Fall in Key West

Even down here we are getting a bit of fall! And I am loving it!

A little bit of yellow in the mangroves

and pines

and little bit of red in the sea grapes,

crown of thorns,

and these pretty berries.

And just to keep us happy, these beautiful little flowers!

I'm not sure what they're called, but I know Jen could tell me. Is it spindlethrift or something like that? Anyway, pretty!So I guess we do have seasons here in the tropics. It's just a little bit warmer here and always green, that's all. :)

Thanksgiving Dinner - My Favorite Meal of the Year

What a great day! Good food, good people, good times! The entire day of slaving (well, of Jen slaving) away in the kitchen was all worthwhile when it came time to eat. She had set out a lovely selection of appetizers about noon to keep hungry people out of the kitchen.

There were veggies, chips and spinach dip, cranberry muffins, crackers and cheeses, and these lovely sugar, peanut butter, acorn cookies!

I felt like I should take a couple and hide them around the house for later. :)
Marianna did a superb job helping me set the table.

Her napkin folding skills are truly amazing!
I thought this candle was pretty cool so included it. Maybe not very Thanksgivingish, but pretty. The rim is really cool.

And the table was groaning under all the food!

Marianna and I were busy taking pictures of it all. What a feast though, huh?!

Uh oh. Do you see what I see in that picture? Somebody was sneaking food!

Hal did a really excellent job carving the delicious turkey (You taught Jen well, Mom, she really outdid herself on this meal!)

Marianna was ready for it too, boy! She had purposely eaten very little of the appetizers and was starving. She really enjoyed the meal! Ah! Here comes food! Time to put the camera away!

Ok, ok! One last picture for you all! Doesn't this look great?!I love Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

To all my family and friends, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope your day is full of great fun, good food and many things to be thankful for. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful day!

Pumpkins, Brownies, Princesses and Ping Pong=

Halloween! But not in that order! Yes, I am finally going to post about our wonderful Key West Halloween and how much fun we had.

Lets start with costumes. Marianna and I had great, wonderful, superb costumes, and were the only ones in the entire marina who even dressed up. What is wrong with all those retired military folk eh? Anyway, Marianna and I looked beautiful and had a lot of fun in our costumes. She was a princess, or Queen Anne (?) of Hungary, who became a saint.

Isn't she gorgeous?! She got the dress from K-Mart and then beautified it with ribbon. I thought she looked very authentic, especially with the make-up job by yours truly!

I was, of course, knockout, drop dead, jaw dropping gorgeous as a '30's movie star, or flapper, depending on who you asked!

Don't I look lovely in green?

As you can see and possibly guess, we went up to the Chief's Club to celebrate. Marianna wanted to make brownies and did an excellent job as they were delicious!

We invited our friend and neighbor, Joe, to go with us and had a really great time playing him at shuffleboard and ping pong. I don't think I won at shuffleboard, but I kicked his tail at ping pong! I still grin about it! I haven't asked him if I can post a picture of him yet though, so won't this post. Maybe later, after I ask his permission.

So our costumes were great and we had a ton of fun. But what about the pumpkins you ask? They kicked tail! Vanessa thinks her's was awesome?! No way! Not compared to ours. Thats not bragging either, that's fact! Check them out:Mine. Note the originality and I must tell you that it was all from my brain and hand carved with no pattern or anything. Unlike some.Marianna's. Note the incredible detail on the teeth. Yes, that pumpkin does indeed have braces! Great job kiddo!

And, as we were having a competition with him, Joe's. I like the glasses, makes it look so goofy! Although the stitches in the cheek do add some Halloween spirit.

And finally, check out who we saw in town on Halloween!

Were he and Mrs. Claus there checking to see who is being naughty and nice or were they just enjoying some of the beautiful weather down here? :)

Goombay Fest!

Hooray for Goombay!! Held in October, Goombay Fest is a celebration of the different cultures of the Caribbean, ranging from traditional Key West foods and music to Haitian, Jamacian, even Mexican things. Goombay is an awesome way to experience what living in Key West is all about.
Everyone is there to have a good time, so the atmosphere is very laid back and chill. And it is such a variety of people too! We saw local, lifetime residents of Key West willingly rubbing shoulders and interacting with tourists and they in turn enjoying the variety of the Caribbean cultures around them. I've not ever really seen anything like it before, people seem very accepting down here, which is really cool and nice.
We not only enjoyed the atmosphere, but the people watching! What a wonderful opportunity for it! Little old ladies walking in stillettos (spelling?) and young women wearing grandma shoes. Traditional Haitian clothing and gothic kids running crazy. It really is amazing what people think is acceptable fashion sometimes, but these head scarfs are just awesome!

And while it is true that the headscarfs are awesome and I look totally killer in one, how about these masks?! The guy who makes these is a world reknowned artist and makes them for theaters and circuses and stuff. He is amazing, huh?!

So not only was wandering around fun and awesome and provided many opportunities of admiring crazy people and masks and art etc, but the food was superb! Hal and Marianna were really great about buying exotic foods for us, and Jen and I were really great about putting it away!

Nah, we all ate a lot, Jen and I didn't hog it all!

The craziest food we tried? Pig stomach! Which, once you got past the fact that it was pig stomach, was really delicious. I also really enjoyed the goat, and I totally thought of dad when we tried a corncake topped with swiss cheese. Good, but dad's corncakes are much better than the ones we had! Ah, Goombay was GREAT and I can't wait for it to come around next year!

Mallory Square

One of my favorite places and things to do here in Key West is Mallory Square at Sunset. Everyone is having so much fun watching the street performers and the sunset, its just a wonderful atmosphere! We were down there a couple of days ago and had a really great time watching the Banjo Man
(for dad!), the Cool, Acrobatic Guy, and the sunset!Beautiful, huh?! Yep, Mallory Square is one of my most favorite places!

Marianna and Braces

As you probably know, Marianna recently got braces! She is doing very well with them now, but at first she was having some issues. For example, when we were watching cats at Marie's, Marianna accidentally popped a wire out from the back of her mouth and it had to be fixed. Now, the orthodontist is about 140 miles away from Marie's, so it was time for Jen to try her hand at it.She actually did a really good job at it. I mean, isn't that the most comfortable dentist's chair you've ever seen? And her tool of choice? A tweezer! No drills, no picks, no nothing! I was frankly, jealous. Why can't my dentist give me that kind of luxury treatment? Shoot the last time I was there, she didn't even give me enough nummer and had to renumb me in the middle of it all! I think she should take lessons from Jen in dentistry! So anyway, back to Marianna. Needless to say, her mouth is now fine as Jen performed the operation flawlessly and Marianna is doing very well with braces. Sadly I don't have a good picture of Marianna smiling with her braces right now. Soon!

Long Silence

So sorry about the long silence on my blog! Finding internet down here can be tricky and I've tried for the last two days to find an accessible spot with free internet. The library has free wi-fi, but little parking because they're working on the parking lot. And of course all the street parking for the library is full up with patrons. Or was for the past two days. I was also going to try getting the internet from a restaurant/bar called Harpoon Harry's, but wouldn't you know that the city is doing road construction in that area and it is hard to get in and harder to find parking. Now why, you may ask, doesn't she just park the truck in a garage or along a quiet side street and walk or bike around? Because I happen to be carrying about a thousand dollars worth of outboard motors and tools in the back of my truck that could easily grow legs. I love my work, but I tell ya, not having a great place to keep tools, or a secure place anyway, does get old after a while! But anyway, I managed to get a parking spot in the library today! So I have internet and can post! Believe me, there will be a lot of posts because I've got a lot to catch up on! Anyway, that is the low down about why I haven't been posting.