New Year's in Florida

Happy New Year, people!! I'm not making any New Year's resolutions for 2006..it's basically just me starting off the year by lying to myself..so I'm foregoing them like I always do. Jeff and I went to Jacksonville, FL to visit Kyle and Andrea and had a lot of fun. It seems like all we did was eat all weekend..but it was all exceptionally yummy food. We also went to St. Augustine and saw the Castillos de san Marcos Fort, took pictures on Vilano Beach and shopped on St. George St. We decided to wait until next time to go see the Fountain of Youth. We stopped on our way down in Savannah to eat at the Lady and Sons restaurant, but the line was over an hour long so we went to a little cafe instead. We rang in the new year by watching the fireworks over downtown Jacksonville from the top of their parking deck. It was really pretty but my camera didn't take very good pictures of it. On the way back from Florida, we stopped in Savannah again to go see the Mighty 8th Army Air Force Museum. That was very very cool.

They had lots of memorabilia and I got to get a picture of Grandpa's name on the memorial wall. It started pouring rain just before we were to go outside so we went out and got soaked just to find it. Jeff went out with me when he didn't have to and I thought that was so sweet. We stood there w/ water up to our ankles taking pictures of his name. His name is on there twice by accident under two different bomb groups, so we had to find the right one. 8th AAF, 447th Bomb group, 709th squadron. It's still so hard to believe they lived through all that. Grandpa told me about watching his friends falling through the air after their plane exploded. At our family reunion back in 03', I thought him and Shifty Powers would have a lot to talk about. Shifty (Uncle Daryl) is my great uncle by marriage. My grandmother's brother's wife's brother. It was very very cool getting to sit and talk to him about his life during WWII. If you don't already know..he was portrayed in the HBO movie Band of Brothers. Shifty was their sniper and was awesome at it. After talking to him for a bit, I realized why he was called Shifty. When you ask him a question..he talks in a circle and never really answers the question..he just shifts around it. He never played a very big part in the movie but he had a LOT of stories. The 8th AAF museum was my favorite part of the trip.

There was one mishap though. Ernie, Kyle and Andrea's cat, shredded some toilet paper after he snuck into the bathroom and I tried to dispose of it by flushing it after I used the bathroom...and it clogged the toilet. At 5am. And there was no plunger. It didn't overflow, but it came close. I fixed it in the morning after I got the plunger from their bathroom...I just can't believe I went through all that trouble to keep Ernie from getting in trouble.

Ernie is polydactyl, so his front feet look like mittens. He's soooo much fun! He runs around and plays a lot..kinda spastic. He's even made Tickle Me Elmo his bitch. He rolls around on the floor with him and kicks and bites him. It kinda looks like they're making out or necking. I got pictures..but not video. I laughed so hard watching Ernie beat up Elmo. Or maybe he was just loving on him....who knows. He alone made the trip worth it. Ok..enough for now..I have to get back to work. I'll write about reuniting w/ Kevin another time...and I'll post pictures of Ernie later.