Really having a great visit with David and his family. They got here around 10pm Wed, and we've had so much fun since they got here. I already don't want them to leave - but at least I have more family coming very soon to keep me busy.
Thursday we took the kids to the beach for about 90 minutes. It's to cool here to swim (to cool for ME to swim at least), but they had fun playing in the sand. David, Rebecca, and Ace got a bit wet - was only planned to be to the ankle I think, but a few big waves swept higher than planned.
Friday - Pablo Historical Museum. The kids loved the train - I had a million "what if"s about the caretaker's house and the people that lived in it over the years. Must go back again someday and look more - it's only $2 to tour the house and see the train. Pictures are on Flickr.
Saturday - the zoo! I hadn't been in a few years. Jacksonville has put a lot of time and money into developing a great zoo over the last 5 years, and it's really looking great. My only complaint - it is not friendly to the directionally challenged (me). No nice paw prints saying "go this way to see the exhibits", just lots of loops that are wonderfully landscaped but poorly marked. And a map that doesn't seem to match the current layout of the animals.
Today (Sunday) we had talked about heading down to St. Augustine for the day and seeing the fort - also known as Castillo de San Marcos. It's a national monument, and one of my absolute favorite places to be a tourist in my own backyard. And another place I haven't been in a few years. Unfortunately the weather didn't play nice. It started raining last night, and it's done so off and on all day. So we audible'd, and headed downtown to see The Wiggles. It was a surprisingly entertaining afternoon. Greg, main wiggle number 1, had to leave after their show in NY 2 weeks ago for double hernia surgery. He's being filled in for by Brett Clarke, who is normally the lead Wiggley Dancer - and he did a great job. One thing that hit me watching this was how old the wiggles are. Jeff is 52! As Australia's top earning entertainers ($45 million in 2004), they're not doing to bad for themselves. Again, there are some pics on Flickr, although they ended up a bit blurry.
I had one of those odd "huh" moments during the show. They performed a song where they brought out flags from various nations, and asked the audience to cheer loudly when they saw their favorite flag. The intent was to get a loud cheer when the audience saw the US flag, and it kinda worked for them. I was already feeling like they were trying to play us a bit - they are an Aussie group, so don't pull out the nationalism card thankie. Then it hit me - I didn't even feel like cheering when I saw our flag. I am not proud to be an American. I don't like the us vs them mentality, and never have - and it is downright embarrassing in light of how most of the world looks at our country today to try to hold my head high and cheer when that flag is waved in front of me.
I really don't want to get off on a rant here when I've got much better things to do, so I'm going to leave it at that. I guess I'll be thinking more about it, especially with such a big American holiday coming up this week. While there will be many things I will be thankful for, our position in the world today will not be one of them.
It's a good thing I have such a wonderful family to be thankful for instead!
Thursday we took the kids to the beach for about 90 minutes. It's to cool here to swim (to cool for ME to swim at least), but they had fun playing in the sand. David, Rebecca, and Ace got a bit wet - was only planned to be to the ankle I think, but a few big waves swept higher than planned.
Friday - Pablo Historical Museum. The kids loved the train - I had a million "what if"s about the caretaker's house and the people that lived in it over the years. Must go back again someday and look more - it's only $2 to tour the house and see the train. Pictures are on Flickr.
Saturday - the zoo! I hadn't been in a few years. Jacksonville has put a lot of time and money into developing a great zoo over the last 5 years, and it's really looking great. My only complaint - it is not friendly to the directionally challenged (me). No nice paw prints saying "go this way to see the exhibits", just lots of loops that are wonderfully landscaped but poorly marked. And a map that doesn't seem to match the current layout of the animals.
Today (Sunday) we had talked about heading down to St. Augustine for the day and seeing the fort - also known as Castillo de San Marcos. It's a national monument, and one of my absolute favorite places to be a tourist in my own backyard. And another place I haven't been in a few years. Unfortunately the weather didn't play nice. It started raining last night, and it's done so off and on all day. So we audible'd, and headed downtown to see The Wiggles. It was a surprisingly entertaining afternoon. Greg, main wiggle number 1, had to leave after their show in NY 2 weeks ago for double hernia surgery. He's being filled in for by Brett Clarke, who is normally the lead Wiggley Dancer - and he did a great job. One thing that hit me watching this was how old the wiggles are. Jeff is 52! As Australia's top earning entertainers ($45 million in 2004), they're not doing to bad for themselves. Again, there are some pics on Flickr, although they ended up a bit blurry.
I had one of those odd "huh" moments during the show. They performed a song where they brought out flags from various nations, and asked the audience to cheer loudly when they saw their favorite flag. The intent was to get a loud cheer when the audience saw the US flag, and it kinda worked for them. I was already feeling like they were trying to play us a bit - they are an Aussie group, so don't pull out the nationalism card thankie. Then it hit me - I didn't even feel like cheering when I saw our flag. I am not proud to be an American. I don't like the us vs them mentality, and never have - and it is downright embarrassing in light of how most of the world looks at our country today to try to hold my head high and cheer when that flag is waved in front of me.
I really don't want to get off on a rant here when I've got much better things to do, so I'm going to leave it at that. I guess I'll be thinking more about it, especially with such a big American holiday coming up this week. While there will be many things I will be thankful for, our position in the world today will not be one of them.
It's a good thing I have such a wonderful family to be thankful for instead!
Posted by K.A.S. at 5:22 PM::
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