At the car wash

Anana watches as Love washes the car!

Massage

I go about once a month for a therapeutic massage with a good friend of mine, Shelly. Because of a combination of permanent neck damage and the repetitive motions in my jewelry making, I get very sore and beat up and need her magic hands. LOL

Anana came with me and met Shelly and even got a little time on the table himself!

We both felt much better afterwards!

Downtown St. Pete Art Show

Saturday April 20th and Sunday April 21st 2013 was the MainSail Art Festival in Downtown St. Petersburg. It's a really high-quality festival and very large right on the water. Anana came with us on Sunday for a few hours to check out the great art and enjoy the day out!

We arrived in Downtown St. Pete which is right on the water (most things are around here though!) with a large boat/yacht presence and headed to the park.

The park is right on the water and has a large area with some trees as well.

Here you can see the edge of the park is the water. Behind the people you can also see the St. Pete Pier.

A better shot of the Pier which juts out into the water.
(It doesn't look like far but to walk to it was a several mile trek all the way around then back out so we didn't head that way this time. We'll probably head back though again so he can see the view from the top.)

There are rows and rows of booths and it's set among the oak trees as you can see.

Metal school of fish!

This was a very comfy rocking chair.

...and no festival is complete without some Kettle Korn! ;)

Even though it wasn't very sunny out, it was a lovely day. And the clouds kept the temperature down a bit too. We managed to avoid buying any art this year mainly because we still have art from last year we haven't gotten framed or hung yet! LOL

Sharp Pointy Objects

Anana liked the photo of Clyde with a practice katana and and was excited to see the swords collection of his host.

Showing off our Katana and wakizashi swords

And, here are the rest! (Katana, wakizashi, dagger, broadsword, rapier, hand-and-a-half and a lady's dagger)

There was no running with the sharp, pointy objects and Anana was supervised by an adult at all times during the photos, but he definitely enjoyed all the lovely steel!

They're all hand forged and able to be used in stage combat (as opposed to the lightweight "display only" pieces you usually see in souvenir shops. These are handmade by either Starfire Swords or Baltimore Knife and Sword Company. Most belonged to our best friend who passed away a few years ago and we inherited them. In fact, there were quite a few more but we gave several of his other close friends a sword to remember him by. We also have a pike and a solid steel hammer not shown in this shot!

Art Store

Love wanted to check out the art store today. He takes a VERY long time browsing so we had to entertain ourselves with cell phone pics and various supplies. :)

At Home

Anana is helping me work on orders for my shop, www.PhoenixFireDesigns.etsy.com

Epcot's Flower and Garden Festival

Every year, for a few months in Spring, Epcot has their Flower and Garden Festival. The entire park is done up in tons of flowers, topiaries, plants and other gorgeous natural decoration. On Saturday, April 13th, we headed out for a few hours in the afternoon to get some pics.

It threatened to rain the entire day, making for some overcast shots, but it never quite did and the sun did come out intermittently. Epcot is made up of two areas; Future World with a focus on technology (and where most of the rides are) and World Showcase which is like a tour of countries around the world.

Spaceship Earth in the background and the Fountain of Nations.

You can see all the beds of flowers as well as the floating flowers in the water.

With a Viking in Norway

With a panda topiary in China

By the Koi pond in Japan

Trying on a pair of reed sandals in Japan.

Trying not to get eaten by the Peter Pan Crocodile topiary in United Kingdom

This "waterfall" actually falls up! Outside of Imagination.

Lotso topiary in the American Adventure

Outside of The Land; inside is a working greenhouse and fishery

On the boat ride through the greenhouse inside the Land.

Just a pretty shot of the monorail going by and more of the floating flowers.

We'll be back again for more visits during his stay but it was a fun first afternoon at Walt Disney World!!

Stormy Weather

Well, I was thinking about maybe running over to Busch Gardens Tampa for a few hours this afternoon with Anana. But then I got up and looked at the weather and today just isn't a good day for it.

Cloudy and thunderstorms. Hrm.

The sky from my parking lot. Looking ominous. And it's grumbling.

My lens fogged up walking outside which was the first sign this probably wasn't the day for outside photos. Add that to the thunderstorms and we're going to have to scrap the whole theme park idea for the day. Just goes to show, even here in the "Sunshine State" we do have rainy days too!

Oh well, plenty of time during his stay. I was just looking for an excuse to get out and take pictures! ;)

With the Kitties

Anana spent some time hanging out with the kitties today! The girls were a little curious but quickly got over it and went back to what they were doing. Typical cats. ;)

This is my brown tabby cat, Mika (pronounced "Mee-Kah") She's up on top of the kitty condo here.

And this is our little grey girl, Gracie. She loves to lay in "cat loaf" position.

I'm sure I'll find more ways of annoying including the cats in our photos but figured it might be nice to at least "meet" our two furry girls for now.

In the Car

Anana came with me to run a few errands today, getting a view of what it's like driving around locally to the store and such.

Getting ready to pull out from my apartment complex.

Waiting at a traffic light. This shows how very, very flat Florida is!!

Pulling in to the post office! (I had to drop off some orders.)

It's a hot day already here! We had the A/C blasting. It was about 86F today with a feels-like of 92F. Ugh. So not ready for the heat yet!! It's going to be a long summer. Good thing pineapples are tropical!

Poolside

Anana enjoyed some time poolside this afternoon in the large pool in my apartment complex.

Chilling by the pool!

Hanging out at one of the patio tables around the pool.

Taking in some Florida sunshine poolside.

Getting a closer look at the native fauna - in this case, a "pineapple palm."

Clearwater Beach

Saturday, April 6th, we had dinner at a restaurant on Clearwater Beach for my sister's birthday. It was right on the water so I had a chance to take some pics of Anana enjoying the view.

Enjoying some crab legs

View back towards the intercoastal and the mainland.

Watching the sunset

 We had a really fun time!