Yes, it rains in Florida. This week the common late afternoon rains returned with regularity. I knew it was time to close my computer and head for home when I heard the distant rumbling of the arriving storm cells. Another week, another class prepared. One more to go, and then school starts for me. (!) Marcela has been busy putting together a class on book binding to teach this January, if it is accepted. The kids have been busy being kids. Maxim has organized each of her different collections of dolls and accessories in their various places around her room.
She will sit sometimes for more than an hour taking off and putting on doll clothes, building houses out of the modular doll house, and fixing hair. Noah is still on his Spiderman kick. He had his mother take out a spiderman comic novel when they got their library cards on Tuesday night. I have been trying to read parts of it to them, but it is really for adults. Lots of violence. On Thursday morning we drove in to Tampa and picked up los Abuelos at Tampa Internation airport. They will be here through September 20. They are sleeping in our room and we are on the air mattress in the kids' room. It is much roomier than when the family visited us in Hull, but an air mattress is an air mattress. We keep asking ourselves when our adventure is going to end.
On Friday night we all went to the Tavern, the gathering place for Eckerd faculty and their kids. Faculty have a beer or soda, the kids ride their scooters around the huge adjacent parking lot. From there, we set out on what proved to be a futile adventure trying to find some place to eat in downtown St. Petersburg, a town seemingly designed to be navigated from a Hummer. One of my colleagues, who admitted that she was bad at directions, gave me directions to get to a kid-friendly place. After an hour and fifteen minutes of parking and walking and parking again and walking, we headed for home, defeated. Not only was the named restaurant nowhere to be found, but there were simply no other adequate venues.
We met with much more success on Saturday. In the morning, Paco and Natcha went with the kids to their gymnastics class. We ate a pasta lunch and then everyone napped for almost three hours. We dressed and headed out to St. pete Beach, the ocean, to have dinner and take in the sunset. We returned to a place we have been to twice, but will not go to again. Nevertheless, the food was fine. Better still, the ocean was serenity. The sunset, divine. I am posting pictures at Flickr.
As you can see from his posture, Bones is happy that there are two more cat lovers in the house and is especially glad that he no longer has to move around in a cat cage every few days. He decided to shed almost an entire second cat's worth of hair since arriving in Florida, but he is generally content and eating well and even enjoying the outside a little bit.
The rain this morning kept people from the weekly jaunt to Passe-a-Grille beach, but we are already prepared. We got our own beach umbrella and goggles for the kids. The first hurricane of the season, Ernesto, has gathered south of the Dominican Republic. They say its headed this way, generally speaking at this point. We hope it either misses us completely or passes us by peacefully. For now, we'll enojy the cooling effects of the late summer rains.
Yes, it rains in Florida. This week the common late afternoon rains returned with regularity. I knew it was time to close my computer and head for home when I heard the distant rumbling of the arriving storm cells. Another week, another class prepared. One more to go, and then school starts for me. (!) Marcela has been busy putting together a class on book binding to teach this January, if it is accepted. The kids have been busy being kids. Maxim has organized each of her different collections of dolls and accessories in their various places around her room. 
She will sit sometimes for more than an hour taking off and putting on doll clothes, building houses out of the modular doll house, and fixing hair. Noah is still on his Spiderman kick. He had his mother take out a spiderman comic novel when they got their library cards on Tuesday night. I have been trying to read parts of it to them, but it is really for adults. Lots of violence. On Thursday morning we drove in to Tampa and picked up los Abuelos at Tampa Internation airport. They will be here through September 20. They are sleeping in our room and we are on the air mattress in the kids' room. It is much roomier than when the family visited us in Hull, but an air mattress is an air mattress. We keep asking ourselves when our adventure is going to end.
On Friday night we all went to the Tavern, the gathering place for Eckerd faculty and their kids. Faculty have a beer or soda, the kids ride their scooters around the huge adjacent parking lot. From there, we set out on what proved to be a futile adventure trying to find some place to eat in downtown St. Petersburg, a town seemingly designed to be navigated from a Hummer. One of my colleagues, who admitted that she was bad at directions, gave me directions to get to a kid-friendly place. After an hour and fifteen minutes of parking and walking and parking again and walking, we headed for home, defeated. Not only was the named restaurant nowhere to be found, but there were simply no other adequate venues.
We met with much more success on Saturday. In the morning, Paco and Natcha went with the kids to their gymnastics class. We ate a pasta lunch and then everyone napped for almost three hours. We dressed and headed out to St. pete Beach, the ocean, to have dinner and take in the sunset. We returned to a place we have been to twice, but will not go to again. Nevertheless, the food was fine. Better still, the ocean was serenity. The sunset, divine. I am posting pictures at Flickr.
As you can see from his posture, Bones is happy that there are two more cat lovers in the house and is especially glad that he no longer has to move around in a cat cage every few days. He decided to shed almost an entire second cat's worth of hair since arriving in Florida, but he is generally content and eating well and even enjoying the outside a little bit. 
The rain this morning kept people from the weekly jaunt to Passe-a-Grille beach, but we are already prepared. We got our own beach umbrella and goggles for the kids. The first hurricane of the season, Ernesto, has gathered south of the Dominican Republic. They say its headed this way, generally speaking at this point. We hope it either misses us completely or passes us by peacefully. For now, we'll enojy the cooling effects of the late summer rains.
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