Weekend Update....

It has been a crazy busy, but great weekend!! It started Friday night, with our Innoskate 2014 kick-off party. I worked until 10:00 p.m. (so did all the Museum staff, and many worked a lot harder than I did!). It made for a long day, though, since I arrived at work, at 7:00 a.m.  Friday night, we had over 570 people come into the Museum. Three times that many were outside, at any given time.  Joe came and we had dinner from one of the food trucks (see below).

Saturday morning, I was back at the Museum by 9:00 a.m. and worked until shortly after noon. The big Innoskate 2014 event took place on Saturday, starting at Lakeland's award-winning skateboard park, and ending at the Museum.  Here are some photos and a video about Innoskate 2014. We are so proud that we were chosen by the Smithsonian to participate in this year's event, and we are proud that the Smithsonian folks, who came down for the event, were very impressed with the awesome job we did to pull this all off. Our wonderful City of Lakeland worked with us, for police protection, and for trash clean up. The police and the Parks & Rec guys are great to work with.

 Joe, at the Palace Pizza food truck. We know the owner, and enjoyed checking in with him. The pizza slices were delicious!

Lauren was supposed to come on Friday afternoon, but she is still moving in, and found out Thursday that the last of her new furniture could be delivered on Friday, between 4:00 and 6:00. Of course, we told her to come Saturday morning, rather than drive in the dark. So she arrived early afternoon on Saturday. I was done with my shift at the Museum, so it worked out great.

We visited awhile, then went to Lakeside Village for dinner, at Fish City Grill, and some "spoiling".  Had a great dinner, then went to Versona for some baubles, and a quick run, through Bed Bath and Beyond, where we got her a house warming gift - a Kuerig coffee maker and a carousel to hold the k-cups. She was quite pleased, I think.  It was fun spoiling her a bit.

The 'spoiling' thing is a family joke, from when Lauren was about five years old.  We went to New Jersey, and were bringing her back to Florida with us, for a couple of weeks.  We all went over to Atlantic City, and were on the Board Walk. We went into a little beach store, and she was looking at the shell necklaces. I told her I would get one for her. She looked up at me with a smile and said..."Let the spoiling begin!". We have had fun with that ever since, and it transferred over to Tristan, too.

We got home and visited awhile, then got out a favorite board game. We all won one game, then went to bed around 11:30.

 Lauren got in the pool this afternoon, and got some sun, before we had lunch and she had head home.

Such a pretty young woman. I'm not prejudiced at all (wink).

Lauren has a cat, named Catherine. She spent some time today photographing our cats. She got some very nice poses of them!!

Our Lilly. Protects her borders - small but mighty.

 Our Lucy - the diva kitty.

 Our Vinny - the very lovable, but clumsy 'teenager'.

Our Onyx - the wise old man and peace keeper.

So, there you have our weekend. Whew! Lauren headed home at a little before 4:00. I have the last load of laundry in, and we will pick at whatever, for dinner, since we had burgers and hotdogs on the grill for a late lunch, before Lauren left.  I wish you a good week ahead!! Thanks for your time and comments!