As I thought

I thought that once Lily got wind that I had been behind the scenes at the Britto gallery she would be green with envy and I was right. She begged me to take her back down to Lincoln Road today so that she could see his new work that is on display. She said she didn't care if she didn't get "the tour" she just wanted to see his new style of painting.

I was fine with that. Lincoln Road is a lot of fun and the people watching there is bar none. Where else can you teach your kids about transgender, movie stars, pimped up geriatrics, body builders and young love all in one place?  We strolled around for a little while and then made our way to the gallery. Lily was in awe, as she always is. Anthony sadly wasn't working today and the crew that was in today lacked the sparkle that he had. As the girls were chatting about which pieces they have another man overheard them and came and chatted. I told them our story and he took them upstairs. It wasn't the grand tour that we received yesterday but they got to see the studio. They saw most of what I saw yesterday and Lily took in every single inch of it. She floated on air from piece to piece. They both loved the giant panda.

Once back downstairs they both purchased something with their own money. From there we left and headed to the art gallery next door which is a shared space of many starving artists using umpteen different medias and quite fun.

By this time it was  eleventy billion degrees so the girls needed some ice cream.

Hot and happy girlies

Kilwins, our favourite ice cream

speaks for itself

 Lily took this and I actually don't hate it. Wrinkly old prune.

An absolutely great day spent with my kiddies whom I missed a lot, a very very lot.

so were we

Just a quick hop skip and jump from our house on the outskirts of the Everglades National Park is this quasi famous produce stand on steroids called, Robert is Here. It has a lovely little history behind it and it is now not so little and has a petting farm, splash pad, collection of old farm equipment that one can peruse and a myriad of other oddball things. It sells wonderful milkshakes and amazing produce, which unfortunately isn't organic and is triple the price of the supermarket for just run of the mill stuff but it also sells stuff that you just don't see at Publix so it is worth the trip.

The girls and i were headed that way today and decided we would make a point of stopping by. Lily and I had milkshakes, Ro doesn't like them so she had some popcorn, Lily also had some of the most disgusting boiled peanuts I have ever seen/tasted in my life and she loved them. We visited the animals and they splashed about in the water for a little bit. We chatted with Robert and the girls managed to wangle a quick trip on his fancy schmancy golf cart, how do they do this stuff?  They also tasted some unusual fruits, some were a little too unusual and were met with wrinkled up noses. Have you ever tasted a Jack Fruit? Don't hurry.

It was a fun and rather reminiscent of an afternoon spent in England. The best part...all though the fruit market of a beehive of activity the rest of the property was relatively deserted.

Old fashioned water pump.

Universal sign for happy....kids, in clothes....+ water.

I think Rosie is splashing her

This photo shocked me. I became very aware of how grown up she looks.

any second now it should squirt

wet!

Passion flower

As we got back into the car to leave I realised we had parked in front of this field. How happy are these sunflowers?

So if you happen to be driving south on the Florida turnpike and reach the end, turn right at the light and just keep going. You'll be glad you did.

Why I need to join Weight Watchers

I don't weigh very much. I have gained 8 lbs since I stopped smoking almost a year ago but really when you add that to, not much, you still aren't going to hold down a couch in a breeze. Today the girls and I went to Fairchild Tropical Garden with a friend. We are so lucky to have such a fabulous garden on our own doorstep.

The garden always has some fabulous art work being displayed and this year is no exception. The artists being displayed now are Dale Chihuly, Yoko Ono, John Chamberlain and the one that is really prominent is Chapungu.

Rosie saw this statue........

Spirit man/woman by Chapungu

......Rosie walked up to it, Rosie walked around it and Rosie announced in a large Rosie voice, "this one looks just like mummy, except the hair".

 Lily and Becky laughed, a lot. I think I may have called Rosie a few million names, under my breath, so that only Becky could hear them. I actually laughed to a whole lot.

Tomorrow I am signing up for Jenny Craig, Weight watchers, lap band surgery, butt reduction and a personal trainer but lord knows I am keeping those big boobs.

More on our fabulous day at Fairchild tomorrow.This deserved a post of it's own. If you follow me on Facebook then you know already that I changed my profile pic to this big Chonga Mama.

First canoe trip

A few months ago I was talking to Lilys art teacher and he mentioned a kayaking tour that you can take in the Everglades National Park. Kayaks are something that we have wanted for a few years so we knew we had to check it out. Today the weather was perfect for such an adventure.

Whilst Jacob checked out all the options for kayak rental the girls and I took a wander.

Something about these palm trees made them perfect for lounging

I have never seen a sign before that warned about Vulture damage.
Something odd in a palm tree
Oh dear there is another one

Jacob decided that it would be more fun if we could all go together and the only way that was going to be possible was in a boat or a canoe. We choose a canoe.

There were very few rules, adults on either end, kids in the middle, kids must wear life jackets. That was it and as you will see we totally did what we were told, with the life jacket rule. The others, not so much.

The 3 of us

Rosie takes an oar
Lily takes over
Rosie and Lily are both in charge at this point
Daddy back in charge straightening us up.

Rosie up front
Lily up front. Changing places with these 2 in a canoe is hilarious. They aren't ever so graceful.
We saw some really beautiful things scattered throughout the mangroves.

We don't see many gulls around here but today we saw plenty

Majestic Blue Heron
This is where we were
Lily spotted this little fella, I'm not sure what it is.
A heart shaped leaf.

We saw a few of these.

This is a Florida Crocodile, not a Gator. This huge chap scared the living daylights out of Rosie. She was ready to get out of the canoe and get back on land. He was pretty large and gnarly!
Another Crocodile. These are quite rare, there are gators everywhere here but not so many crocs. Jacob was born here and this was the first time he ever saw one in the wild. (I see them a couple of times a week as one of my clients lives on the water and their neighbourhood is riddled with them.)

So fabulous to be this close to such a beautiful bird

She is sitting high above her nest
This is her nest.
The white birds, that you have to squint to see, are white pelicans. One of the park ranges had a fabulous telescope set up and he let us look through it at them. Really beuatiful

More gulls
crazy kid in a tree
There were signs everywhere that warned:

Do Not Feed Or Disturb The Wildlife.

Fine Up To $5,000
We explained to them when we first go there that the land and the water belonged to the birds and creatures and that we were only visiting so they must be respectful. They were. I think we scared alot of birds and gators and crocs and fish away whilst in the canoe with our raucous laughter but it was never intentional.

As we slowly meandered back to our car Lily spotted a flock of gulls. We told her she could try and creep up to them but was not to scare them away. Jacob tagged along. It didn't work!

We had such a fantastic day. Both girls fell asleep on the way home. We can't wait to go back again. We spotted a wild life rescue station on the way home so that is next on our list.

Thank you Mr. Terry for the fabulous suggestion. Share another gem with me please.

Pedal Power

Today we went for the most incredible bicycle ride we have ever been on. All fifteen miles of it and yes, we did take the girls. Lily rode her own bike the whole way and Rosie sat behind us in her little bike seat. We went to Shark Valley which is an Everglades National Park. Went many years ago with my Father and Jeanne and we took the tram tour around but this time we knew we wanted to see all the wild life up close and personal, and we did.

My bestie Jakie joined us with her daughter Lucy. They however wimped out on us 7 miles into the ride and a ranger had to come and pick them up and drive them back to the start. We carried on without them with plans to meet up at the start/end.

On your marks, get set and we were off

Not sure what's with the face. She was riding next to me and didn't expect me to ride and take photos.
Jakie

Mother and ChildSoft shelled turtle
one of our MANY water breaks

We saw so many herons, all right next to us Another gator. No shortage of them here.

This fella was part of the welcoming committee right next to the bike stands.

An old abandoned tram.

After riding for 7 miles these 2 were beaten up, so they sat for a while to recoup.

We were raring to get to the top of the observation tower.

On top of the world, I mean observation tower. This is where we said good bye to Jakie and Luci.

Love this shot.
The easy button!
Once we made it back to the car....all filthy and sweaty.


It was amazing, truy amazing and I have to say that Lily has just impressed the heck ourt of us. Never once did she ask to stop. She was the pace bike and sometimes it was hard going to keep up with her. Both girls loved it.

There was one tiny little snafu, which was me falling off my bike. (very embarrassing but no one saw it happen) After Jakie and Luci decided to get help going back Lily wanted to get going so Jacob and her took off and I stayed for a few minutes with Jakie. We had a rule that if one of us was taking Rosie then the other one had the back pack. Jacob took off and left me with both. After about 30 minutes the back pack was uncomfortable so instead of stopping and rearranging it I did it whilst riding. I slipped off the road and hit gravel and rocks and splat! I tried so hard to keep Rosie upright that I took out a good portion of skin from my knee. Rosie was fine. Surprised but fine. I didn't tell her I was hurt I just hopped back on and took off and tried to catch Jacob up as fast as I could. After seeing a snake in the middle of the road I rode even faster! Rosie thought it was amazing seeing the snake.

I am so glad that Sundays have gone back to being our family funday and not just another day. I can hardly wait to see what next weekend holds. Oh wait, I already know.

We had a picnic lunch before we started and took snacks with us on the ride but when we got back to the car Lily devoured everything in sight. I have never seen her eat that much before. I have never seen her ride 15 miles before either.