandwiches and cake.

​The last morning, we all went out to breakfast at our favourite breakfast place, Flapjacks (better known in this house as Flappy's) before heading to the airport.  It's always so sad to say goodbye, but we did have a wonderful visit. Even though the weather was exactly wrong everything else was exactly right.  And we are so very glad that Hurley and Jessie came to visit.​

​Just a Note:  I've actually written today's blog on Sunday (although I plan to post it Monday)  My first eye surgery is scheduled for early Monday morning so in all likelihood, other than hitting the "post" button on this blog when we get back from surgery (and I have no idea what time that will be) that will pretty much be it for me that day.  And of course, never having experienced this procedure, I have no idea how I'll be seeing on Tuesday.  My PLAN is to be back to a regular posting schedule on Tuesday, but we shall see.  Please bear with me if I'm not back on deck as usual.

​Again, I hope each of you had a fabulous week and I look forward to hearing all about it!  Hugs all 'round.