Tampa Take 2

I thought I would divide up the post a bit. So, read the second one first, ok?!!


This is me on Indian Rocks Beach just taking it all in!!!!!Here's Reuben taking it all in and then using this wash station to wash off his sandy feet.


Here's us in our Mustang Convertible!!!

Here's some pictures of downtown Tampa ... the sun came out in the morning and it was just gorgeous!


And if anyone asks us if it was worth it to go down for under 24 hours, we would both emphatically say "YES"!!! It was just so nice to get away from the cold winter air!! Stay tuned for our next crazy adventure!:)

Tampa

Well, it definitely is a wonderful life. Reuben and I decided at the last minute to go to Tampa this weekend. We just wanted to be warm and do something crazy! So, we hopped on the flight Saturday morning. It turned out that we flew with my friend, Kimberley, from work, Reuben and Jodi and Chris and Charlene Van Popta. They were heading out to Vancouver for Grandma VanPopta's funeral. Kimberley was going to Toronto to visit her family. Our flight was through Toronto, which was ok except we had a delay in Ottawa and we had to go through Customs in Toronto. We had to run to catch our flight only to sit on the tarmac for an hour and a half to be deiced. This was definitely frustrating but we were relaxed because we didn't have a huge agenda when we got to Tampa, we just wanted to be on the beach!


After this delay, our flight was uneventful and when we landed in Tampa and saw the snow-free, sunny runway we were so glad we had done this. As we exited the plane, we caught a breeze coming in through the cracks in the gate and were even more excited, a fresh, warm breeze! sigh! So wonderful!!!!

So after getting our luggage, we went to get our rental car and lo and behold they had a Mustang convertible available so we snatched it.




Then we drove to the beach, put our toes in the sand and even into the ocean(it was cold!!). It was cloudy and windy but still a lot warmer than Ottawa and we just basked in everything.

I made a QUILT

Here's a picture of the quilt I made for Hadassah.
I'll admit that Karin helped me quite a bit but I did all the cross-stitching and most of the sewing of the pieces together. YAY!! I hope she likes it.
We'll be going down for her baptism this weekend. Shhh!!! It's a surprise (the quilt)!:)

Tim's Christmas Poem

Check out Tim's Christmas Poem. It's simply amazing! Touching, really.

Hadassah Rein

My new neice was born! Check it out at http://diaryofanaunt.blogspot.com.

Our Holidays

Well, it's the New Year and time for a recap of our holidays. As my husband has done this with pictures, I shall do it with words.

Finally, a week off together since we've been married and did we ever enjoy it. On Friday, Dec 22 we stayed home and had a scrumptious dinner of ham and perogies along with a bottle of homemade white wine given to us by one of Reuben's colleagues. Then
we opened our gifts to each other.

Reuben bought me the most beautiful jewelry box from the Bombay company and along with it a necklace, which he'd found, which I'd lost on our honeymoon. I got him tickets to an Ottawa 67s game and a gift certificate for dinner beforehand.

The next morning, we had a scrumptious breakfast of waffles and then headed out around 12:30pm for Waterdown. The drive was uneventful and a lot more pleasant than when we drive at night. That evening we spent catching up with the Helder family with good food and a fun game called Hoopla, a variation of Cranium.

On Sunday, we did the church thing and for dinner we had a steak fondue with lots of different sauces, yum, yum. Then we exchanged gifts. We also had to write poems. Lawren had Reuben's name so he adapted a Spirit of the West tune and sang it to him. Reuben's mom had my name and she also got me a jewelry box!! I really like it to so I decided to keep it but also thought I could share it with Reuben as it's not too girly! We also got chocolate letters and other small things.

On Christmas day we went to church in the morning and then relaxed the rest of the day. We had Oma Helder over and had a feast of turkey and all the fixings!!

On Boxing Day, we got up and drove straight to Arthur to hang out with the Buist clan. My parents with Rich and Emma had driven up the night before and Karin and Josh arrived about the time we did from their shindig in Port Stanley (Josh's hometown). We had hors d'oeuvres for lunch and then dove right into the gifts. We always have lots of laughs at this time. This year, my dad decided to count how many gifts there were. Suprisingly, there were 101! Craziness. Well, our family has now grown to 11 people so it's not a surprise. The big surprise was that my Mom bought my Dad, a James the Butler. We have been eyeing this statue for so long that it has become a long running family joke. Come on over to my parents' place and you can see him in his rightful place serving my Father. I couldn't find a picture online.

For dinner we had lasagne and then just hung out the rest of the evening, talking and walking and playing Sequence. We drove back to the Helders that night.

On Thursday, we drove home during the day and except for the traffic in Toronto it was also uneventful.

For New Year's Eve we went to the Wildeboers and had a nice time with the church congregation ringing in the New Year.