By tick and tock a day is done.....

By tick and tock a day is done, when seven go by a week is done.......... and before you know it a whole month is gone. The first part of that is a line (as I remember it) from a children's book I like to read to the kids every January about the months of the year. It's called "Month by Month A Year Goes Around". I know it sounds cliche...but time really does seem to be flying by.

 After all the holiday and party fun, life got back to normal. We have settled back in to our regular, sometimes boring, routine, but all in all I can't complain. It is lovely in Florida at this time of the year. We have a lot of sunshine and even when the temperatures drop...they don't stay that way for long enough. It's perfect for walking, taking bike rides and finally getting to open up the windows to let fresh breezes in.

This year it seems like there are more than the usual amount of "snowbirds" in town. While winter started out pretty mild up north...I guess the price of gas inspired a lot of people to head south. The traffic has been terrible and  at times it seems like every other car is from somewhere else. I am not looking forward to the Spring Break crowds...mainly because you have to constantly remind yourself to factor in a little extra time to get places due to the increased and often times, slower traffic. I certainly understand why people want to come here...but when you need to get somewhere, you don't always appreciate the sight seers...hahaha

Our January trip to the Viera wetlands...Erik was a great guide!

I haven't posted in a while...so I'll back track a bit to catch up. Super Bowl Sunday this year wasn't really very exciting...because none of the teams I care about were in it. The play-offs were fun to watch...and for a minute it looked like "my" Steelers might just make it.....hahaha but in the end neither the Broncos or Panthers really excited me.
We did however have a fun Super Bowl Party at our local hangout...LongDoggers.  Al made some extra food just for our group and I made some cookies. We kind of "took over" the outside patio area and we just had fun.

I barely watched the game...but had plenty of fun talking and eating and just enjoying the gang. There were several "pools" of course...and John and Ron got lucky and hit one square; so that was an added plus.

Next up on the calendar

 our plans included a quick trip down to south Florida to celebrate our anniversary and see David in the Coconut Grove Art Festival.

It was a busy weekend in Miami...the art festival plus a big boat show down on Key Biscayne.

Our friend Al had a booth at the boat show, and we had hoped to get down to check it out too. That didn't work out...more on that in a bit.

We lucked out and found a room within walking distance of the art festival...with this beautiful view.

art show booths

We walked around and enjoyed the artwork. Stopped by to visit with David and Augie...and people watch for a bit. After a brief time at the art show...we decided to see about heading over to check out the boat show. We knew there was a water taxi service so we thought we'd try that.

We took a nice walk through the park and to the dock. There were a lot of boats! The amount of money spent on those boats was hard to comprehend..... lets just say the economy seems to be doing well in South Florida. Well...we got to where the water taxi was picking people up and found out that we would have to wait. There was no way we'd get on the next boat based on the number of people in line. Boats hold about 30/35...we were just past that mark in the line. Several different boats were running...but there was a lot of traffic on the Inter coastal Waterway...slowing things down. 45 minute wait for a boat...followed by a 45 minute ride over....we began to realize that this was not going to be an easy process. did I mention John is not good at waiting in line...hahah. Plan B we decided to set out on foot back to the hotel area to try to find the shuttle that was also taking people over to the boat show. After a meandering walk around Coconut Grove...we found where we needed to go for the shuttle...then we had to wait some more. All the while John's cold medicine was starting to wear off and he was not feeling 100%.....but he hung in there. Just as we were about to give up...the shuttle appeared and we headed over, along with a handful of other folks. The trip over was quick! But as we got closer to the entrance to the show...we saw hundreds of people waiting in lines.....and we realized they were in line trying to get BACK to where we just came from. OKAY.....this was not looking too promising...big crowds of hot, grouchy people (I assume...we didn't actually get off the bus...hahah). We evaluated the whole picture and decided there was nothing at the boat show we really needed to see...so we told the driver we were just going to stay on the bus and go back where we started. hahaha Apparently this is the first year they have had the boat show on Key Biscayne and things did not go as smoothly as the organizers had hoped they would...as far as getting people to and from the venue. Oh well...we got a nice little tour of the area while we rode the bus to and fro.
When we got back we found a local spot for a bite to eat. Live music ( a little loud...but that's the way it goes), decent food...not exactly the steak dinner we had kind of planned on...but much easier.
Basically nothing really went according to plans that day/night...but it was beautiful and we still enjoyed ourselves. I scored a little piece of art. Had David go negotiate a deal for me, since he knew the artist. He saved me $40.00!
Enjoyed sitting on the balcony back at the room listening to the sounds of the town down below and watching the lights come on. Sunday morning we enjoyed a beautiful sunrise right outside our window.

We planned to scoot out of there fairly early in hopes of avoiding most of the traffic on I-95. There was a coffee shop downstairs in the hotel...and while I had to wait several minutes to get my sandwich...I have to say it was one of the best breakfast sandwiches I have ever had! Turkey, egg whites, spinach and Havarti cheese on a toasted English muffin...a nice way to start the day, that's for sure.
 So...even though out trip turned out to be nothing like we had planned...AT ALL...hahah I really enjoyed it all anyway....John...with his cold, the lines, the waiting... etc...maybe not quite as much...hahahah
Now a little poem by Elizabeth Coatsworth:
                                                               MARCH
                                                              A blue day,
                                                               a blue jay
                                                        and a good beginning.
                                                               One crow,
                                                            melting snow---
                                                           spring's winning!
                                                                             

Friends and Costumes

I told you that the whole costume aspect of the party was met with mixed reactions. It made some people nervous; but not us! hahah I knew some people wouldn't get into it, but I was curious to see what ideas everyone would come up with. In the end I was (actually, I think everyone was) impressed with the amount of participation and the variety. The costumes certainly were a good ice-breaker and they kept everyone laughing and smiling all night....just like a good costume party should. The people at Party City were probably wondering what was going on...hahaha I bet they were wondering where the party was...hahah I know I would have been.
Any way...here's some fun pictures of the various costumes. Facebook did a Friends movie today for Friend's Day...pffffffffft...here's MY "friends" review. They're in numerical order on my camera...so this is kind of how the night progressed.

It's fitting that some of the first people to arrive were family members and old friends....like Art and Gayle. John went to first grade with Art!

It was also funny when it took a few minutes to figure out exactly who was who...Al above looked a little different with his "sideburns and mustache". When Megan came home after Brenna teased up her hair...John didn't even recognize her for a minute. hahah That's okay...Megan didn't know who I was either...hahaha
When the invitations went out...I had a start time of 7:30pm...in hopes that people would get there by 8:30pm. Honestly most nights I'm falling asleep by 8:30pm...and I was afraid if the party didn't get going early enough...we might all be slowing down when we needed to be amping up. Fortunately...for probably the first time ever....people actually started arriving early! (we did tell some people to come at 7pm...but it surprised me that they actually did come then.) I can't lie...hahaha many times when we had parties in the past, I have been known to stand by the front window watching for the first car to arrive.

  Band t-shirts included The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Allman Brothers

                                    There were lots of glasses... and some rose colored lenses.

cousins

Some wigs made people look completely different...or years younger...like Nancy here, who looked just like she did in HS in her wig.

                      We had NASA engineers and Astronaut wives and Audrey Hepburn styles.

I remember people thinking I was a little crazy because I wanted to come home from  Gainesville for "The Mardi Gras Ball" a crazy costume party /dance that the church put on every year as a fundsraiser. (Comments like "Let me get this straight...you need to get home for a party your parents (and their church)are having???)
 It was a party that my parents and all their friends helped plan, organized and went to...and they had a blast every time. Once we were old enough to go...we had fun too. Watching them, etc. Well...that's kind of how our kids feel. Their friends were curious the first time we had a costume party and they came to it...but now they know it's going to be a good time!

Jon (on the left)...along with my sister and my niece walked through the lobby of the hotel in this get-up. hahaha

                 beards and sunglasses and big hair make it hard to tell who's who...hahah

                                           At 8:15 the party was already hopping!

someone asked Elizabeth if that was her real hair...hahaha

   These were blue tinted glasses.....but he couldn't see...hahah so we popped out the lenses.

as I said...the video FB made for me wasn't even close.....here's what my "Friends" video might include...:) :) :)

60's Party Recap (in parts)

Last February, we had a big birthday party for Brenna's 30th birthday. We had so much fun that we immediately started talking about "what we should do next". Well...it was quickly decided that since John's 60th birthday was in December, we were going to have a 60's party. We lucked out with the way the calendar lined up last year...we decided against having it on/near John's actual birth date of 12/20. Instead we determined that we would celebrate on January 2, 2016....which happened to be a Saturday. That way most Christmas and New Year's parties would be over...but we could squeeze in one more party before the holiday weekend ended. I didn't know if people would be worn out from all the holiday celebrations...or if they would be like me...hoping for one more thing! hahaha

                                                        All 60's...music, food and fun.

 With that decision...we were I was off and running.  I began searching I-Tunes for old songs I remembered from the 60's.

Of course, I had to keep in mind that my music...The Doors, Cream, The Zombies, Lou Reed, etc was a little different then John's idea of 60's music. He was the youngest in his family and had siblings 5-16 years older than him; so naturally he grew up listening to their music on the radio. He was more likely to request Frankie Valle, The Temptations, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye or music along that line. It was a challenge, but I loved it. I downloaded music and rearranged it and tweaked that list for months....until I came up with my perfect play list. hahaha all six plus hours of it!!!!
We told everyone about the party....way, way in advance. I did that for several reasons...one - in hopes that some family members would try to plan ahead to join us and also to give people plenty of time to look for a costume. I guess it also was a way to build up the excitement...because we certainly managed to do that! I know people thought we were a little crazy planning so far in advance...but I didn't care...I am crazy...hahaha.
First to "sign up"...my sister Martha and her husband Tony. We told them in March and she said "We'll be there!" She mentioned it to her son and his wife; she told them "We plan to be in Florida at Christmas time, meet us there."

They already had costumes from another party they had attended.....so they were one step ahead of the rest of us. With Martha on board, I started working on my other out of town family members. My brothers live here, so I knew they would be around, so now I was doing my best to convince
 the rest of the gang.
Some friends got excited right away...they said, we will be there and I'm getting a costume. Others sounded skeptical...hahah but eventually came around to my way of thinking. hahaha
Brenna and I had fun planning out the menu...looking for typical 60's dishes. Jello salad, Pigs-in-a-blanket, fondue, meatballs, shrimp (cocktail) to name a few.
We searched online and found our costumes...vintage baggies (a la The Endless Summer), wigs, gogo boots, glasses...I kept Amazon busy with all my orders.
As the months went by Elizabeth and Ellen made plans to join us. It looked like we were going to have all the Burtons together for the party. (The only one who didn't make it was our brother-in-law Rob and our nephew Shane. )

Sisters....and some kids....Meredith,Liz,Anne,Brenna,Ellen,Martha, Anna and birthday boy John in the back

In the end the only ones missing in my family were Rob & Shane, Ryan R., David and Samii B., and Marcus.
I was so happy to have everyone there...I didn't really care if anyone else came...I knew we would have fun. I knew they would all have costumes and dance and have a good time. We invited all of John's family, but for various reasons, they couldn't make it. He was a little disappointed...but that's just the way it goes. Sometimes it works out...sometimes it doesn't. He did say at one point..."I don't think this is even about my birthday...this is just a party so the Burton's can get crazy."  he might have a point .
We slowly got the decorations, etc together. As the list of people we were going to invite got longer...I decided if we were having it at our house, we needed some kind of tent for the back yard. It took some convincing...but we did order a 10 x 20 ft tent. We also had two 10x10 pop-ups available.

One thing I have learned over the years is that when you decide to have a party(here or past years at my parents house)...it requires you to give everything a good cleaning. One project leads to another and you clean your way around the house. In our case we worked our way around...cleaning the back room, the screened porch area

and then the garage. John figured we could set up the ping-pong table out there, something for the people to do that don't like to mingle in the crowd...hahah. We had been wanting to do something with the floor out there...and ended up tiling it. Wow...it looks great now!

 Once the floor was done, the walls looked crummy...so we did a quick (very quick) paint job. The garage was looking better than inside the house! hahahaha
 Cleaning up the garage gave us a lot of extra space for people. It was also a good place to move some of the furniture out of the living room to make more space for walking around near the front door. (it's a good thing we did that!...we needed all the space we could get!)

A few people had joked about the date, commenting that we probably wouldn't need much beer...since everyone would still be getting over New Year's Eve. (We ordered two kegs anyway and both were almost completely gone.) It seems my idea they people would always be up for one one celebration...proved to be true.
I Sent out a Save the Date in late October...figuring people could find costumes on sale; if they hadn't already found one. At that point more people were "jumping on the bandwagon"....and everyone seemed to be getting as excited as we were about the party.
Whenever I heard a song that might work...on the radio, in a movie (like The Man From Uncle...actually got two or three from that soundtrack), TV show, etc...I added it and tweaked the play list some more. (Poor) John had to bear with me and listen to it more than once...while I tried my best to get the right music playing at the right time. To me there's nothing worse than going to a party...and the music never really gets going until people are ready to be going. So John humored me and gave me feedback each time I rearranged the songs to get them where I wanted them.

I am happy to report that the music was a hit! Everyone enjoyed the variety.There was a core group of us dancing, but many times people would dance by singing and bopping along. It worked out pretty much the way I had hoped it would. There was a song for just about everyone there. hahah
Out of everyone we invited....only about 10 or 15 couldn't make it. And then several people told friends about the party...so we more than made up for them. It was a bit like a reunion...some friends there we have known for over 40 years! It was like a kind of crazy HS reunion in a way,,,hahaha

I am going to sign off for now...but don't fret...there are more picture to come. Just thought I'd give everyone a break for now...hahha