Cool Bee

Saw this really cool bee in Florida (sitting inside the flower). It was a blue/green shiny color and I've never seen anything like it. Had to share.

Dinner at the Crab House

I think we had started to go to dinner at another place and it was closed, so we "settled" for the Crab House. Great outside deck, gorgeous weather, good company, good food, view of Jupiter Light. Why didn't we start out there??

Somehow Julia managed to get a neck rub out of the deal from Linda too. Life was good that night!!

Cat's In the Bag

Ok, before anyone calls the ASPCA, he was only in there for a minute and he LOVES it. He voluntarily climbs into any bag left on the floor. I think he would have napped in there if he could have. Crazy cat, that Harley.

How the Hartzogs Spend Easter

I guess I like spending the holidays in a somewhat unconventional way. I still remember the year I spent Christmas at Dad and Libby's and we made our own sushi for Christmas dinner. So I guess it's not surprising that "going to church" wasn't on our list of things we did on Easter. Well, Dad Hartzog and Gaga went, so hopefully they prayed for the rest of us.

Easter kind of started for us the night before. We came home from dinner and found that two beautifully painted eggs had been left for the kids and there was a bunny window decoration on the sliders outside. I guess the bunny wanted to make sure the kids knew that he'd still hide baskets for them at Papa's house, not to worry!

We got up at a fairly reasonable hour (God I adore having older children) and they waited patiently in the hallway for us to have some coffee and find the "on" button on the cameras before they started basket-seeking. After much lots of searching (Harley was thoroughly confused about what was happening) the kids found their bountiful baskets and dug in.

Papa took Gaga to church and we packed up some snacks and drinks for our day. We rented a boat and hit the intercoastal. It was GORGEOUS out. A totally perfect day to be out there. We hit Singer Island, had some brunch (it was about the only time Julia wore her Easter dress all day!) and then scooted over to Peanut Island.

In all the years we've been taking boats out we've never docked out at Peanut Island. It's this great little spot where you can dock or anchor and play on the beach, wade in the shallows or explore the cute little island. There were people who camp out there too. How fun!!

We hit the beach and Papa took a nap while we walked out into the shallows and checked out all the boating activity. It was a giant party. It was hysterical. The floor of the ocean had some sharp shells, so the bottoms of our feet were a little worse for the wear, but it was very cool out there.

Sun, fun and something new, what a great Easter!!

Turtles Need Rehab Too

It's only June and I'm just starting to add pix from April vacation. I'm hoping for a boring summer where I get caught up on everything AND have a clean house. Until then, I dream...

Here are a few snaps from the ever-growing Turtle Rehabilitation facility in Jupiter. We happened to visit this year on a day when they were cleaning the tanks and weighing and measuring the "patients". So we got a really cool glimpse at some of the stuff the staff and volunteers do there to take care of their shelled friends.

We also managed to get just a few (cough cough) cute ones of the kids and Papa too, go figure.

While we were standing there watching the whole process I happened to see a man standing there with a shirt from our local high school on. It's a fairly generic name, but the font was right so I decided to approach him. Sure enough, they not only live in our towen, but had kids that go to our kids' school. Microscopic world.

Another piece of cool news is that we are so often taken with the turtles at the "farm" that we got a special surprise from Papa. Just the other day we received our paperwork that Devin and Julia are the proud "parents" of a rescue turtle named "Morgan". They are not quite sure if Morgan is a boy or a girl (something having to do with the state of tail growth) but we are just loving him/her and hope that he/she is well enough to get released next spring (hopefully when we're down there, how cool would that be?)

Pinewood Derby 2009

This was going to be his year. They conferred, they shopped, they planned, they sanded, they painted and came up with another sweetheart of a car this year. THIS was going to be his year.

The heats that his car ran in (the really skinny red one in the middle) went well over and over. He consistantly placed 1st or 2nd in each heat. But, with so many boys in his group, he missed out on a 3rd place finish by some microscopic amount of time.

My Dad has vowed to make it his life's mission to come up with THE CAR for 2010. After all, Devin only has 1 Derby left (snif, snif) before he becomes a full out Boy Scout. Rumor has it that he plans to spend his fall and winter constructing a test track in their basement. My Mother must be thrilled.

Did Devin care that he narrowly missed winning a trophy? Does he look like he cared? Ok, yes, I'm sure he was a little disappointed, but it certainly didn't show.

Lake Wo-Be-Gone

I have officially ended my period of blog mourning for Oreo now and am so ridiculously behind on posts it's almost funny. The last weekend in March we took a drive out to the lake to survey the damage. What damage, you ask? Well, this is what can happen when an oil company forgets a delivery and a pipe bursts.

Now, to show you the hole in the pipe I'd practically need to give you a microscope, but it's quite out of sync with the amount of damage it caused. The pipe burst on the second floor kitchen. The water ran for some time. Since it was still dang cold out there, once the water reached the sliding doors, it started to cascade into a large ice sheet down the side of the house.

Once the ice became several inches thick, the neighbor (Norm, you rock) called us.

Bottom line, everything except for the 2 upstairs bedrooms had to be gutted down to the studs. The upside? All the work is now almost done and you can hardly recognize it now. I'll see if I can get some "after" pictures soon.

The first picture is a view from the bottom of the steps to the basement. You can see all the way through the closet that used to be there, the downstairs kitchen, the downstairs bathroom (see the shower stall door?) and into the back bedroom.

The second picture is of the kitchen upstairs. And, couldn't resist a picture of the kids standing "in the lake". The lake gets drained a bit every winter to protect the docks, and usually the spring thaw fills it back up again. It's still pretty low this year, which is ironic considering all the rain we've had! And last, but not least, Julia holding her baby cousin.

So, fear not. Lake party, still on this year!