floooorida!

um, hi. I went to florida. like forever ago. um, or more like a week and a half.

and here are my pictures:

I've none of pearl jam but when someone (ahem!) shares them with me I'll show you. they did play my very fave song, Daughter, which brought memories of my dad's rental house on cherry street to mind. My dad lived with his girlfriend, Penny, and her two daughters Sara and Emily. They aren't important for the Florida story, but it's kind of remarkable that they went through Anna's line at walmart yesterday...

So, Thursday in Tampa: Late luggage, TGIFriday's, little nap, Rocking Pearl Jam and a late dinner at VI. Yes, that's right, Village Inn. How could two Tulsans NOT go there?!?

Friday we slept in. Del woke me up at 11. I was pretty proud of her for waiting so long! sterling and I woke up, ate at einstein brothers and saw a sonic and HAD to stop and then went to see some real live dinosaurs! um, er, real moving dinosaurs? they made noises and stuff. it was as mosi.

and then we met del!!! we ate and chatted and went to the hotel to chill and change clothes. and then met christina for, literally, a boatload of sushi. mmmmmm sushi. we had fun with the aquarium (which you saw here) and the food and then decided to go see The Happening. It was Sterling's idea. And it. Was. AWFUL. I mean, I jumped sometimes. The beginning got me. But as soon as they started talking about what was doing it--yikes. And I really wish I had those hours of my life back.

Saturday we ate at Einstein Brother's again, and Del and I went to Orlando. We stopped at this awesome produce booth along the road. She got peaches and I got some strawberries and we took some pictures. Man those strawberries were deeeeelish!

then, on the road again. To Leu Gardens. Cats and Kittens, if you ever find yourself without sunblock somewhere sunny, saunter into their gift shop. I SO wish we'd thought of that. My sunblock was in Sterling's backpack. I applied some of my spf 15 face lotion to my arms, shoulders and neck and hoped it would work (it didn't). We walked around the gardens, which felt kind of like a jungle in some places, and saw lizards and butterflies and the like.

and then to escape the heat we went on a tour of the leu's house. it was really neat--a LOT of the things in there I was all "my granny has that!" the footstool embroidered with flowers, the carnival glass, the singer sewing machine footpedal table thing. It was awesome. The docent lady really thought it was weird that I was taking pictures of, like, the lamp and the lace curtains. and, um, anything. apparently no one has EVER taken pictures of these things like that. whatever, they were pretty!!! unfortch no flash was allowed so some of the other things came out blurry. :( but here are the ones that didn't, including the armadillo basket!

we left and snacked on deeelish guac and queso and got some summer shandy (del had never had it!) and went to meet Darin and Jake. Jake is super adorable. He's a funny little doggie full of energy, and he has ZERO space boundaries. And Darin was pretty awesome too, we had a good time at dinner. It made me wish Matt had been there--they so would've gotten along. Also, I almost brought a cat home in my suitcase. There were feral cats all out by the deck and I fed one some seafood (off of the deck, people. if they came on I wouldn't) and it was so cute, all pale and calico, and I wanted to take it home. but clearly it was living a life of seafood-eating luxury, so I left it there.

we went to a bar where we almost felt too young and people were smoking like chimneys and then headed back to del and darin's place. Jake was SO sad not to get to sleep with me. We all crashed and got up early to get me to the airport, I came home and packed. The End.

except that sometimes when jake yawns he looks like he's trying to eat del's head.