We're going for the weekend so we can pick this up:
The vehicle, not the people, obviously. Hopefully there's a lot less snow this time. This is one of Billy's houses (the guy we house sit for) and he's giving us this rhino as a thank you. So we figure we should go pick it up so we at least have something to show for all the time we've spent away from home. We won't have internet up there though, so no posts until Tuesday, probably. Have a lovely Labor Day!
Then I was walking along the boardwalk, enjoying the scenery, when I heard her dive instructor's voice. I used my detective skills and found them in the water.
Then I played paparazzi and took lots of stalker-ish pictures. They had no idea I was there. At one point they were swimming across and suddenly both came up and I had to duck behind the railing so they wouldn't see me. I'm smooth as silk, baby.
The arrow's pointing to Katie's tank. The white tank next to her is her instructor. 
She passed! Now when she comes back for Christmas, she can come diving with us and Mike, and Tony if he comes too. We had a celebratory steak dinner with celebratory cupcakes. It was very celebration-ey. She goes back home tomorrow, and we go back to our old ways. Sigh.
We had a rosemary plant once. Robyn gave it to us. We put it out on our dock so it had full sun, and it hurled itself into the water to avoid a slow, painful death at our inept hands. Can't say I blame it.
I don't seem to recall this occurring at any point of my teenage years. Clearly Katie has some sort of voodoo magic hold over them. It's pure insanity.
I actually picked up the branches that were knocked down by Fay already, generally we leave the branches around for at least a month before we get around to it. Our neighbors' branches were already picked up, of course, but there were some clumps of Spanish moss still on the ground. And the one-legged man that lives next to him went out in his kayak on Saturday. That man is tough. He's in his 80s and has one leg. That's why we call him one-legged man. I saw him in Publix once, it was the coolest. I felt like I was seeing a celebrity.
I kind of love this show. I saw it for the first time when they visited the St. Augustine lighthouse, which was a really good episode (I might still have it on our dvr), and then I sort of got hooked. It's sort of cheesy sometimes, but it's fun. How's that for a pointless story?
Meanwhile, Mama took it like a champ. She's a real woman.
I feel kind of bad for them, being stuck outside in this weather, but at least they got some food today. Plus there's a couple of structures outside they can get into, so they'll be fine. 
Alfred found out that this restaurant we go to lunch at fairly often (well, he still goes, I don't anymore obviously) had 2 for 1 beer last night, so off we went. Mercedes and I only had 2 beers each, but Alfred and Ilya made up for it with 5 each. We had wings and nachos too, definitely a very healthy night. We wanted to get a picture with the food and all of our empty glasses, but the waitress said she couldn't leave the glasses cause they needed to wash them and use them again. She said she was sorry, but didn't sound it. She did take this picture for us, though. Apparently I felt the need to try and hide behind the umbrella pole.
Yeah, that's a truck in the fountain out front. We're working on it.
See, there's my breakfast, yogurt and a banana muffin. I didn't get a chance to blog last night because we went out on a date! Yeah, that's right. We went out to dinner and then to a movie. Yay for $5 movie tickets! We saw Tropic Thunder. It was pretty good, definitely had some funny parts. Tom Cruise and Bill Hader dancing, for one. I had read that there were fake trailers before the movie, so when the first trailer started I assumed it was fake. It was something with Samuel L. Jackson (I think) being a bad cop. Looked pretty silly to me, so I Assumed it was a joke, but then the next one looked a little more realistic, like a movie I'd actually want to see. By the third trailer (for a Disney animated movie) I finally figured out these were real. But that first one really threw me off. (The fake ones are very obvious.) 
I could have blogged about it last night, but then I'd have nothing to write about for today! It was kind of nice, there were only 5 of us there for a change, it was nice to be able to actually be able to hold a conversation and hear everyone. Usually there's so many people that you don't even end up talking to half of the people there because the table is so long. And I like all the girls who came, so that was good, too. 2 of them were pregnant. One is about 7 months along, she's due in October and doesn't know what she's having yet. Also, she's freaking gorgeous. The other girl was due yesterday. Her stomach sticks out so freaking far, I don't understand how she stays upright. She's having a little boy.
e place we went for my last lunch before I went back to the museum, but this time we did it right, we just ordered a bunch of tapas and all shared. We had squid, chorizo, shrimp, chicken, a Spanish tortilla (kind of an omelet with potatoes in it) and of course sangria. It was really good, even though some of the bigger pieces of squid looked like centipedes. Then afterwards we went out for ice cream at the super delicious ice cream place by Alfred's office. Somehow Alfred managed to resist the frosty goodness, that's my sundae he's holding in the picture.
Marc is doing what he does best in this picture: coming after Mama. For some reason she is terrified of him, even though a) she's bigger than him, and b) she's a damn cat, and cats eat birds. He'll chase after her while she's just hanging around, he comes into the office while she's eating and scares her away, he's basically kind of a bully.
Mama, on the other hand, is very sweet. We named her Mama because she kept having kittens at the museum. Mose was one of them, he was our pet at the museum for a few years until he ran away and broke my heart. 
We were pals. When he was little he'd go to sleep on my chair, then when I came in he'd either stay there and share my chair with me, or crawl into my lap and sleep there. If he was near me outside and I squatted down, he'd come over and climb into my lap just to snuggle with me. I loved that damn cat. I was so sad when he went missing. 
On the left is the main entrance. There's going to be a gift shop and visitor information center inside. There's going to be a fort build behind the fence on the right so you'll see the fort walls and gun tower as you drive down the street. It should be cool. I would have gone over and taken a better picture, but there were workers there already when I got to work this morning and I didn't want to look like a goon.
We even have corn growing at the corn grinding table.
And the grape vine they planted a few years ago has grapes on it!
Today was our last group of the summer, probably the last program ever to be conducted at the old museum (knock on wood). It felt sort of momentous.
It was damn tasty! We also made some split pea soup in the slow cooker and let it cook overnight, so we've got that meal ready for this week. Sunday we really got to work, made some yogurt and granola, went for our walk (we saw a dead sting ray up on the beach, which was kind of cool), then made some Indian food for dinner.
We came up with a new diet plan along the way, too: add an extra teaspoon of red pepper to whatever it is you're eating. Works like a charm. To be fair, I just followed the recipe, I didn't add extra and mess it up.
Isn't she pretty? It's a 2005 Hyundai Elantra, I got my four doors and automatic transmission, and even got a sunroof and mp3 player! It's a champagne color, which makes me want to name it Andre. It drives really nicely, it's a smaller car but feels nice and big from the inside, it's got a nice size backseat (for carseats, maybe....) and overall I'm just really happy with it. So, yay!
