We'll just take a quick walk around....

Saturday, May2nd, was Founders Day in Melbourne Beach. It's a day full of fun activities, music, food, arts and crafts down at the local park. Last year it was a total wash out...it poured all morning and storms just kept rolling in...so they finally just called it quits and everyone went home. This year however, made up for it. The weather was beautiful. A little cooler than average and sunny, clear skies all day and into the evening.

I had great plans to get up and go down early in the day to check things out. Josh and the Electric Car group were there with a tent; so I thought I's top by to see them and check out the arts and crafts. A couple of my friends had booths. Welll...that plan never materialized...the day slipped away from me...and suddenly it was almost 5pm. We were watching a variety of sports events on TV...the Kentucky Derby, golf, basketball, which was fine, but it was such a nice afternoon/evening I hated to be inside. I suggested to John that we go "take a quick walk around" the park. He was a little reluctant, because while we both knew we'd see a lot of people,  we also knew there was a good chance most of them would have been enjoying a few beers over the course of the afternoon. Not that it's a big problem...but if you're NOT drinking and everyone else IS...sometimes it gets a little annoying. hahah
After a little hesitation, he agreed. So we went down and got there as most of the booths were closing up. We strolled through the park and walked out onto the pier.

Back in the 70's we used to ride our bikes down to pier to watch the sunset. Can't tell you how many beautiful sunsets we enjoyed there.

 John worked at the restaurant  right near the corner...so Martha, our friend(s) and I would stop to say Hi on our way to the pier or the park.
We paused on our way out to the end  to have someone take our picture.

Then we figured we'd slowly walk through the park one more time and head home. This time around we started running into all kinds of friends. The thing is...on Founder's Day everyone comes out for the celebration. The kids have a blast running around the park and playground and older people (like us...hahah)...stop and chat with everyone along the way. The town itself has a population of 3175 people...which doesn't include all the people not technically in the city, but in the Melbourne Beach area. So...it's easy to see how you could spend the whole evening talking to one person after another...hahah

We ran into neighbors, people from the library, and lots of old friends. More than once we said..."Well, we're going to head out" only to stop again a little further along to chat with someone else. Our last stop to talk to some friends we've known since Jr. High School; we ran into a good friend's  son. We knew Austin's dad was in town for the weekend; but we had been unable to get in touch with him. Chuck has been working in Shanghai for months and was home briefly. I have to give him credit...he was not worried about checking his phone for messages, etc. He figured, he was in town and people would find him. He wasn't going to spend all his time trying to make sure he got around to see everyone who wanted to see him. So...we were very happy to run into Austin on our way out...and find out that Chuck and a group of friends were actually at the street party. We turned around and managed to find Chuck and friends in the crowd.

(John was one of the people who had been trying to message him...but figured Chuck knew   where we were ...if it worked out we'd get  to see him...  so I'm glad it did)
The "street party" was scheduled from 5 (or 6) to 8pm. In past years it went later...but a couple of years back some of the crowd had a little too much fun...and there was a big fight...so town officials decided 8pm was a safer bet...hahah. The band...some locals, including a father and son...was great! They played a lot of songs from the 80's...my kind of 80's...not the top 40 stuff. People were dancing and it was a lot of fun. I'm so glad we stayed.

good friends from Winter Park/UCF in town to see Chuck

hamming it up for my picture

All in all...it was exactly what a good  hometown party should be. The weather was perfect (cooler than the week before...and not as hot as May can sometimes be in Florida). The music was great, all the locals were there,everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves...and no one got out of control...hahaha. We finally did leave at dark...happy that "our quick stroll around the park" turned out to be such a fun time.

slowing down

Things have slowed down a bit around here....not too much excitement going on. At work you can definitely tell that Spring Break is over and many of the winter visitors have headed home. It's nice to have the business...but it's also nice to get back to our regular routine. Traffic is considerably lighter too...which is always a good thing. It's hard to complain about traffic in a small town like ours, but when there are a lot of tourists in town it does get a little hectic out there. I've decided it not necessarily the tourists (not knowing what they're doing) but rather the frustrated locals who aren't used to having to wait through one or more cycles of the traffic light. hahah There tends to me a lot more people darting in and out of lanes trying to get around the slow moving traffic. Oh well...slowing down now.
We didn't get much of a Spring...we went for winter straight into summer like temperatures. I love this place...but 90 degrees in mid April is kind of hard to take!

There have been a couple of rocket launches lately...which is always a good thing. Several companies have been  having success with their launches. A step in the right direction for sure! We are the Space Coast after all!! It's a thrill to watch them go.

I'm not a big fan of watching baseball or basketball ...although  the March Madness games were pretty exciting! It's always sad when football season ends....but there is golf. John loves watching the pros. I don't mind a little here and there. Our friend Al, recently had a party for the final day of the Master's. He had gone to the actual event for a couple of the early rounds and brought back some souvenirs. He's got a big room with a very large TV...add some friends, some tasty food and...golf isn't really so boring after all. hahah About halfway through the match he had some games set up for a little friendly competition. Corn hole, darts, putting and chipping. I did pretty well on the 6 corn hole tosses...but not so great on the others...but that's ok...I really wasn't trying to win. (it was interesting to watch everyone...some of those people are seriously competitive...I was kind of amused, not really surprised, but amused) It was a fun afternoon.

Brenna in her office...she gave me a tour

This past weekend John was out of town fishing with some friends; so Brenna and I went over to check out our radio stations 40th anniversary celebration. I have been listening almost the whole 40 years. When they first started...you had to turn your radio at just the right angle to pick up the signal. Mostly classical music on the weekends back then...but over the years it got bigger and better. It went through some changes...but I stuck with it through them all. Once you listen to commercial free programming...it is really hard to listen to anything else. Plus no one else has the news (NPR) and variety of music.
I even lost out on another station's prize back in the 80's. A local station had a promotion going on...if you got their random call and you could tell them their slogan...you would win $1000.00. well...John had mentioned it to me...but it kind of went in one ear and out the other...because I didn't listen to them.One afternoon I actually got the random call
"Hi!!! What radio station do you listen to?"
I stopped for a minute knowing there was some catch phrase...but I had absolutely NO IDEA what it was...so I said
"I listen to WFIT!"
The caller told me..."if you had said BJ-105 you would have won $!000.00."
Well, .I told him" sorry I don't, but I love my station."
I would have put $1000.00 to good use...but as Jen would say..."It is what it is." And I can say I really do love my station and don't know what I'd do if they ever went off the air.

It was a nice afternoon...but it was HOT so we didn't stay too long. It got up to 90! agggh.
Where else would I get to hear music like these songs that came up on my random bike ride playlist for the day.
Come to Me-The Goo Goo Dolls
You've done It Again Virginia- The National
Waiting For Tonight- Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
Mayor of Simpleton-XTC
The Golden Path-The Chemical Brothers
Litany-Guadalcanal Diary
Sunday Bloody Sunday- U2
World Spins Madly On- The Weepies
Paper Airplane- Alison Kraus & Union Station
Yer So Bad- Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
Most of these songs and or groups I heard first on WFIT....with some exceptions (tv show soundtracks )...but the bottom line is they DO play this kind of music everyday. All genres, new, old, Alternative, etc...
Back in the day I would record the music onto cassette tapes...I'd hear a song starting and dash over to hit the record button. As Brenna pointed out...I still have stacks of those tapes. hahah Sometimes it took me years to figure out who a particular song was by or what it was called...Google sure has helped with that. hahah. So...here's hoping they stick around for 40 (or more) years!
And that's about it for now.
Happy Wednesday!

Celebrating the end of the 20's

Back in February we had a party to celebrate Brenna's 30th birthday. I had been trying to think of a reason for a 20's party ever since I read the Paris Wife and then again when I saw the movie "Midnight in Paris". All those great characters that were living there and having fun back then...I figured it would be a great party theme. And so....that's how it started. As anyone who knows me, knows...once I get the idea, it starts and then just keeps  growing from there. First order of business was to convince the birthday girl that she wanted  us to have this party to celebrate her birthday. She was a little reluctant at first...but that didn't last.
Once we picked the theme, I was on the lookout for decorating ideas. After Christmas, I spotted some fancy ornaments and decorations on sale. I decided we needed them to jazz up the back porch where the party was going to be.

 I got some "jeweled" garlands and the beaded ornaments and strung them around the area. Also added some lights along the back wall.
I also wanted to get some kind of fountain to go into the pool.....to make it look more like we were the Gatsby's...hahah I ordered one for Christmas. John was really skeptical about this plan, hahah but that didn't stop me. When we first installed it the water came up about 6 inches. Brenna, John and I were laughing. We looked like the Beverley Hillbillies with that fountain...but we moved it around the pool and finally got the effect we were looking for.

We had a fire going and added rope lights around the perimeter. Not that many people spent a lot of time out on the pool deck...but it had a nice effect. We came up with a plan to move the furniture around on the porch to make room for people walking around and/or dancing. The couch got shifted to one end of the room and it left a nice open area. I put a black cloth on one of my little tables and Brenna added some of her "Art Deco' look decorations to finish it off.

We wanted to cover up all the art work and pictures on the end of the porch where we had moved the couch...so I came up with a plan to get  plastic tablecloths and hang them as a sort of "backdrop". One thing led to another and the next thing you know I was covering all the windowless walls. It took a few days to do it all...but I just took my time and pieced things together and worked on it each night the week or two before the party, until I liked the results. David had a few prints for us to use and a few odds and ends to decorate with. He loaned us this big picture that is "Picasso-like". we used that for our "salon".

                          We thought that it would make a good place to pose for pictures. :)
Brenna had her heart set on ordering some petit fours....so we found a place in town that could make them. Brenna gave the woman a design to copy...and they weren't exactly what we imagined...hahah but they looked fine...and tasted great. The little cake was sort of a "Cake Wreck"...but Brenna took it and redesigned it the night before the party. Hers looked a lot nicer! (she added the edible gold beads on the top)

Meanwhile everyone was getting their costumes together. I had gotten John a Gangster vest, hat and gun for Christmas....hahah. We found a gold tiered dress on sale that would work for Megan. Brenna looked and looked for several weeks before the party and was getting a little discouraged...but finally found a beautiful dress on the sale rack at our local Dillard's. She re-worked it a little and it looked great! Josh went for the "Gatsby on the yacht" style. Marcus found a vest, and we got a hat for him. I had my costume from the Halloween party we went to in 2013; and just added to that.
The wig I bought looked goofy on me...but Megan wore it well!

I got a tray and made it into a carrier for my candy cigarettes and and Clark's Teaberry gum
Not everyone came in costume...and I suspect several people did not come because they didn't want to bother with a costume...but I will say those who did.... had a blast!

Brenna made her feathered headband and fixed her hair 20's style and Amy had fun with her head dress and long cigarette holder and gloves.

It just so happened that Megan and Marcus had planned a trip to Hilton Head, SC during the time that we were having the party. Marcus agreed to drive down (about 5-6hrs) so they could celebrate with us. It was great to have them there.

Heather & Chris...that pencil-thin mustache was too much

Jeremy and Jenny, pictured above hadn't been to our house in awhile. They weren't exactly sure where they were going, but Jeremy figured he'd know our street when he got close. Turns out someone a couple of blocks over was also having a get-together....Jeremy didn't think it was our house. His wife saw the cars and said"that must be it, I'll go check" Jeremy stayed in the car (good choice...hahah). Jenny walked up to the door in her flapper costume, looked in the front window and saw what looked like some sort of prayer meeting going on...HAHAHAHAH she turned around and went back to the car. Jeremy was glad he didn't go with her; but that got a good laugh. Not sure what the prayer group thought. :)

Brenna and Josh(aka Gatsby) with her friend Meagan(friend from sorority days at USF) from Tampa. She and her boyfriend drove over for the night. We put the headband on him for this picture

Kim, Amy & Anne

Jenny and Tammy

John with the girls

Megan and Marcus...some people didn't realize this was Megan at first... looks a little different with the flapper wig

Don't shoot!

Uncle Paul and Uncle Mark stopped by to say Hello!

Kim definitely looks like a one of the gangster's molls...I love this photo

the whole gang...well most of us anyway

We all had a great time. We laughed, danced, ate, drank and took lots of pictures. I think the friends who didn't come wished they had after they saw these pictures.

we had fun. Lots of laughs, good food, we took plenty of pictures and we danced. We had some 20's style music and then we added some dance music. I think the best song of the night was a request from Kim....A Little Party Never Killed Nobody (All We Got)...by Fergie, Q-Tip & GoonRock; from the Great Gatsby Soundtrack. Everyone danced...and we had fun.

Brenna had the new go-pro and selfie stick going

The next day we were sitting around talking about the night...John said"What are we going to do next?"...wellllllll....he's got a big birthday coming up in December and I'm already working on it!
Back to the 60's for that one! :)