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On May 31 we left for Florida for a nice family vacation.

We stopped in Tallahassee for the night (got there around midnight due to a stop for dinner in Pensacola  Beach). On Friday (jun 1) we traveled for Palm beach, and discovered rain starting around noon. The radio talked about a low pressure causing it out in the gulf, and since Florida has been in a drought, we were delighted to have the rain. By the time we got to our destination at the Marriot that evening, we were in a full Tropical storm, we discovered. A Tropical Storm isn’t a hurricane, but it sure isn’t a little Texas rain shower either.  we had 30-40 MPH winds, and rain that came in buckets. That lasted only 20 hours…

After the rain stopped though, we had a great time on the beach and at the pool.

Of course Vera’s only previous beach outings had been at the Gulf of Finland, cold water, swimming not really comfortable, rocky beaches…  This beach was incredible and the water was the blue that you would see in the South Pacific.  It looked like someone was pouring blue dye into the water. It was amazing… Vera liked these beaches, as did we all.
We went drift fishing on Tuesday morning.  We caught 2 Kings, and a few snapper (I think). We took them down the street, where they prepare the fish for free, and we ate all the blackened Mackerel we could shove down our gullets.  Yummy!

On Wednesday, we left and went up to Disney, staying at the Swan hotel. We awoke at 6:00 in the morning to make the 8:00 opening at the Magic Kingdom.  We did every single ride and show that we could think of and enjoyed it a lot.  At 10:00 the fireworks show comes on, and that is REALLY cool for a fireworks show.  we got on the shuttle bus back to the hotel at 11:00 as the park closed. It was a long long day, and it took us several days to recover.
Now what I learned is how conditioned I am to the buttons that Disney is able to press. I was just in awe of some of the theming, not Mickey or Pirates, but things that kind of surprised me. The whole princess thing, and the irony of never having been there before, until we had a kid that had seen the Little Mermaid in Russian.
Hmmm.

richard

Or loving bugs. And other creatures.

We are almost daily fascinated by some of the creatures that live in our back yard, in and around the pond and fountains.

Today, Aric found what he’s hoping is a new species of grasshopper. We are planning on sending a photo and description to experts at the BCCP or Travis County to see if they can help us ID it. None of us have seen this particular variety before:

Thanks to Scott for the nice photo. He’s gotten some good shots of one of our other favorite creatures, a big, red, dragonfly that I’ve nicknamed Clifford: